Cock up or conspiracy?
It’s probably a natural reaction whenever something negative happens to assume the worst motives behind it. In corporate life this usually means assuming that someone has purposely done something despite us or because they didn’t care about how it would impact us. My philosophy on this is that if I don’t know someone has ill-intentions, I will assume they don’t. In areas that I don’t control, the most likely explanation for a negative outcome that impacts me is that a mistake has been made, rather than someone has done something intentionally. In other words, if in doubt, I assume there has been cock up rather than a conspiracy.
Why does this matter? Organizations, despite the well-meaning intentions of anyone in a leadership role, can act like impersonal machines. This is not always the case and I recently finished reading Reinventing Organizations by Frederick Laloux which focused on companies that had moved away from traditional management structures towards self-empowerment and decentralized leadership. Yet most organizations, when they are large enough, rely on layers of leadership, divisions that break the company into manageable business units and policies and procedures that govern most internal interactions. New investment decisions are usually commercially sensitive. They are planned and brought to fruition by a small group of hand-selected employees who will need to consider as many potential impacts as they can without actively discussing the project with those outside the group. In this scenario it is little wonder that decisions will be made that will have some negative consequences. Ultimately every decision is trade-off or a compromise. If they don’t involve trade-offs or compromises, they aren’t decisions and should just happen.
The real point of this post is to labor the point that business decisions are very rarely personal, particularly below senior leadership. Regrettably this probably becomes less true at the top of large organizations. Over the weekend the NY Times ran a fascinating story of the aborted handover of leadership at Disney between Bob Eiger and Bob Chapek. Whilst reading this article it brought back memories of the disastrous 2nd half of Michael Eisner’s leadership of Disney before forced to relinquish control to Bob Eiger, all documented in the brilliant book Disney War by James B Stewart. But as most of us don’t inhale the rarified air of multi-million dollar remuneration packages, with speed-dial access to policy-makers and use of corporate private jets, I think my point still stands.
How can we use this to our benefit? I have observed many people over the years waste a significant amount of emotional energy trying to determine what they could have done wrong to deserve a particular decision being made that negatively impacts them. When it becomes personal, we often lose perspective and the ability to react in a way that reflects our best interests. It breaks down trust and can also poison relationships with others. Rather than personalizing a decision, my suggestion is to try to understand the decision and the bigger picture. Why would the leadership make the decision, what outcomes are they hoping to achieve and what are the benefits? If after doing this you still think a mistake has been made that will have a negative impact on the broader company or negatively impacts your role to the point that can’t do your best work, then you need to raise it. It’s important to raise it as objectively as you can, rooted in facts and stripped of any personal anguish it may be causing you. If the decision was wrong the chances are that it was due to a cock-up and not a conspiracy against you. If the decision was right, then it was a trade-off that needed to be made and still not a conspiracy against you personally. Either way, by avoiding thinking the worse, you can free yourself from emotional responses that are a waste of energy and will likely to have a bigger impact on your work and how you are perceived by others than the original decision that was made.
Next week’s post is on delegation of authority.