My Boss Won’t Make a Decision

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How do you deal with a boss that has difficulty making decisions?

  • First, you need to fully understand the consequences of a boss that has difficulty making decisions.
  • Next, you need to figure out why your boss might have difficulty making decisions.
  • Then, you can determine what you can do about a boss that has difficulty making decisions.

Consequences of a Boss that has Difficulty Making Decisions

  • In most cases, people (both internally, and externally) become frustrated by the lack of action.
  • In some cases, unnecessary delays become emergencies.  This is entirely avoidable.
  • Difficulty making decisions diminishes the credibility of the department or business.

Why Might Your Boss have Difficulty Making Decisions?

There are a variety of reasons people have difficulty making decisions.  You need to figure out which one applies to your boss.  Here are some ideas:

  • Risk Aversion.  If your boss is highly risk averse, s/he will see every decision as an exposure to potentially undesirable consequences.
  • Perfectionism.  If your boss has perfectionist tendencies, then decisions may be delayed pending perfect information.  Unfortunately, most decisions have to be made without perfect information, which is a significant problem for perfectionists.
  • Confidence.  Your boss may have difficulty making decisions because s/he feels s/he is in over his head.
  • Protecting People.  Sometimes people have difficulty making decisions because they don’t want to overwhelm others.  While this may be a bit paternal, it is a least well-intended.
  • The boss may know something you don’t.  Sometimes, the boss may have information that you don’t.  As a result, a decision may be being delayed for entirely appropriate reasons – just not reasons you’re aware of yet.  For example:
    • Perhaps you boss’s employment is at risk.
    • Perhaps your employment is at risk.
    • Is there a project announcement forthcoming?
    • Is there some other announcement coming out?

What to do if Your Boss has Difficulty Making Decisions

First, you must realize that you do not control your boss’s behavior.  You can however attempt to influence it.  In order to do so:

  • Try to understand why he won’t decide.
    • Is it occasional or habitual?
    • Is one of the reasons discussed above the cause of indecision?
  • Do all your homework
    • Assess risks that may be of concern to your boss.  Ensure you have mitigating actions in place.
    • Understand and mitigate the worse case scenario for your boss.
  • Consistently engender confidence and trust.  If you have dropped the ball before, it will be difficult to get your boss to trust your judgment this time.
  • In some cases, you may want to say, “I’m doing this by this date, unless you tell me not to.”
  • Highlight that no decision is a decision.  As paradoxical as it sounds, it is true.  Some people think that by delaying a decision they are keeping options open.  Most often, the failure to make a decision in a timely manner commits a manager to a course of action (whether s/he realizes it or not).

3 Things to Remember About Dealing with a Boss that has Difficulty Making Decisions

  1. If this person is habitually undecided, s/he won’t change.  You can influence, but you can’t control his/her behavior
  2. There may be information you don’t have that fully justifies the lack of decision.
  3. Be very careful about circumventing your boss’s authority.  If you go out of your way to circumvent your boss, it will almost certainly backfire on you, so be careful.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Difficulty Making Decisions (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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My Boss Won’t Make a Decision

Join Jed and Bob as they discuss what happens when your boss won’t make a decision, why he might be unwilling to do so, and what you can do about it.

Watch ‘My Boss Won’t Make a Decisions’ Video (14 mins 11 sec):


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Dealing With Undecided Bosses

This week the Wily Manager guys discuss dealing with people who can’t make a decision.  This is particularly frustrating if your boss is that undecided person.  They also talk about things you can do to influence your undecided boss, and why they might be that way.

Monday’s Tip: Try to figure out why they won’t decide. Is it insecurity, risk aversion, perfectionism?  If you can figure out why your boss can’t decide, you’re much more likely to be able to influence the behavior.

Tuesday’s Tip: Consider that you may be missing some key information. If your boss usually makes decisions quickly, and is dragging her heels on a particular decision, there is a good chance that she knows something that you don’t.

Wednesday’s Tip: Mitigate the risks for your boss. If your boss is risk averse, mitigate as many of those risks as you can to make it easier for him to pull the trigger on a decision.

Thursday’s Tip: Highlight that “no decision” is, in fact, a decision. By delaying a decision, it is often the case that options are not being left open as much as options are quickly being taken away.  Failure to make a decision is a conscious choice.

Friday’s Tip: Never sewer your boss. As frustrating as an undecided boss is, you need to be exceptionally careful if you choose to try to circumvent his authority to reach a decision point.  Proceed with extreme caution if you choose to go this way.

 

Retention Interviews

Many organizations put a whole bunch of energy into Exit Interviews – trying to figure out why people left after they have submit their notice.  Imagine if that same energy were directed into trying to retain those people before they accepted alternate employment.  Join the Wily Manager guys this week, as they discuss Retention Interviews.

