When You Don’t Agree With The Message

James: Good afternoon. What are we talking about today then?

Jimmy: Afternoon, James. Picture the scene: you’re sat in a meeting, a decision gets made, you know it’s wrong, but you’re the one who’s gonna have to go out and deliver it.

James: I’ve got a sinking feeling already. I start foaming at the mouth like rabies.

Jimmy: You froth at the mouth, but do you push back on it? Do you suck it up? Do you disengage? Delivering a message that you don’t believe in is one of the toughest asks of a manager. So we’re gonna explore that subject today.

James: Sounds fabulous. I’m already frothing.

Jimmy: Well, we’ll get you frothing at the mouth. You said it gets you frothing at the mouth, James. Tell me about a time when it has got you frothing at the mouth.

[00:01:00]
James: Oh, well, it might surprise you to hear this, but the one that always gets me is performance management. I mean, what are these people thinking? And then they say, “You’ve got to go and own the message. We’re gonna chop 10% of your people off at the knees, and you’ve got to go and own the message.”

Jimmy: I never ended up having to give someone a rating I didn’t believe was fair, but even just the threat of it—how do you expect me to own the message if you force me to give this person a rating I disagree with? It’s absolute bullshit.

James: Yeah, and then there are the reorganisations. I’ve had to sack a number of people because of reorganisations, and that’s always really shitty. But that doesn’t jive with me quite as badly as the performance management thing, just because I could understand why they were doing it. It’s when people are doing something fundamentally stupid that it really gets to me. If it’s something unpleasant that has to be done, okay, I don’t like doing it, but so what? There are levels of pain.

[00:02:00]
Jimmy: Yeah, and my experience was similar. I had to close a number of sites across the UK. It wasn’t a case of me not believing the message, but the driver behind it was the company’s profitability. And that always stuck in my throat a little bit because it was arbitrary. If I closed one or two sites, did that really materially make a difference? No, but it was the cumulative actions. The driver didn’t make sense to me.

James: Yeah, but why is it so stressful? I think it’s the emotional load of it. When you’re doing something you don’t agree with, you feel frustrated, you lose control, and you feel compromised by the whole damn thing.

Jimmy: Yeah, and it’s being accountable for someone else’s decisions. If I had made the decision, I found it a lot easier to deliver the message.

James: Yeah, and it’s usually somebody else’s screw-up. They’ve messed something up, the outcome is bad, and because the outcome is bad, you’ve got to do something to present it. It’s difficult.

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[00:03:00]
Jimmy: And going back to your point about why it’s so difficult—there’s the emotional load, but there’s also the fact that you get caught between the “club versus country” argument. Who are you loyal to? Your team or the organisation? When you get into discussions like performance management, you’re gonna have to dump on some of your team, and that can cause you issues.

James: Yeah, and there’s the question of credibility. When you’re asked to do something you fundamentally think is stupid, and you know everybody working for you thinks it’s stupid, and you’ve got to stand there and smile and say, “Oh, isn’t this a good idea?” What does that do for your credibility? I remember Rob the Knob—

Jimmy: Rob the Knob?

James: Yeah, he used to stand up and spout the corporate line, and everybody was thinking, “You’re a knob. Nobody believes this.” So you’re just destroying your own credibility by following through on that.

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[00:04:00]
Jimmy: And there’s the control aspect. Did I make the decision? But I’m the public face of it, and I get the hate that people focus on me rather than the actual decision-maker. And I think the other thing is, when you push back and say, “This doesn’t make sense,” are you putting your career at risk? That tension of “Am I doing the right thing?” is real.

James: Yeah, and for me, it’s about values. If you’re doing something you fundamentally do not believe in, it really depends on how violently you disagree with what you’re being asked to do. I will froth about performance management, but nobody was gonna die. So was it really worth getting that excited about? It’s a question of how important it is to you and whether it’s worth getting worked up over.

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[00:05:00]
Jimmy: Well, hold that thought, because we’ll come back to some of the ways you can handle it. But let’s first explore some of the bad ways people handle these situations, because we’ve blundered our way through this many a time.

James: The obvious one is when something fundamentally grates against your values, and you’ve got nowhere to run. So what do you do? You check out. You have no choice but to check out, and you end up with a whole load of people who are just disengaged with the organisation because they’ve got to do things they don’t believe in. That’s bad for the people doing it, but it’s also bad for the organisation because you’re not getting any discretionary effort. So in some ways, it’s the easiest thing to do—just put your head down, do the bare minimum, and get on with it. But in many ways, that’s the most toxic.

