September 30, 2008
The Last Thing I’m Worried About Offending Is Your Delicate Sensibility
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
Lisa Junker wrote a great response to a Seth Godin post on asking questions (or, really, “challenging assumptions”). It’s a good example of the value of blog commenting because I wrote a response, but then Lindy Dreyer wrote a great response, including this:
“A lot of times, game-changing questions get asked by people who are least in the position to change the game. How a manager responds when the question is asked is very important. Is it a valid question that can be revisited at a more appropriate time, or is it a question that will never have the answer your staff person wants to hear? Can you answer your staff’s concerns without shutting down their creativity and problem solving skills?”
To which I thought: Good point. But then Lisa responded to Lindy’s comment, with what I thought was an even better point:
“Sometimes you do have to say no to an idea, and it’s the idea-generating person’s job to take a breath and not let the word ‘no’ stop them from suggesting their next idea or asking their next question.”
Here’s the thing: it’s the nature of what we do (perhaps, indeed, the nature of life in general) that every day most of us are going to have a few ideas. Frankly, it’s the nature of ideas that most of them are bad. This doesn’t mean that one should stop having ideas or that one should stop sharing them. In fact, the most successful people are those who never take personally a statement like, “No, that probably wouldn’t work.”
And yet — over the years, I’ve known more than a few people whose biggest complaints about their jobs were, “Nobody ever listens to me.” In a few of those cases, those people worked for jerks (by which I mean, bona fide jerks, not just people they disagreed with). But in most cases, they were people who had offered an idea or two that for whatever reason weren’t feasible, and then promptly decided they would be better off to just think ideas instead and complain at happy hour about how no one can read their minds.
In a post I wrote last spring about growing your association career, I wrote, “Opening your mouth for its own sake and stating the obvious is not a way to endear yourself to leadership. At the same time, opening your mouth with ideas for other people to implement is even worse. It’s not enough to throw out ideas — throw out the plans. ‘I think we should do X it would offer Y benefits in fact, here’s a plan, and it won’t really cost us any money [key point there] and I can take charge of this RIGHT NOW.’ Then do it.”
If you are, as Lindy wrote, “least in the position to change the game,” that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be coming up with great ideas (and “good questions”) on a regular basis. You should. Remember: 9 times out of 10, your manager wants you to succeed, because your success is her success.
But that doesn’t change the fact that ultimately, only you are responsible for your own career.
If you stop asking questions or offering ideas just because your manager doesn’t have time to devote two hours to dissect your every gem of insight, then you will be hurt more in the long run than either your manager or your organization. Keep asking questions, keep offering ideas — but (and here’s the thing) get better at it, every day, by learning more about your position, your organization, life in general — and yes, by learning more about your manager and how he or she wants ideas to be presented.
This is how life works. You can complain about how nobody takes you seriously, or you can get taken seriously. It’s your choice.
Yes! Get better at asking questions and offering ideas and always learn and grow.
On the other hand, I feel strongly that a manager has a responsibility to create an environment where ideas are valued, even when the person behind them is an inexperienced communicator. So I guess, I’d give managers similar advice to what you’re giving junior staff–get better at stimulating questions and accepting ideas and always learn and grow.
Lindy, you are absolutely correct, and it is very good advice. We have a responsibility to foster discussion and take time out from the weekly to-do lists to listen, engage, discuss, and learn.
But I cannot overemphasize enough the point that you cannot expect anyone else to care as much about your career as you do. Your success is completely dependent on the choices you make. Yes, a mentor and a champion is an excellent thing to have, but it is up to you to find one and nurture and maintain the relationship.
I continually come back to this point because I have seen otherwise-talented individuals who don’t go nearly as far as they could because they seem to expect growth to come to them by default, and are surprised and somewhat resentful when it doesn’t. They start off strong, but are unwilling to make the effort and connections needed to sustain any trajectory. They look at certain people in higher authority positions and think, “Pfft, I’m smarter than she is.” Their thought may very well be right, but it is also irrelevant.
This post may as well be my horoscope today because I was JUST talking about this same thing this morning (ok, bitching about it).
I think it’s better to go by the “act now, apologize later” rule of thumb than to throw an idea out there and wait until someone tells you how great it is and encourages you to proceed. There’s a difference between being a people-pleaser hungry for praise and being a person who’s looking to advance his/her career.
If you’re just in it for praise, you offer ideas but do nothing unless someone tells you how smart and great you are. If you want to advance your career, act first then present results instead of ideas. Worst case they still don’t lavish you with praise and promote you (or you get fired), but at least you got to see for yourself whether or not your idea was actually good or not. If it was genuinely good and you’re still ignored, that’s probably a good indication you should start looking for a job at a place that will value your insights and reward you for them.
Just as it’s true in relationships, it’s true in the workplace: you can’t change people. If you’re an idea person working for non-receptive managers, you can have a million great ideas and get nowhere–or you can take your ideas and go somewhere that values creativity and initiative.