Employing Differences, Episode 82: Do I need approval for this?

Karen: 0:08

Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Paul: 0:15

I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:16

And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:18

Each episode we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Do I need approval for

Karen: 0:25

So this one has lots and lots of layers. I want to just this?" point out, there's sort of two sides of it. There's the hierarchical I go to my boss and I ask for approval and then there's the more consensus model which is, I'm going to do a thing on behalf of the group, do I have to go to the group and get approval to do that thing? And in the end, I think the dynamics are actually pretty similar about whether I need approval or not. And I want to jump into a space of looking at where you rely on structure to figure out this answer or where you rely on culture to figure out this answer. And so by structure, I mean is there a rule or a process or a thing that's defined that, it says in a rule book somewhere, that I am supposed to go and get my boss to sign before I mean take my permission slip and get it signed. That kind of thing. Or these are decisions made by the whole consensus group, ao I have to go back to the group for consensus, or I don't, and I have the authority to just make this decision myself. And so we can rely on that, and that tends to give us a lot of sort of sense of safety. I did what I was supposed to do look here, I have this document that says I'm in the right place, all of that. And when it comes to relationships, I think it doesn't serve us very well. And what serves us often better is what I'm going to call the culture of it, which is the awareness of "Is this the kind of thing that others would like input on?" Is this the kind of thing that it serves the group for me to pause and say, "Is this okay?" Or is this the kind of thing that the group is better served and happier if I just do the thing, and get it done, and nobody has to put time or energy or thought into it? It just gets done.

Paul: 2:26

I think there's another side there that's interesting to explore. Because what you've talked about is what's useful to the group? Is it useful for the group for me to just do this or for me to get approval? And I think there's the other interesting side of, "What is it that is telling me that I need approval. In the culture or that's in me, that's telling me that I need approval. Because I might be in a culture that says, you can just do this, and I'm feeling like, I need someone to tell me that it's okay to do. And so it's interesting for me to think about the situations where our answer to this question is at odds with either the structure or the culture we find ourselves in. So either the structure or the culture says, we don't need approval for this, we can just do it and we find ourselves thinking, "But I want to get approval for it." Or we're in a place where the thing is telling us that we do need approval for it, a nd we don't want to do that. We just want to act. And I think that's where we get into a tricky place is navigating the mismatch between our internal sense of of how this ought to be and how things are.

Karen: 3:55

Yeah. I'll tell a couple of stories where I think this goes badly in kind of opposite directions. So one was a case of an individual where we're organizing a group and we need a bank account. And an individual is happy to go do the work of getting the bank account. He says, "So I'm going to go research what the options are, and I'll bring back three or four choices in the group can talk about it." And the just group said, "No. We do not want to think about which bank account. There is there's not a wrong choice. You are not going to make a bad decision. We do not need to spend just go open a bank account. You're good." And so that's wanting the approval, and getting approval is taking it group resources that don't benefit the group at all. Just do the thing. And then the way I've seen it go the other way is when a group a subgroup was delegated to do a thing, and others gave input. In this case, I was the one outside the subgroup giving input saying, "I really don't want you to do the thing you're considering doing. I think we need more process. I think we need more steps. I think the whole group needs to be consulted for these reasons." And the subgroup said, "Well, we're delegated to do it. We don't have to listen to you." So they relied on the structure, ignored what I would call the culture, and I can tell you, nothing good for relationships happened in that. I got irritated. They didn't like it when I was irritated. That all just went sideways, because although yes, structurally, they had the authority, ignoring the input coming so knowingly going against something that someone feels strongly about that is going to impact that person was problematic. So I think those are sort of cases where relying on the structure too heavily, or being too invested in I need approval, things go badly, quickly.

