A colleague of yours (let’s call her Janet) isn’t meeting expectations—neither performance targets nor cultural norms. You know it…everyone else does too. What Janet is doing (or not doing) threatens the organization’s results. That means a lot of people (you included) will likely get hurt if her shenanigans continues.
Your gut screams for you to have a heart-to-heart with Janet—you know, peer-to-peer. What do you do?
It’s interesting the things we tell ourselves when faced with a situation like this:
*** ”If I speak up, our relationship will never be the same.”
*** “It’s not appropriate for me to speak up. This is a job for the boss…that’s why they get paid the big bucks.”
*** “I don’t have the communication skills to pull this off.”
*** “Surely, Janet will be offended if I speak up.”
*** “It isn’t my place to judge.”
I’m confident you can think of plenty of additional examples. Notice what great lengths we will go to in justifying not speaking up. Certainly, the situation with Janet requires good judgment and a great deal of decorum, but rest assured that many of us are masters at finding ‘cause’ for not speaking up. (And, yes, an organization’s culture can be an impediment to not speaking up.)
Yet, part of the motivation underlying our unwillingness to speak up (e.g. to be direct with people) is often our own desire to be liked—to be thought of well by others. When that occurs, it becomes all about us.
Admittedly, this is one of the most difficult things to get people to do in organizations. Let’s face it…it’s risky. Yet it happens. You see it in team sports, in the for-profit world, etc. The degree to which an organization’s colleagues (as opposed to just the boss) hold each other accountable is often an indicator as to how well the organization performs.
People’s willingness to speaking up to one of their colleagues is also a reflection as to how committed people are to the organization’s results…..in other words, the degree to which they hold MS #1—having a bias for results. The commitment to the result becomes a lynchpin in helping us overcome our own human tendencies not to act.
Other MS’s help people in speaking up too; namely all the rest— MS #2- MS #7. That’s unusual, but it just goes to show how it really takes a professional who is secure in their own skin to speak up in an admittedly uncomfortable situation like this one with Janet.
In spite of all the reasons one might conjure up to avoid approaching Janet, the professional speaks up. The reason is simple—they’re committed to the result (MS #1). They know it’s not about them (MS #2) and they know that they need to rise above the fray (MS #4). Ultimately, they commit to do what they know is right (MS #5). It’s rarely easy, it’s never fun—but, in the end, they do it.
It’s what professionals do.