Bonus Episode: What to Do When You're Not Consulted

Hi, I'm Sai Wakeman, and you're listening to No Ego, a podcast where we teach you how to ditch the drama, end entitlement, and drive big results in your workplace and your world place. Here we are back in my office for another roundtable. I'm with Alex. And Kelly Hinsha Thompson. Today I want to bring up this whole controversy of people being ticked off because they weren't consulted. Do you guys hear this out there, that people are just like, I can't believe I'm being asked to do something I'm not consulted on?

Hear it a lot for sure. Yeah.

So how do you handle that when you're out and about? So how do we break this down? Let's unpack this. How do we, how do we figure out the parts of this? So One of the things that is interesting to me is that people automatically assume for me to give you the gift of my work, the deal is, the condition is that you will have consulted me. And what I just let people know is like, the universe doesn't require your consult. Like, the planets are gonna spin, the world's gonna go, the rain's gonna come, has nothing to do with you. But where do you think people get the idea that they should be consulted? Consulted? Like, where does it start?

You know, it's interesting. I like to tell my classes, this is something that I've noticed in my child, in my daughter, and I don't think as adults we ever grow out of it because I still use the adult version of it. And that is when I tell her to do something or I ask her a question or I say, we're going to do this, it's, Mom, but first.

But first. But first.

It's the but firsts. Like, I don't think as adults we really outgrow the but firsts is what I call them. They just change and they become more... Sophisticated and it's kind of like when a decision's been made, our ego believes it gets a veto. And it's just the adult version of, but first.

But first. But first. I wanna give my part. But first, I want it to go my way.

Yeah.

Interesting.

It's just a way, I think, to just kind of like put your stamp on it. And then I think we all kind of argue for control at some point. It's like, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

But let me spin this. Yeah.

It's like the ego's like, I want at least one grab at this. Yeah. I think as leaders, I think we started this mess. We somewhere along the line started giving out this whole idea that we're going to consult all of you because we want consensus. We want— I think people use consensus as a way of buying in, but they're not connected. Just because I go out and I ask for your input doesn't mean you'll buy into it. Mm-hmm. I had a case early in my career where we were picking out a new monitor for nursing stations. And my boss said, well, go out and get the opinions of the nurses since you're not a nurse. Go out and quiz them. We had 3 monitor choices. And I'll be darned if 30% wanted A, 30% B, 30% C. Now I'm in the dilemma where they're equally split. So no matter what I choose, I'm going to tick off 60%. Yeah. It was like, dang. And I had this belief that if I asked you, then you would support. But That's not connected. What I know is that inclusion doesn't lead to buy-in. They are separate. And a lot of us include people on the hopes that they'll buy in. And inclusion, we should include people because we know they have some expertise to offer. Mm-hmm. You know, they have expertise, these nurses, but you know what really made the decision? They were so similar, these monitors. The one that gave us the cheapest rate. Because purchasing made the decision. It wasn't any of us. And so I was out, letting people think that they had some input only because I didn't want them to be upset. Like, we try not to upset them, and I don't know, it's so confusing. Well,

and then in this world, what if you're about to make that decision, tick off 60%, and then new technology came out and there was a 4th monitor that was better than all of them, and then you pick that one even though all the research shows that's the best one, and then you've ticked off everyone because you didn't take any opinions? It's that whole idea how the— yeah, the market changes.

I think people need to understand there's a difference, one, between opinion and expertise. Back in the '80s, before we had Google and best practices and associations, like back in the day, we had to Google you, we had to Google them to get any type of input. We even told people like the people who should make the decision are the ones closest to the work. But now that leads to people just presenting more preference What they like, their opinions, not their expertise, because we have less and less expertise, but we kept the same number of opinions. I don't know, it's just kind of a mess. You have leaders that you coach that are trying to get consensus with people.

Yeah, and then that's exactly what they find is in the end, they'll realize that everyone's idea won't be in the final decision, and then they kind of blackmail or sabotage them with their buy-in at the end, or throughout, I guess. And then it all is kind of a, like you said, a slippery slope of resistance the whole way because there's a little snag that, well, you didn't take my idea, so why should I do the work as hard? And it's interesting without— when you bring in all that consensus building, and it basically just stops a decision from being made very quickly.

Well, it's really emotional blackmail. I think it's an old way of playing. So One of the things that I've noticed when people want to be consulted is they really don't understand kind of a model for decision-making. And so basically, when people come and say to me, Cy, do you want my opinion? I have to say, probably not, because most people offer their opinions to stop the action. And opinions aren't expertise. Expertise is how you say yes, and then here's how we can make it happen. Opinions are mostly about saying no.

Yeah.

