Flashcard : Accepting Influence
Don't be a Bad Boss
Once I worked for an Executive Creative Director who was always late. He had an assistant who was good at her job, but he was so chronically late that it wasn’t possible to reschedule all his meetings because of the continual cascade of lateness.
As an ECD, he had meetings most of the day to review creative work. The work couldn’t move forward without him. Many days, the creative teams would be lined up outside his office, sitting cross legged on the floor in pairs, talking or doodling in their notepads. They had the same resigned mien you find in the lobbies of DMVs across the country. Thousands of dollars of billable time squandered in that hallway, day after day, just because a senior leader couldn’t manage his time, or let his assistant manage his time for him. The president of the company was also often late, but his EA was better able to wrangle him. She also brought him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off. I kid you not. Not for lunch, but as a snack, while he was meeting with other people. But there were no sandwiches for us though.
A recent Business Insider article said that Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, was 18 minutes late to an all-hands meeting, where he was expected to talk about the recent layoffs. When another leader apologized for the delay to however many tens of thousands of people were sitting on that video call waiting for their CEO, Benioff apparently turned and asked, “Are we delayed?”
I know there are many reasons to critique Benioff. But that 18 minutes where his entire company was kept waiting for him? The depth of cluelessness in that question he asked after an executive apologized to the company for having to wait for the CEO – “are we delayed?” – stuck out to me.
Some leaders cannot accept influence, even from the people whose job is to keep them reasonably on time.
Accepting influence is another concept from the Gottmans. Drs Julie and John Gottman study marriage and relationships. Their research has shown that men who accept influence from their wives and share decision making have happier longer lasting marriages. And yes, they are studying heterosexual couples, and yes this is something men need to do better. It is gendered.
All leaders should accept influence. Especially from people who know more than they do about specific areas. That ECD was a good creative, but he didn’t know how to manage his time. He should have accepted influence from his assistant to be on time.
This month, I’ve started a podcast. It’s called the Bad Boss Brief and I’m doing it with Eugene S. Robinson. An executive and an executive coach start a podcast… it sounds like a set up for a bad joke. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to see the video or subscribe to the live show we’re at @badbossbrief on YouTube.
Our first episode is about bullshit detectors, those people with expertise who are brave enough to tell the truth to their bosses. These are the people whose influence should always be accepted.
Bad bosses, like Elon Musk and Marc Benioff, don’t accept influence from people around them who understand PR, brand and communications. They certainly must have people with that expertise in their organizations. But they aren’t listening to them. I watch Musk flail and I keep thinking – where is his communications person? Don’t they have anyone in PR who he listens to who can tell him to just stop? Was there not one person at Salesforce who could have suggested closing the Slack channel during that all hands meeting? After all, they OWN Slack. Someone there knows how and when to use it effectively.
Accepting influence isn’t the same as taking feedback. It can be, but to me accepting influence is about seeking out and then listening to people who know things you don’t know and considering their expertise before you reject their ideas or suggestions.
We often hear about the disasters. Consider the debacle that Southwest airlines experienced when they had to cancel thousands of flights because their antiquated systems couldn’t handle the stress of bad weather over the holidays. I am certain there was a mid-level person saying to someone higher up that they were one bad storm away from disaster. The leaders didn’t listen. Someone somewhere decided it was a better idea to do a buy back than to invest in the infrastructure needed to keep the airline functional. They didn’t accept influence from the people who were speaking from their expertise.
But how many other times have we seen leaders not listen to people who know things when they warn about their area of expertise? Maybe it’s not a visible disaster, but rather the slow leaching of morale and resources that happened at my former job when the creative teams spent more time in the hallway than their offices.
How can leaders get better about hearing uncomfortable truths and accepting them? It’s understandable to defend yourself against criticism or harsh truths. It’s human nature. But it’s an aspect of human nature that many of us learn to get over. Whether because we have families who insist on telling us the truth, or because we intentionally seek it out.
When my daughter was a teenager, I asked her what she thought of a new outfit I was wearing. She said I looked upholstered, like a couch. Since that was not the look I was going for, I went and changed and never wore that skirt again. Those of us with kids know the way kids can get past our ego defenses and point out the truth.
Family, art, being in any kind of community are all opportunities for us to learn about ourselves from other people and develop the muscle memory of accepting influence.
Eugene and I are both working artists. Artists learn, early and often, to hear difficult feedback. Most art is made with other artists, which means collaboration. Which ideally includes the tough conversations about what things need to change to make the art better.
Ask yourself this: Where in the last three months have you changed your course of action because someone else suggested that you do so? You wanted to do A, but someone told you not to do A and to do B instead. And you listened to them and changed course.
It might be as small as changing where you were going to dinner with your partner because she wanted Thai, or as large as investing in a different system at work because the IT lead said her choice was stronger than yours.
If you have trouble thinking of any places where you changed direction or changed your mind because of another person’s influence, you may want to pay attention to building that muscle.
Start by looking around your workplace and finding the people who know more than you do about something and are good at their jobs. Who are the three people at your workplace who can be your truth tellers? Next time you have to make a decision about that area where they know more than you do, ask their advice. Give them permission to tell you the truth. Listen to them. And do what they say.