Showing unfinished work to your manager: how can you preserve exploration?

An employee may benefit from showing a tentative proposal without wanting to submit it for immediate approval. The management question is specific: how can you examine this work with your manager without turning the search for solutions into a test of conformity too soon?

What the literature establishes

Teresa Amabile (1979, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) experimentally examined the effect of expected external evaluation on the creativity of artistic work. Under the conditions studied, expecting an evaluation can reduce the creativity of the work, as assessed by independent judges. This finding invites scrutiny of the framework announced before sharing a draft, without establishing that managerial attention is necessarily harmful.

The mechanism: seeking a solution or anticipating a judgement

Teresa Amabile (1983, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) proposes a model distinguishing domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant processes and task motivation. This theoretical contribution helps explain why having the necessary expertise is not enough to guarantee creative exploration. In a discussion with a manager, focusing on what will receive a favourable assessment may conflict with examining uncertain possibilities; this application remains a hypothesis, not a finding directly tested in this relationship.

The premature conclusion

One might conclude that unfinished work should be kept away from the manager. That would confuse anticipated evaluation with every form of contribution: a manager can also provide a useful constraint, a resource or missing information. The relevant distinction therefore concerns the purpose of the discussion — exploration, selection or approval — rather than the manager’s presence. (our executive and employee training programmes)

What the evidence cannot promise

An experiment involving artistic work cannot directly predict how a federal department, a public health organisation or a business will operate. Nor does the theoretical model demonstrate that saying “this is a draft” will be enough to neutralise the hierarchical stakes. If an exploratory presentation is subsequently used to judge an employee’s competence, the label given to the session offers little protection for exploration.

A practical check in Berne

Within SHR’s “Building an effective relationship with your manager” programme, an exercise applicable in Berne is to state in writing, before presenting a draft, whether the discussion is intended for exploration, selection or approval, along with any non-negotiable constraints. In the federal administration, public health, telecommunications or precision industry, this distinction never removes the need for regulatory, safety or quality checks. During a four-week trial, record each discussion’s announced purpose and outcome, then calculate the proportion of exploratory sessions that led to an unplanned request for approval. This indicator measures adherence to the agreed framework, not creativity; it provides a basis for discussing with your manager when exploration turns into evaluation without explicit agreement. To go further: explore the Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager training in Bern in the canton of Bern, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.

In pictures: Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager in Bern

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