And a lot of folks wanna be consulted pre-decision. I personally think the most value you can add, I'll just put it for me, the most value I can add is not being pre-consulted, but being able to step in no matter where we are and take us to the next level.

Yeah.

Not in the direction my ego needs us to go, but in the direction that the organization needs us to go. So a lot of people wanna be consulted and they burn a lot of calories. Have you noticed the drama of people wanting to be consulted?

One of the things I learned in my career was I had so much more energy at the end of the day when I didn't go home every day offering so many opinions. Oh, I love that. I remember it's like I used to want to go and sit in so many meetings because I wanted to be a part of it all, but I would leave exhausted and I'd leave with a lot of work to do because I was sitting in meetings all day with stuff that I probably could have delegated and sent my team to. It freed up so much mental matter.

That's a good point.

You know what I mean? I wasn't so exhausted.

Did you think it added that much value for you to be there too?

No. Helplessness because I'm like, I was there and my team was there. Why do I need them if I'm there? No, I can remove myself. I don't need to be in those decisions. Not only is it expensive, but I'm exhausted. They always say those famous people like Steve Jobs and such wore the same thing every day. Well, why did they do that?

Simplify your life.

Because there's no decision that has to be made. On that. Lower level, blank outfit.

I don't even need to consult.

I can free up my energy for the super important stuff, the stuff that matters.

I think this is key is that people— it's the same reason people resist standardization is it's like, I have to be in there to customize. Customize everything. And it's like, why don't you just conserve that energy? Let this stuff go standardized, or even let it be up to somebody else, and then you can conserve your energy for the big stuff. I really have come to live this way where I've tried to be consulted on very little. People say, Sy, where are you going, you know, tonight? I'm like, I have no idea. Let me check my phone.

You're like—

Let me check my phone. I open up my phone, it says, you know, go to Delta at 5. I'm like, awesome. And then it says go to gate A7. I'm like, doing it. Yeah, some people themselves out. They wonder why they're so burned out. I give them this example. Imagine driving to work and at every stop sign, you got furious that the city planners didn't consult you on whether the traffic patterns merited a stop sign at that corner. And you had 19 more of these. By the time you get to work, you are so burnt out. Wow. What if you just learned to conserve your energy and only put it where it's going to add value? For me, I drive to work, I see a stop sign, Pretty easy. I'm doing it.

I'm gonna stop.

I'm gonna stop. Yeah. I'm gonna do it wholeheartedly.

Yeah.

And then go on.

Yeah.

As the— I remember as an employee too, because I get this question in reverse and I can put myself in those shoes where they'll say, well, but what if a decision was made? I mean, the leaders didn't understand my work and da da da da da, and it wasn't the right decision. And I'm like, you know what I learned was so much more valuable as a high-value player because I did it wrong for many years was That's where I can use my skills, talents, and expertise to help them risk mitigate. Because you're right, as a leader, I did make decisions when I probably didn't have all the information. I probably did do things that maybe I didn't investigate thoroughly. It's called imperfect decision-making. I do it still almost every single day.

There's no perfect decision.

There's good decisions, that which we either know the risks of or we have a team that will help us mitigate those risks.

And I learned so quickly, if I wanted to be a high-value player, I could just go to my leader and be like, I noticed this. I bet we didn't think about it, but I got some ideas. Do you want to hear about 3 of them?

Forgive early and often. And so many of us want to put energy into making the perfect decision. But I think the most valuable thing we can add is saying yes, and then mitigating the risk. And this gets us back to a lot of us do want to be consulted. And I tell leaders, if you've got experts, consult them, go out and ask them, you know, Tell me about your expertise and how I can do it. But a lot of people don't play good consultants because if you're the one being consulted, you can't tell people, here's how you have to do it and here's the only way and here's, you know, it's all about my preference or about what I'm familiar with. As a consultant, we have to give people options. We have to go, you know what, there are many ways you could get there. You could do this and we would need to balance these things. Mm-hmm. You could go in this direction and that would be Cheaper, but we would have these risks. The more mentally flexible a consultant is, the more they actually deserve to be consulted because they're adding value, not opinion. And a lot of times I think people want to be consulted so their ego can control this, not going any way that they feel unready for.

Yes.

Yep. I mean, unreadiness can definitely show itself up in those but first moments. And as you say, in a role in a consultant, maybe they don't take my top recommendation. But if I'm high value, I say, good to know, we're gonna go left. You know? How do we make it work?

I wanted to add to what Kelly said about making it work. And most people want to give that feedback right up, that it's right up front, that it's not gonna work, it's a bad idea. But that's not feedback. I love the way you talk about what true feedback is. Do you want to finish? No,

go for it.