Paul: 5:50

I want to point to that the last example you gave there, because I see this a lot, where the structure or the culture gives us the authority to do a thing, and we are getting signals that there's something else going on. So somebody else is saying, "Hey, I think you need to think about this more, hey, I'm a little concerned about it." And you're like,"Look, I can make this decision. I have the authority to do it." And I think for any group, or any any individual who has the the structural or cultural authority to do a thing, when they start to get information like that, it's super common for them to get defensive. To go,"Well, I have the authority to do this, I can just do this thing." It's like, "Yes, you can, but that's probably a signal there's going to be a cost to doing it." And so I would, at that point, invoke the advice we always give on this show, which is: get curious about that. I get that it may feel like, "Oh, this is going to slow down the decision." But getting curious about it may actually speed things up in the long run. So I think that when you get information that whatever your normal system for approvals is your normal way of do we need approval for this thing or not is at odds with the situation, then that's a really good time to get curious."Oh, well, technically, I or we have the authority to make this decision. But something is coming at us, that's telling us, we maybe need to have a broader view than we do right now."

Karen: 7:35

Yeah, and I want to balance that with the flip side, which is in my example, this group? They were doing a ton of work. And to give it the consideration that I really thought needed to happen was going to add to their workload, and there was no way around that. They felt some urgency about it, and we had some different beliefs about what had or hadn't been decided by the whole group, so there was that kind of clutter. I think that there's a space in there, there's an in-between of if they had said to me, "We hear that you don't agree with this. We don't have time to do it. For these reasons, we're not going to do what you're asking." And for whatever the reason, I might still not like it, I might have still gotten irritated, we might still have some cleanup to do later what they actually did was just dropped me off the email threads and do it anyway without telling me, which is a worse idea. Because they didn't even acknowledge... they didn't even acknowledge me, basically. They didn't say, "We are in a position where the impact on us is intolerable to do what you're asking, and therefore we're not going to do it." And I think that can be a legitimate position. So I want to be careful that I'm not saying that every time someone outside the group, the team, or outside the person doing it is saying, "You need to do it my way, because that's better..." Well, if I'm not the one doing it, then there probably should be some limit to how much I can muck that up. But keeping lines of communication open, and just staying honest with, "Yeah, you're not gonna like it, and we know you're not gonna like it. And we're acknowledging that and, and you get your opinion about it. And we're the ones stuck in this particular mess, and we're gonna find our way out of it." I think there's some, some real value in that. So I want to hold the both-and of that situation that it's not always that you just stop and say, "Oh, well, somebody is not happy, so we'll go do a bunch of process around that. Sometimes you're not, actually, but I think you need to be clean and clear about that decision and own that, "Yeah, I am knowingly doing the thing you're not gonna like, and we can talk about it later. But right now, I'm just going to do the thing you're not gonna like and I'm sorry you don't like it."

Paul: 9:55

Yeah. And I think the degree to which you can acknowledge that your decision is gonna have a real impact on them that you wish it didn't, and being able to acknowledge these are the things that are happening in the context or the situation that are driving us, and also not use those as an excuse not just say, "Well, because this is urgent, we're going to disregard your thing." Being able to say, "We get that this is going to impact you in a way that that you don't like, and we don't like that it's going to have that. Also, these things are happening in this situation that are pushing us to do these things, and we are taking responsibility for this." Owning your own part in it, too. I think it's important to acknowledge all three of those. When you do that, even when a person doesn't like the result, they can at least understand. They can feel heard. There's less damage done to the working relationship than if you just brush it aside. You don't always have to do what they're asking you to do, or even redo the work you've done. But I think if you don't acknowledge that at all and don't acknowledge it skillfully then the cost of making the decision you're going to make goes up.

Karen: 11:17

Yeah, so I'll just tie in there ahat you said earlier about being curious about it. If you have been curious and you have given as much as you can, which may not be a lot but some amount of consideration for, "Is this thing that they're asking for actually a think we should be paying attention to?" and they have a sense that you have at least answered that question, maybe differently than they would have, but that's a piece of the acknowledgement as well.

Paul: 11:44

I think that also applies to the flip side of this, which is where I'm either as an individual or in a subgroup that's been delegated to not wanting to move forward without everybody buying in, or without important people buying in. I think if we can acknowledge what's going on in us so going back to your example of the the person who was going to do the research around the bank account being able to say, "Oh, I recognize why I want to bring this to you for approval is... Here is what I'm worried about. Here's what's going on in me." And then the group can say, or the person who's delegating to that person can say, "Oh, okay, I see why you're concerned about this. Okay, here are some constraints or some guidelines or some boundaries." And also what came up in your situation,"Here's what's going on with us why we don't want to have to do a back and forth on this. And so I get that it is going to be a little uncomfortable for you to act on your own. What would make it more comfortable for you to just take this and run with this?" And so I think if we can have a deeper conversation about why it is that we want approval for a thing at maybe multiple different steps then we can actually talk about and ideally move quickly towards how do we delegate this? And that's a vulnerable conversation.