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[00:06:00]
Jimmy: And on a similar note, there’s the passive way of doing it—trying to figure out how to do something that keeps people off your back. One classic example: we had to complete these online learning modules, which were corporate box-ticking in the extreme. We knew it was bullshit, so we were really haphazard about doing it, but we drew a lot of heat as a result. We hadn’t quite figured out what the bare minimum was. One person’s bare minimum is another person’s unacceptable.

James: Slightly below bare minimum. It might be a little bit pregnant, isn’t it? You just don’t wanna be there.

Jimmy: I used to have a team leader who worked for me. He had a lot of potential but was useless. He was always late, and when I pulled him up about it, he said, “Well, I’m not as late as James sometimes is.” And I said, “Okay, but you don’t fill in your spreadsheets often enough.” And he said, “But I do them more often than James does.” He had a different person to blame for every aspect of his performance. I was like, “You haven’t got to grips with the fact that when you put that all together, you’re the worst of the worst.”

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[00:07:00]
James: Well, that CBT—computer-based training—example is just a classic. Yeah, it’s dull, it’s pointless, it’s tedious, but for God’s sake, just get on with it. Passive resistance really doesn’t help you.

Jimmy: Yeah, but equally, blind compliance is no good. You had those people you worked for, James—they’re always on message. And you just didn’t believe it because you knew it was bullshit, yet they were still toeing the company line. The problem with that is not only does that particular message not land, it damages their credibility everywhere because you’re always thinking, “You’re just saying the right things, aren’t you?”

James: Blind compliance kills your credibility from below because everybody knows you’re a dick. Pass me the sick bag. You know why you’re spouting this? You’re spouting this so you can get the next level of BMW or whatever the hell it is you’ve got your eye on. It does you no good whatsoever. You’re just promoting your own position.

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[00:08:00]
Jimmy: And of course, one of your personal favourites: public disagreement with everything.

James: No, this is the way to do it. Nice big emotional bus.

Jimmy: Can I just point out, this is the section of the podcast where we’re talking about bad ways people handle it.

James: Things I wish I had known 20 years earlier.

Jimmy: Exactly.

James: But there is one instance I remember. We were doing a big core system replacement job, and I was the operations rep. For me, getting operational flexibility into this was the most important thing. The IT guys and the people running the programme couldn’t give two buggers about that. I just had these major bust-ups with them. I kept banging on and banging on, and three days later, I found myself off the project. So that was a lesson to me. I got what I wanted, but it didn’t help me.

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[00:09:00]
Jimmy: You’ve gotta love a good meltdown.

James: Well, obviously, but the point is, it didn’t help me. Public disagreements are probably not the best way forward.

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[00:10:00]
Jimmy: So having spent a good chunk of our careers exploring what went wrong in our post-corporate lives, let’s focus on what good looks like. I think there are a few principles we can share about what good looks like.

James: Yeah, my first would be: if you don’t like it, have a balanced argument about it, but do it from the basis of facts and data and knowledge. For example, I was told that there was a reorg, and everybody had to cough up 20% of their staff. At which point, I stood back and said, “Well, actually, we’ve put in place these productivity improvements. Here is my headcount for the last two years. As you can see, I’ve already coughed up 20%. Therefore, I do not think it’s appropriate for people to keep coming back at me.” When you’ve got data and facts, you can have a sensible argument. And if you’re providing data to your boss, who probably thinks this is a stupid thing to do anyway, you’re providing him with the ammunition to go back as well. So there is a time and a place to have a sensible debate, but it’s not in the middle of a room with a load of people, and it is with data and facts.

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[00:11:00]
Jimmy: A great example of that, James—do you remember the capacity management argument I had? We were in this big room full of all the great and the good, and we had to save loads across all these teams. The CEO turned around to me and said, “Capacity managers—bear in mind, this is one small part of the business, tiny. How many have you got?” I can’t remember the exact number—something like 30-odd. And I said, “Okay.” He said, “I know the answer. The right answer is zero.” And I could have reacted. I could have got emotional about it. I could have argued with him. But I said, “Should we pick that up offline and have a discussion about it?” Because that wasn’t the time or the place. If I’d locked horns with him in front of everyone, he would’ve felt beholden to destroy me. So anyway, we went off, had a one-to-one, and to your point, I went with the facts and figures about what they did, the value they added, and how we had reduced the number over the previous years. We had a sensible discussion, and do you know what the answer was, James?

James: Go on.

Jimmy: 30.

James: Okay. Exactly.

