Ask for no, don’t ask for yes
Link | # | #LPT, #mental-model, #psychology, #productivity
I think it is important to have a bias for action.
...
One habit I like is to ask for no, not yes.
When you have something you want to do and that you feel is in scope for your position, but you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to, it’s common to reach out and ask them for permission. Don’t. Don’t ask for a yes. Instead, offer a chance to say no, but with a deadline.
Suppose I want to set up a new GitHub action that I feel will really improve the quality of our software. [...] I could say “hey, boss, can we install action X? It’ll help with the XYZ problems we’ve been having.” [...] Now, let’s take the alternative approach.”Hey, boss, I am going to install action X, which should solve the XYZ problems we’ve been having. Will take care of this on Monday unless I hear differently from you.” [...] You are saying (without being explicit) that you “got it” and are going to handle this issue.
The general idea is great and practical - however I am supicisous of the implementation details suggested. unless I hear from you to your boss (with a deadline no less) does not seem advicable to most people.
- maybe it's culture thing - perhaps this behaviour would be more tolerant in the US (HN discussion)
- there's always a level of uncertanity here about the likelyhood of the implementation solving the problem. Indicating "got it" doesn't seem right to me. But maybe you could argue that if there's enough belief - say 90% then it's okay to speak it out quite affermatively. In any case - you're only indicating you "got it"
- there's a compromise to here - let the boss know the time by which you'll have the solution but do not mention excplicity "say no or else...", that the language the boss takes
- I would love to see a survey among bosses as to the level to which they agress with this and the correlation with 'success' and work satisfaction. And the frosting will be if the employees are also surved to get numbers on how many bosses say they're okay with this and how many actually are. It'd be cool to see the distribution accross location, industry, size of company
The compramise could be "Hey, boss, I am going to install action X on Monday, which should solve the XYZ problems we’ve been having. Let me know if you think otherwise."
And if there's still an issue, something needs to change.