I like when you said that true feedback is from those that said yes right away, made it work, and anyway, even though it was imperfect, and then they came back with ideas to make it better, faster, cheaper. The next time. That's true feedback.

Like they actually tried it again.

Yeah. Because they were out collecting real data.

Yeah. Trying to make—

When people say it won't work hypothetically when you hear it, that's not feedback, that's just resistance.

Yeah. And I think that's a big distinction that has helped me myself, but I think when you get that in groups, they really realize where feedback's actually given.

And we can ask that question as a leader is, you know, when you get that, I think a great way to overcome it is, tell me what happened the last time you tried.

Oh, that's nice, Kelly, that's cool.

And sometimes like you'll get to like, well—

You'll get them realizing they never tried it.

I guess I haven't tried, you know? That's like my daughter, she's like, I don't like that restaurant. Oh my goodness, when's the last time you've been there? Well, I haven't.

I love this. That's such a good point of self-reflection. We gotta add that to our repertoire when people are like, it won't work. It's like, well, tell me more about the last time that you were directly involved in this.

And we're all in the whole time too.

And some people will emotionally blackmail. They'll go, well, we tried that in 1962 and it didn't work. And one thing I do is I go, oh my gosh, you were here then? You have a special responsibility since you were part of it. You know firsthand what risks we need to mitigate.

Yes.

You know, but getting back to how we add value today and the universe not needing our counsel, folks, here's the reality. Most of the decisions made in any of our lives aren't made by us. If we're doing business well, they should be made by our customers. Or a lot of times they're made by the regulators or they're made in healthcare by the, The payers or the evidence. Like, a lot of our decisions should be made based on best practice. Like, I don't come and decide for my company what, what we're gonna do next. I have to look at how people are consuming and they decide. So I didn't come top-down and say, you guys, we're gonna do a ton of social media, and there was nothing for them to resist against.

I love social media.

Yeah, yeah, there's nothing for them to resist Once again, we didn't even make that decision, folks. We looked at how people consumed media, and people were frustrated that social media was a disruption at work. And so we thought, hey, why don't we become people's disruption at work? Like, you're watching this show hopefully at work. It's the show your boss will let you watch at work.

That's a big lesson.

Our ego has not caught up to reality, and we are so wanting to be constantly And we are so wanting to be consulted, but here's the reality. Most of the decisions in today's world aren't even made by us. We are here to respond to where the market's going and to capitalize on that change. And the more energy we can conserve and the quicker we can get in the zone and work with the natural order of things, the quicker we can say yes, and— Uh-huh. The better. And that's what keeps us competitive. And a lot of people want to keep their organization safe. And I tell people, I'd rather you keep me competitive.

Best.

Because your opinion is what wants to keep me safe. You're being included. You want to keep me safe and aligned with what you already know to do and what you think is right. I don't want to be safe. I want to be competitive. And the only way I can be competitive is if we notice where the market's going and we look at how we can capitalize on that. And then everybody gets out of being consulted on whether we should do it or not and gets really excited to be consulted on how we could do it. And

isn't that the ultimate job safety and security?

Yeah, no kidding, no kidding. And that's where the energy comes from, right? If you're trying to stop everything all day long or micromanage it or be consulted so that you have a, a signature on it, you're gonna be exhausted.

Oh yeah.

If you just jump in and go, where are we going? And I have an idea, and I have an idea, and I have an idea. The energy will build. It expands rather than contracts. And a lot of us are trying to use an old way of working when what we need is a modern way of coming together and moving forward. So for me, I'm glad not to be consulted. I know. Because I know I will slow it down or raise the price.

I'll spend my energy really where it's just not helpful.

Exactly. And the reality is, is How would I know? The minute I am out of my beginner's mind of, I don't know, how would I know? I read a blog that Kelly wrote and I'm quick to get in there and go, well, I would have used these 3 words, right? How would I know? And you know what? Then we go back to editing and it never gets out. And it's like, gets amazing reviews. I'm like, how would I know? Like, how— I don't know the minds of the universe. So make your jobs easy, folks. I'm telling you what, make your jobs easy. Stop insisting you have to be consulted on everything. Just step back, let people do it one of the 100 ways it could be done. Free your time up, conserve your energy, and go add value with what's your unique gift, what only you can do. Most of us try and get consulted on what 100 people can do. Mm-hmm. What I want you to do is save your energy so that you can really add in your signature on what only you can do. And that's where you're going to feel really great about the work that you produce. So I'm so glad I got a couple of yes-sayers on my team. Thank you so much for joining the episode today. If you're loving this podcast, just make sure that you check me out on Facebook and Instagram, and especially YouTube.