Jimmy: No change. But if I’d gone in with that argument right in front of everyone—

James: And challenged him—

Jimmy: I’d have got destroyed. So first bit: pick the right time and place to have that discussion and argue calmly from a point of view of facts.

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[00:12:00]
James: Second one for me is there’s a time where you have to be just honest and aligned. Let me give you an example. At one point in my career, I was responsible for an operational excellence programme. I had to roll this thing out across loads of call centres, and there was one area where there was no buy-in whatsoever from the senior leadership. I’m being told I had to do it, and I’m giving it to a bunch of customers who would rather—what’s the term I’m looking for? I was about as welcome as a fart in a lift. I could have argued the toss, but I’d have been wasting my breath. So I came to the conclusion that the thing to say was, “Well, there’s the decision. We’ve been asked to do it. This is what we need to do.” And you just make the best of a bad thing. But you’re open about it. You say, “Yes, I know there’s an issue. Yes, it’s not ideal, but we’re gonna do it, and we’re gonna crack on.” You’re not hiding from the issue. You’re just pointing out, “This is the lay of the land. These are the things we’ve gotta do, and you crack on.” Because frankly, some things just aren’t worth fighting.

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[00:13:00]
Jimmy: Yeah, and I think that honesty—back to my example of the senior manager who always trots out the party line—at least if you’re honest about, “Look, I know this is bullshit, but we’re gonna do it,” you’ve got a bit of credibility. Or, “Yes, there are potential downsides. There are risks, but if we focus on this, this is how we can do it.” I think that honesty, even if it’s still aligned to a degree because you’re still doing what needs to be done, can make all the difference to your team.

Similarly, I think another principle is: don’t just transmit the information downwards. Try and translate it a little bit. It’s probably not the best example, but back to my CBT bullshit example: when I sat down and said, “Yeah, we know this is nonsense, but it’s gonna have to be done. We’re all damaging our credibility and attracting a load of heat and creating a load of problems for me. Can we just get it done?” The team said, “Yeah, fair enough, we’ll get it done.” Just everyone got it done. It’s back to your point about the balance between “we know this is bullshit” and “it’s not worth the hassle.” Just spend the extra hour and get it done, and there’s no noise. I think that translation of “it’s impacting our credibility now” made the difference then.

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[00:14:00]
James: Yeah, totally agree. I suppose rolling on from that a little bit is: try and put yourself in the position of your boss, the person who’s telling you what you have to do. It’s that whole Stephen Covey thing—the five habits, or seven habits—

Jimmy: Seven.

James: Oh, well, if I managed three of them, I’d be—

Jimmy: How’s that?

James: Economy version. The one I can remember is “Seek first to understand, then be understood.” Because if you understand why it’s important to them and why they’re pushing it, it makes it an awful lot easier for you to swallow it. But if you don’t understand and it just looks stupid, then you’re on a hiding to nothing.

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[00:15:00]
Jimmy: A good example of that is when you really make sure your team understands why they’re doing something—not just because the boss has said so, but the reason, the purpose behind it. I think that makes all the difference. And so trying to help them understand that purpose before you just expect them to act blindly is a key thing.

I think there’s something for me about picking your battles. Where do you really want to put your energy? If we’d rebelled against performance management back in the day, would it have really changed anything other than winding ourselves up? Probably not. But you can get caught in the trap of, “Every time somebody tells me something that’s bullshit, I’m just gonna fight against it.” Spend too much of your energy on that, and it’s just not worth it.

James: No, absolutely. But there are two elements to that. Pick your battles: A) Is it that important? And B) Are you going to win? Towards the end of my career, I had to do performance management again, and I just came to the conclusion that I liked the job, and it just wasn’t worth it. So leave it alone. But then the other side of the coin is: this is one you are not going to win because there is no point having a battle. There were some corporate things you’ve just gotta suck up. You are not gonna win it.

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[00:16:00]
Jimmy: And in that example, performance management—we know it’s bullshit, we know it’s wrong, but we’re not actually gonna fundamentally change the DNA of that organisation. To this day, they’re still doing it. So why would you put your energy into something you’re never going to be able to change? Be realistic about it.

James: But then the final thing is: it’s easy to say, “Well, be reasonable, compromise, go and have a conversation.” But there does come a point where there is a line. I think it’s really important that you protect your integrity. Some battles are worth fighting. But for me, the question is: if something genuinely crosses the line, are you really clear in your own mind what that line is? Because, as we said, how bad can it be? Are people gonna die? For example, we touched on this last week: there was a chief of staff in the Pentagon who got sacked because he told the Secretary of War—or whatever he calls himself—that he was a fucking idiot and thousands of people were gonna die, and it wasn’t a good idea. In that instance, what was he supposed to do? You can’t have your soldiers go off and get killed. People are going to die, and you can’t live with yourself if you let it happen. So there does come a point where you’ve gotta protect your integrity and have that fight. But those instances are really few and far between, I think.