Monday’s Tip: Start Now. If this is something you want to do, then don’t delay.

Tuesday’s Tip: Start with broad questions:  “What do you like and dislike about the work you’ve being doing in the past few months?”  You can be more specific as you get further into your learning.

Wednesday’s Tip: Don’t ask if you are not willing to act on suggestions. You don’t have to act on every suggestion, but if you’re not willing to make any changes, then you should not ask.

Thursday’s Tip: Use existing One on One Meetings. The retention interview can be conducted as part of existing interactions with your people.  It is not necessary to schedule an entire other meeting.

Friday’s Tip: Tell people when you’ve made changes based on their feedback. When you do make changes as a result of people’s feedback, make sure you let them know the changes that have been made and why.

 

The Retention Interview

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Many organizations do exit interviews, but that’s a lot like closing the barn door after the horse has left.  Below we discuss retention interviews.  Specifically, we discuss:

  • Why Bother Doing a Retention Interview
  • The Basics of a Retention Interview
  • Sample Questions for a Retention Interview
  • Taking Action
  • Three Things to Remember About Retention Interviews

Why Bother Doing a Retention Interview?

The costs of employee turnover are well documented.  By regularly conducting Retention Interviews, unwanted turnover can be reduced.

  • Unlike an exit interview, the Retention Interview allows the opportunity to still do something to make them stay.  There are several advantages to this, for a leader:
    • Finding new people is both time-consuming and costly.
    • Your life as a leader is much easier without constantly replacing people.
    • Your results will be better if you aren’t constantly replacing people.
  • Retention interviews can help you keep a finger on the pulse of your organization, and give your information and ideas to address emergent issues as they come up.

The Basics of the Retention Interview

If you’ve decided that Retention Interviews are something you want to consider, then, here’s how to begin:

  • Start now.  The sooner you know about a problem, the easier it usually is to fix it.
  • Do Retention Interviews regularly.
  • This does not have to be extra work.  If you are already doing regular one on one meetings with you people, you can easily adjust those meetings to include elements of a Retention Interview.
  • Use broad questions about the company, then narrow down to the work, teamwork, and eventually your leadership.

Sample Questions for a Retention Interview

  • With high potential talent:
    • Tell me what you like about your work here in the last few months.
    • Tell me what has been concerning for you in the last few months.
    • What would you really like to be involved in over the next few months.
  • If you’re having retention issues:
    • “Why do you think some people are choosing to leave our organization?”
    • “If you owned the company what would you do or change to make more people want to stay?”

Taking Action

  • Finding out that you have problems is only a good thing if you’re prepared to do something about it.  If you don’t intend to listen, then you shouldn’t ask.
  • Use the information you gathered to sell your ideas for change.
  • When you implement organizational change, tell people it’s because of the feedback they provided.

3 Things to Remember About the Retention Interview

  1. You need to start now.  Every week that goes by is a missed opportunity
  2. Use existing forums.  You should be able to gather retention interview information without creating a bunch of extra work.
  3. Take action.  Act on the suggestions that people give you.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about The Retention Interview (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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The Retention Interview

Join Jed & Bob as they talk about how you might put this powerful tool to work in your organization.

Watch ‘The Retention Interview’ Video (14 mins 08 sec):


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Forget Your Superstars — Focus on Middle Performers

In just about any work group or organization, you’ll find a normal distribution of performance quality.  In other words, your employees will fall into the normal bell curve with a few superstars, a handful of laggards, with most of your employee population falling in the middle.

The management books and the HR folks will tell you reach out to all employees to create a high performing environment.  The fundamental flaw with this advice comes from its source:  most of the authors of management books have never actually been managers; and, HR… well, it’s HR.  If you’re one of the few companies out there with a high performing HR department, then you probably should heed their advice.  For all the other organizations, tell HR that once it manages itself to be a high performing group, they will win the privilege of advising you to do likewise.

Here’s what you actually need to do:  forget about the front and back of your bell curve.  Yep, that’s right, ignore your superstars and your laggards.

Your superstars are often your most high-maintenance people.  They often do great work, but leave a trail of broken relationships behind them. When you look at their overall impact on the organization, as opposed to their proficiency in what you’ve asked them to do, the net effect is often much less positive than you might be lead to believe.  They also tend to jump ship quicker than others.

Your laggards are a bit more tricky.  You can’t ignore critically poor performance, or it will drag others’ performance down.  You need to minimize the influence your laggards have on others, but you don’t want to put a whole bunch of energy into trying to improve the poor performer if there’s little chance it will substantially improve.