Karen: 13:14

Yeah. And I think some elements of that, or maybe some strategies around that, so one thing is just clear contracting. So if you're not sure, for somebody to be saying, "So we're clearly delegating this." Like we're explicitly saying, you know, "Do you want me to come back and talk to you before this?" "No, we don't." So just really clear contracting around,"Yes, it is delegated, we want you to handle it." I mean, that by itself often gives people the assurance, "Okay, I'm not jumping off and grabbing more power. I'm not going to get beaten up for that later." And then I think another element is to really think through what level of interaction is needed. Often there's this sense of,"Well, the whole group needs a chance to weigh in, and people need to know what's going on." So that can often be handled through transparency and openness. So, as we're putting this project together, all of our content is on shared drives, and now and again, we send out a notification that, "Hey, we put a new thing up. Take a look, if you're interested. We're open to feedback." So that sort of transparency and openness piece, as opposed to actual decision making authority shifting. And so there's space to say, "We're rolling along here and periodically we're going to let you know this is the time to take a look. But we're not going to delay our progress or not very much and and we're going to be prepared to go ahead and make decisions without waiting for the next board meeting or the next whatever the thing is. Just the ability of a whole group to get in and kind of chew on it. "We're going to be open so anybody, if you look at it and you have concerns, let us know and then we will consider those concerns." We might invite you into a meeting; any number of ways we might engage you. And this is comes to, for me sort of a question around, "Do we need everyone everyone to agree to the thing? Or do we just need everyone who cares to be part of the thing?" Or everyone who has a role or something like that. And so often we can get to a more efficient, more useful conversation, not looking for approval, but just being open and inviting whatever input.

Paul: 15:34

Yeah, I think that is a useful place to be at, regardless of how sort of the authority is structured or delegated in your organization. Even if you don't need approval, having your senses open for input throughout the process is always useful. Because that's also just going to tell you what the quality of the decision that you're making is likely to be and the factors that you need to consider. Being able to sort of be aware, and always be sensing rather than sort of, "I'm going to go off and hide in a hole for three months and come back out with a full fledged thing." I think that that piece is always useful, regardless of how you've got your structure or your culture set.

Karen: 16:23

I think there's a nice synergy here that the more you're doing that what I think of as cultural piece of having that awareness and being curious and all of that, the less there's going to be a need for approvals in your organization. If there's a sense that we trust each other and that we know that our input will be considered, then my need to say, "I want to make sure I get to approve that before it happens" goes away, because I know I'm going to have the influence I need.

Paul: 16:49

It goes back to things we've talked about on a couple of other episodes. We've talked about how delegate. We talked about, "Can we make this decision without trust?" And that trust is sometimes a substitute for communication. If I know that you have access to all the information that I would give you anyway, and I know that you tend to consult that information, then unless there's something super urgent that's coming up for me, I can trust that you're going to take that into consideration, and I don't actually need to talk to you about it, which can allow you to run faster on the thing that ideally is important to me.

Karen: 17:28

Yeah. So I think what we're pointing to here is that the need for approval can show up in structural places or cultural places. And that the more that we handle it at the cultural level, the less we're going to need it at the structural level. And that a lot of that culture is around curiosity, both about why do I feel like I need to get approval? Or why do I feel like that other person should get my approval? Where's that coming from? What's feeding that? And how does that process of getting approval or not serve the group toward a better decision? And how does it come with costs that we might be happier to avoid by skipping that step? And keeping the idea that transparency and openness for input is often a substitute for approval that actually works better in the culture and really honors the efficiency that's being needed in the process.

Paul: 18:20

Absolutely. Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 18:26

And I'm Karen Gimnig, and this has been Employing Differences.