“Whatever you say, boss.”
Okay, they don’t have to be those exact words, but you know that, as a manager, you have problems as soon as you start to hear anything like that.
Which of your conversations are crucial?
I read a great book not long ago on the topic of crucial conversations. One of the big things that stuck with me was the idea of Fight or Flight.
When we have personal conflicts that we are not willing to discuss or deal with, the most frequent responses are Fight and Flight. In Fight, we try to justify, tell the other person why they’re wrong, and otherwise make a disagreement worse by being aggressive, uncooperative, or attacking. In Flight, we don’t deal with the problem. Instead, we ignore it or just give in.
If you can’t think of a time when you’ve experienced Flight, just recall anytime that you didn’t agree with someone’s choice, and when things went badly, you said, “Hey, I didn’t make that decision.” If you just let the person make the decision without talking with them about your thoughts. You were in Flight mode. If you tried to talk to them, but ended up arguing instead of really communicating, you were in Fight mode.
Building a cohesive team
For years, you’ve been told about the importance of building a strong team with a unique culture and people that share a vision. The thing that baffles me is the headstrong managers that think this means just getting everyone to go along with their vision. It’s like some of us tell ourselves, “If everyone says yes, I’ve done my job.”
In most cases, no. No, you haven’t.
Getting people to agree with you has little to do with them saying yes and a lot to do with them feeling yes. Think about it. How many times have you disagreed with someone and eventually said, “Alright, whatever you want. Do it your way”? That is flight, and that kills teams.
Your people are not unthinking objects.
I read once that people with autism have a difficult time viewing others as more than objects in their environment – no different from a pen or a door. If the other person does not explicitly say what they are thinking or what they want, the man (or woman) with autism can’t interpret what is left unsaid, and stay with me here, this is where managers go wrong. The worst managers in this respect are high energy and high passion. They do a bad job reading their people because they are so busy and so fast moving that they don’t take the time to notice what their employees are really saying when they say, “Whatever you say, boss.”
So, while high energy and passion work well on the individual level, they can often be team killers.
Often, consensus is not necessary, but when you say you value it and that it’s important to your team moving forward, don’t be stupid and just stop at yes. You have to know that your team actually believes in the direction you move them. Otherwise, you end up with a lot of yesses and little, to no, actual support. Going down that path leads you to a team of disheartened, unthinking, uncaring employees lead by a clueless leader with a false sense of Team.
The answer
Every time you communicate with your people from today onward get to a shared yes, and don’t force agreement. Teams don’t succeed as a result of one person, but they do fail as a result of one person – You, the boss. So, if you can’t get to a shared yes when it’s necessary, step back and begin a conversation. Don’t force your views. Don’t justify. Don’t argue, and don’t deal with any of that from your people.
Require and expect genuine, thoughtful conversation, and accept that while you won’t always get it, you are also not always right – whether your people say, “Whatever you say, boss,” or not.
