TBM 343: "We Kind of Suck at That Right Now"

"Wow, we kind of suck at that right now," I said.

To me, that didn't seem controversial. I believed in the team. I was sure we could improve if we needed to. I felt the team was competent and highly capable. I was hopeful and confident that with small changes and a spirit of continuous improvement, we could become an order of magnitude better if we set aside some time to focus. I knew the company hadn't prioritized being good at the thing until now.

A coworker pulled me to the side the next day.

"You know, John, I'm not sure people heard your comment yesterday the way you think they did. I think some people were offended. They thought you were saying that they suck. I've worked with you long enough to know you didn't mean that. But to those people, you probably sounded like an ass."

It took a second for the feedback to sink in. I was mortified. The last thing I wanted was for someone to think I was talking about them personally. That wasn't my intent at all.

They continued. "And you said it in front of their boss. You may not know them all that well, but they have a track record of coming down hard on people. People respect your judgment, so what you say might be damaging."

I spent that evening mulling over every moment of the situation and started writing a message to the person to apologize. I was heartbroken that the result of my actions was so out of alignment with what I cared about. And then, I arrived at a key insight. I'm sharing it here in case it helps other people who self-identify as helpers, change agents, advocates, etc.

If you've been a long-time reader of this newsletter, you've probably guessed by now that I'm biased toward seeing individual competency in the context of a broader "system." You might share this bias if you've put up with my rambling for any amount of time. A friend once described it as a form of "almost naive optimism and hopefulness."

"You believe things can improve with the existing team. You always have a million ideas for experiments we could try to make things better without pointing fingers. Like when a leader says, 'We need people who have done it before,' you're always triggered because you're confident the team could figure it out."

That's my bias. I'm a skeptoptimist.

However, a non-trivial percentage of people are biased in the other direction. They identify gaps primarily in the context of individual competency. When something is broken, it is someone's fault. If the company is bad at something, it's because someone is bad at something. Change is hard. Improvement is hard.

If you self-identify as a helper, advocate, change agent, continuous improvement fan, coach, etc., you run a very real risk of letting your belief system and view of things get in the way. To you, talking about something that is broken is not a big deal—it's an opportunity. However, to other people, it is easily perceived as a threat. It's very easy to slip into being typecast and bucketed in ways that do not align with your intent.

"John has an opinion on everything."

"John thinks things suck around here."

So the insight is that if you really want to be a helper—if you truly want things to improve—you have to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be. You also need to respect your environment and avoid putting people at risk, like I did with that person and their boss.

• Always talk in terms of collective opportunities.

• Be especially careful to avoid any insinuation of individual blame.

• Let go of being right. Let go of having the answers.

• Let go of your self-identity surrounding helping in a certain way.

• Wait for an invitation.

• Talk less.

• You don't need to share everything you know.

• What seems easy to you may not be easy for other people.

• When you mix pessimism with optimism, people probably hear pessimism.

• Let it be someone else's idea.

• Don't expect things to happen on your terms.