Leaders need to focus on the middle of their curve.  If you can push those good performers a bit further along the curve, then the overall impact to the organization can be substantial.  Those in the middle are lower maintenance, they probably have a higher ability to improve than the laggards, and they are more stable than the superstars.

The success of an organization rarely depends on the retention of a few superstars.  More likely it depends on the retention of the middle majority of good performers – the same group that likely gets the least attention in most organizations.

I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

 

Stupid Things Smart Managers Do

The benefit of hindsight makes stupid decisions seem obvious.  If only you could get an early warning sign for potentially stupid moves.  Join the Wily Manager guys this week as they discuss Ten Stupid things that Smart Managers do.

Monday’s Tip: Don’t work too much. If you have a special project, you may end up working ridiculous hours, but if you’re doing it on a regular basis, it’s not sustainable.

Tuesday’s Tip: Take time to think. Managers are paid to do more than execute tasks.  You need to schedule time to stop and think about the business.

Wednesday’s Tip: Don’t think everyone should operate at your level. You are where you are for a reason – don’t expect everyone else to operate at your level.

Thursday’s Tip: Listen to people. It takes time and effort to listen to those around you… don’t miss this opportunity to get warning signs that you might be doing something stupid.

Friday’s Tip: Don’t try to appease everyone. The best way to upset everyone is to try to please everyone.  Make the right decision, and then manage those constituents that may be disgruntled.

 

Top 10 Stupid Things Smart Managers Do

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It is quite possible for smart managers to do stupid things.  This often happens because smart managers get busy doing the things they have always done without critical evaluation.  This is a standard occupational hazard for anyone that manages a business or leads other people.

In no particular order, we suggest below Ten Stupid Things that we’ve seen Smart Managers do:

  1. They diffuse their focus too broadly.  The most successful managers quickly learn what are the most critical items, and then execute against those items.  These same managers will have no more than seven priorities at a time, and they are very specific about what they won’t do.  Most importantly, they do work and tasks that are appropriate to their level, and delegate other tasks away.
  2. They work too much.  If you’re completely overwhelmed by the volume of work, then working harder won’t help.  It is possible there are exceptional circumstances for some limited period of time that will require you to work more, but as an ongoing solution, working harder doesn’t work.  You need to assess what things you may be able to give up, and what things to do differently.
  3. They Don’t Think.  It is very easy to become completely overcome with tasks.  When that happens, you are probably not taking the time to think about the business, and the strategies and systems that will propel success.
  4. They think everyone should operate at their level. Smart managers are usually in the position they are in for good reason:  they are smart and hard working.  They cannot project their own abilities onto others.  It is quite possible that others will not be able to get as much done, or get it done as quickly as the smart manager.  Managers need to accept this.
  5. They don’t listen.  Listening is an active skill, and needs to be practiced.  It takes time to listen to your people, and if a manager is always in too much of a hurry to listen to her people, she will end up missing opportunities.
  6. They “buy-it-back”. One of the most important skills for managers is delegating.  Many managers delegate tasks, but then end up getting those tasks back on their desks.  Make sure you delegate appropriate tasks to the right people, and don’t let them off the hook.  It is important to be a coach and teach, but not to come rushing in to save people at the last minute every time.
  7. They don’t teach/develop/mentor their people.  A manager’s first priority is to develop and build skills in others.  It is important to share knowledge and move others forward.
  8. They don’t say “no”. It is not often possible to do everything that everyone wants you to do as a manager.  Those most successful are very clear on what they’ll do, and what they won’t do.
  9. They don’t have a mentor or “board of directors”. Good managers have people they can trust to seek out advice and feedback.  In the absence of a good mentor, managers should establish a “board of directors” – a group of people that they go to for advice and feedback on the technical, political and organizational aspects of their jobs.
  10. They try to be everybody’s friend.  The best way to upset everybody is to try to keep everyone happy.  It is important to always treat people with respect, but it’s rarely possible to keep all the people happy all the time – so don’t try.

3 Things to remember about Stupid Things that Smart Managers do:

  1. It’s possible to be really smart, but still do stupid things.  Your not immune just because you think you’re smart
  2. You need to get honest feedback.  Find someone who will tell you the brutal truth when you’re doing something stupid.
  3. Pick your favorite one thing of the ten, and do something about it.  Check the list above, and pick one stupid think that you think you may be at risk of committing, and make plans to do something about it.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Stupid Things Smart Managers Do (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

Looking for the Full-Length Podcast/Video? …

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Top 10 Stupid Things Smart Managers Do

It’s time for another top ten list.  With respect to David Letterman, you won’t want to miss the Wily Manager top ten list of Stupid Things that Smart Managers Do.

Watch the ‘Top 10 Stupid Things Smart Managers Do’ Video (15 mins 59 sec):


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