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[00:17:00]
Jimmy: And I think that’s back to the point about ego versus outcome. In that instance, am I making a decision? Am I getting my way? But actually, the outcome is so bad, I should stand up. And if I lose my job, then that’s probably the right thing. A lot of the time, we allow ego to get in the way where the outcome isn’t that bad—it isn’t the end of the world. And therefore, should you just take that hit?

Like you, I’ve been removed from projects because I disagreed with how things were being done, and I was quite happy to be removed from the project, frankly, because I’d rather not do things the wrong way. The impact of doing it the wrong way was that it was gonna fail, and I didn’t wanna be associated with it.

James: Yeah, but the truth is, I think I probably got sacked over performance management. And the reason I say that is we had to fill in an—and don’t laugh at me when I tell you this—an anonymous questionnaire that clearly wasn’t anonymous. It asked us what we thought about performance management, and the company I worked for had employed some guru who was actually a third-rate sportsman to tell us how to manage our people. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not a world-class sprinter. I don’t know much about sports, but I don’t need some third-rate sportsman telling me how to manage people. And I wrote as much in this anonymous survey. Shortly afterwards, I got a knock on the door and was told my services were no longer needed. On the benefit of hindsight, this sportsman was probably the HR director’s brother-in-law. It was fundamentally futile for me to do that—stupid thing to do. But actually, did I want to work there anymore? No. So yeah, protect your integrity. I think that’s the “how bad can it be?” Some things are worth dying in the ditch over.

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[00:18:00]
Jimmy: So did you see the sportsman waving you away as you pulled out?

James: Cheerfully, as he cashed his consultancy cheque.

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[00:19:00]
Jimmy: So, key points.

James: You don’t need to agree with every decision that’s made in your organisation to be a good manager or a leader. You really don’t. But I do think you probably need to decide how you’re gonna show up and deal with those things.

Jimmy: And I think one of the reasons you need to be clear about how you’re gonna show up is because your teams will often watch how you handle that sort of tension. They’ll know whether you agree or disagree with something because they know you well, but they’ll watch how you behave, and it will impact your leadership.

James: Yeah, and if you’re listening to this and you’re a middle manager in some organisation somewhere, or a senior manager, you know this is going to happen again and again. It is inevitable. So the question isn’t so much “How do you agree or not?” The question is really “How do you cope with it?”

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[00:20:00]
Jimmy: And being clear about how big a disagreement it is and how big the impact of your disagreement is, and therefore, do you really wanna die on your sword? Because you can’t often change the message, but you can be intentional about how you deliver it.

James: And if you really don’t like something, just face into it. Don’t be passive-aggressive. Nobody likes passive-aggressive. Just don’t do it to yourself. It destroys your credibility.

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[00:21:00]
Jimmy: So we’ve explored the subject, some of the things that go wrong, some of the things that go right. Hopefully, you found that useful. Please share this episode and follow us for more of the same.

James: Oh, I’ve got one extra word of wisdom.

Jimmy: Go on.

James: Some hills are worth dying on. Some ditches—

Jimmy: Some ditches are worth dying in.

James: Some ditches really are worth dying in.

Jimmy: And on that note—

James: Cheerful note. Gurgle, gurgle.

Jimmy: So, how do we wanna finish? Finish on a high? Talk about dying?

James: You the ditch.

Jimmy: And argue whether it’s a ditch or dying on a hill. I’ve just said “follow for more,” and now you’ve just made sure that nobody wants to follow for more.

James: My work is complete.

Jimmy: Thanks, everyone. Cheers.

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[00:22:00]
Speaker 2: We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast—

Speaker 3: From purpose to corporate jargon—

Speaker 2: But always focused on one thing: getting the job done well.

Speaker 3: Easier said than done.

Speaker 2: So if you’ve got unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck—

Speaker 3: If your backlogs are out of control and your costs are spiralling, and that big IT transformation project you’ve been promised just keeps failing to deliver—

Speaker 2: We can help.

Speaker 3: If you need to improve your performance, your team’s performance, or your organisation’s—

Speaker 2: Get in touch at jimmy@ajobdonewell.com or james@ajobdonewell.com.