It’s 9 p.m. and you’re fixing a report someone handed in as finished.
It’s faster if I just do it.
A few months on, you’re doing their job and yours, and they have no idea, because everything you’ve said points the other way.
“Good effort,” you said in the one-on-one meeting. Then did a hushed rewrite afterward.
Nobody does this because they don’t care. It’s almost always the opposite. You’re protecting someone.
But look at who gets the relief. They get one comfortable afternoon, you get to stay the nice one.
There’s a review waiting somewhere in the calendar, too. If what you have to say holds any surprise for them, the surprise is yours to answer for. It was cheap to say “good effort” when you didn’t mean it.
Perhaps the real fear is saying it badly. That’s fair and very much fixable. Describe only what a camera would have caught:
“You made two wrong assumptions with the budget forecast.” There’s nothing to defend in that sentence. Then ask one thing:
“What should we do about this now?”
The next thing is something you’re solving together.
When your team is small, every hour you spend redoing someone’s work is an hour you paid for twice.
You could ask how many hours that’s been this quarter. Or you could ask who on your team is being managed around and whether they’d have wanted to know.
Things on my Desk
This YouTube channel exploring how people are rethinking the way we live and make a home. It’s a curious look at creative, sustainable living.
Your Desk Upgrade
Message a former colleague and ask what their team is working on now. Then ask one follow-up about the answer. Most conversations that lead somewhere start with the second question. Happy networking!
From the Same Desk
- You are often encouraged to think of growth as a search for something new. But more often than not the most valuable discovery is retrospective.
- Productivity must belong to the producer. A software company does not charge less because its engineers improved deployment.
- Reading the data gives you access to information. Understanding it gives you agency over it.