This is very much context and culture dependent. For example, in some civil services, managers never get into trouble for saying no, as they can spin a no as being good stewards of public funds. Saying yes is far riskier and requires either top down direction or group consensus, or both.
The hardest thing about making decisions is accepting that some people don’t want that responsibility. If you are willing to make decisions, and have a decent track record and can justify them in a manner acceptable to your organization, you can go far.
I hadn’t been a manager long when two of my staff came to tell me of a customer problem. They summarized the situation, offered alternatives, and a recommendation. Then waited.
I tried to look pensive as if considering what they were saying, while all the while thinking that their assessment was cogent and their recommendation spot on. Honestly, I couldn’t figure out why they were there. It took me a bit to realize they needed me to okay it: I was the manager, so I had to take responsibility, they didn’t want that.
OK, let’s do that, I said, and if they went, happy. One of them became a very good manager some time later when they decided they did want that responsibility.
I’d argue a major role of a manager is to make decisions and take responsibility for them - it’s not employees don’t “want to”, that’s usually not their job. Everyone unilaterally making their own decisions creates an inconsistent mess.
To me, it sounds like what they did is what good employees should do which is consider the problem
and present it in a way that made the decision trivially easy for you. You can still overrule it if it’s not reasonable.
If you want to say “use your initiative if X” then fine, but the scope of that should be reasonably clear. It’s always a bit of a balancing act, of course.
When it comes to decision making, managers span from people who are too willing to make decisions without a full understanding the situation and detail, often to the detriment of their team and customers who they are distanced from, to those who outright refuse to make decisions. There are lots of bad managers.
Part of what they were hoping for was visibility into other domains of the business. As a manager, you (hopefully) have a broader view of the situation, of your co-manager's priorities, of outside limitations, etc. etc. etc. I'm sure they thought they had the best recommendation given their knowledge, but they couldn't have a company-wide perspective, and were giving you a chance to point out their blind spots.
That's one of the tougher things with management is making those calls. At least they came to you with alternatives and/or recommendations. I have always tried to be pragmatic in my decisions/solutions. I ask myself, is this actually fixing something we need fixing or some new tech that doesn't really resolve the problem right now (but that maybe I should earmark for the future).
Did you ever get to a point where, as long as they collectively agreed on the right way forward, they had your implicit okay and didn't actually need to go to you and have you say it?
Enough No and you will find yourself questioning why are your best people leaving, very often your best people are the one who cares and are pushing for better change.
At the end you will have yourself a team of yes-man which, ironically, is often what you really need in the kind of environment that demands saying No a lot - you need people that simply get things done accordingly without having too much ambition, that eliminates the need to put those foolish ambition to rest.
> Understand what the priority is, evaluate the ROI for the ideas you propose, determine whether the timing for it is the right one.
The issue with this approach is that most "lesser skilled" managers will not understand the ROI of fundamental work, that not immediately leads to an ROI, as sometimes those things cannot be well quantified.
Those are the cases, where you then need to be able to trust the more skilled team members to make those decisions also on other value driving criteria.
I’ve always told people that when they’re fresh to the industry, they will likely be a “Yes, And” person. Someone super excited and willing to accept the reality and build upon it.
As you become more senior, you realize that no is your superpower to get anything meaningful done. You then become a “No, But” person in which you can make sound decisions and justify them accordingly.
With fear of rejection from other people as one of my greatest anxiety drivers, I can relate a lot.
One of my favorite learnings about the topic recently though is that saying "yes", "maybe" or even just staying silent is effectively the same as saying "no", just in other dimensions: and vice versa.
Saying no to nuclear means saying yes to coal.
Saying yes to doing something I don't like because I don't want to offend someone also means saying no to being honest and enjoying myself.
Just embracing that the vast majority of decisions have the potential to offend — but that this offense is also not my own but the recipients' feeling, originating from _their_ belief systems that I have no control over — was immensely liberating to me.
[+] [-] PeterWhittaker|3 years ago|reply
The hardest thing about making decisions is accepting that some people don’t want that responsibility. If you are willing to make decisions, and have a decent track record and can justify them in a manner acceptable to your organization, you can go far.
I hadn’t been a manager long when two of my staff came to tell me of a customer problem. They summarized the situation, offered alternatives, and a recommendation. Then waited.
I tried to look pensive as if considering what they were saying, while all the while thinking that their assessment was cogent and their recommendation spot on. Honestly, I couldn’t figure out why they were there. It took me a bit to realize they needed me to okay it: I was the manager, so I had to take responsibility, they didn’t want that.
OK, let’s do that, I said, and if they went, happy. One of them became a very good manager some time later when they decided they did want that responsibility.
[+] [-] halo|3 years ago|reply
To me, it sounds like what they did is what good employees should do which is consider the problem and present it in a way that made the decision trivially easy for you. You can still overrule it if it’s not reasonable.
If you want to say “use your initiative if X” then fine, but the scope of that should be reasonably clear. It’s always a bit of a balancing act, of course.
When it comes to decision making, managers span from people who are too willing to make decisions without a full understanding the situation and detail, often to the detriment of their team and customers who they are distanced from, to those who outright refuse to make decisions. There are lots of bad managers.
[+] [-] dtgriscom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bkuehl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kqr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fakecrusade|3 years ago|reply
At the end you will have yourself a team of yes-man which, ironically, is often what you really need in the kind of environment that demands saying No a lot - you need people that simply get things done accordingly without having too much ambition, that eliminates the need to put those foolish ambition to rest.
[+] [-] yayr|3 years ago|reply
The issue with this approach is that most "lesser skilled" managers will not understand the ROI of fundamental work, that not immediately leads to an ROI, as sometimes those things cannot be well quantified. Those are the cases, where you then need to be able to trust the more skilled team members to make those decisions also on other value driving criteria.
[+] [-] irjustin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thenerdhead|3 years ago|reply
As you become more senior, you realize that no is your superpower to get anything meaningful done. You then become a “No, But” person in which you can make sound decisions and justify them accordingly.
[+] [-] endymi0n|3 years ago|reply
One of my favorite learnings about the topic recently though is that saying "yes", "maybe" or even just staying silent is effectively the same as saying "no", just in other dimensions: and vice versa.
Saying no to nuclear means saying yes to coal.
Saying yes to doing something I don't like because I don't want to offend someone also means saying no to being honest and enjoying myself.
Just embracing that the vast majority of decisions have the potential to offend — but that this offense is also not my own but the recipients' feeling, originating from _their_ belief systems that I have no control over — was immensely liberating to me.
[+] [-] fitba72|3 years ago|reply
This can help your mental health considerably.
[+] [-] Borrible|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goodpoint|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbverschoor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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