Ask “What’s needed?” instead of “What’s expected?"
“I have no idea what he wants!”“I don’t know what to do next!” “What am I supposed to do?”
My colleague was venting about the age-old dilemma of being given an assignment with little direction. We’ve all “been there.”
She continued to describe how her teammates were moving too quickly to adequately communicate. Her boss asked her to develop a tool that everyone on the team could use to tackle the problem.
I understood her frustration.
The scope of the project could be enormous. However, as we chatted, I realized my friend had LOTS of opinions on how to make improvements. She had ideas about switching meeting frequencies, creating shared documents, and structuring more informal face-to-face time in the team.
However, when it came to giving something back to her boss, she was stuck because she was unclear on what he “expected” from her.
At this point, I realized she didn’t need ideas, what she wanted was permission to move on her ideas. I settled back and asked her one question:
“What if you stopped asking yourself, ‘what does my boss expect?’ and instead asked, ‘what’s needed to solve the problem?’ Would that give you the freedom to move?”
Surprisingly enough, that’s exactly what she needed to hear. As much as she SAID she wanted guidance, she didn’t need it. I think her boss realized this when he gave her (and not her teammates) the assignment. He was hearing her complaints and wanted her to take some responsibility for the solution.
As easy as it is is to see this “wait for guidance” behavior in others, we need to watch for similar tendencies in ourselves. If you want to add value to your organization, you don’t want to merely act as a “worker bee” tackling “fill in the blank” kind of assignments. Instead, to contribute real value, you should back up, see where there’s a problem needing answers, then apply yourself to being part of the solution.
Where do you wait for permission before moving?