I resonated a lot with your point about being asked the same question from multiple people, and how you can scale yourself. I see this as a key leadership responsibility. And if you frame it that way, you don’t need to wait for questions to come your way either.
Thank you for this great post. You emphasize two important skills to learn (or fears to overcome...): how to ask and how to say no. Both take courage, and both can be done with courtesy and respect to the other.
Great post as always. Recommend checking out the Asch conformity experiment as well. Explains a lot about the groupthink we've seen over the past few years.
I also advise folks to "scale yourself" when you see a pattern. I remind myself with this small count -- "One, Too, Many"...as in, *three requests is "one too many"* to answer as a one-off. The third time , "Document" it and send a pointer to the proper "document" -- whether that's actually a document, a dashboard, a piece of code, a google query...
I found myself nodding along as I was reading and left with 2 questions at the end:
1. How do you (generic) deal with an incessant stream of requests coming from your manager whose requests obviously cannot be ignored or deferred for long, when they are oblivious/don’t take the time to understand the “simple” off-the-cuff question is going to take 3 people one week to analyze? I have been in situations where I had to carve out team capacity just to deal with the barrage, so it didn’t distract everyone. Even worse are the requests that come in with a timeline - sometimes the only way to get it done is to throw more people at it, pulling them away from other work, or guesstimating.
2. I have learned to ask “how much effort do you estimate for this request?” when I make an ask, after my own experience on the receiving end. Any other tips to be a more effective manager?
I love how someone in the org replied to me when I asked her a question, "My team is currently prioritizing x, y, and z. Would you like your request to take precedence to one or more of those items?"
It helped me see that it was not a simple thing, and she was asking my input on what to drop to make it happen.
Totally agree on #2. Always ask whether they want the 5 min answer or the 5 day answer. Sometimes people think it is easier than it is.
Charles Oncken wrote a book called "Who's got the Monkey?" and in it he captures some useful tidbits in his own inimitable way. (From memory, so please look up his very thin book, or his classic "Managing Management Time").
A "monkey" is the next step to be taken when two people part ways. If you don't become expert in "monkey deflection" you risk drowning in other people's monkeys. If you do end up with a monkey, there are a few options, all of which are legit in certain circumstances:
1) feed the monkey and return it -- do the task
2) renegotiate whether & when & how much to feed the monkey - ask again if they need the monkey before starting to feed ... several comments go here
3) starve the monkey -- don't do the task, and see if the other party asks about it. Surprisingly often they will no longer need it (or have forgotten they asked!), and simply keeping track of the monkey is enough to still be responsible enough. This one is a bit edgy, but folks actually use this strategy quite a bit.
4) "kill" the monkey -- explicitly say no and see if they ask to renegotiate. A surprising amount of times they don't -- see #3.
I resonated a lot with your point about being asked the same question from multiple people, and how you can scale yourself. I see this as a key leadership responsibility. And if you frame it that way, you don’t need to wait for questions to come your way either.
Thank you for this great post. You emphasize two important skills to learn (or fears to overcome...): how to ask and how to say no. Both take courage, and both can be done with courtesy and respect to the other.
Great post as always. Recommend checking out the Asch conformity experiment as well. Explains a lot about the groupthink we've seen over the past few years.
My teacher showed this to us in high school. It has been a long time since I read up on it, and it still fascinates me.
There was a podcast that played the last moments of the Jonestown massacre where people willingly drank poison and fed their kids poison due to conformity, and it was terrifying. To conform to the point of death says a lot about us humans. https://youarenotsosmart.com/2019/07/02/yanss-157-the-psychology-behind-why-people-dont-speak-out-against-and-even-defend-norms-they-secretly-despise/
Speaking of Jonestown, I wrote a piece about them and other cults: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-become-a-cult-leader
I also advise folks to "scale yourself" when you see a pattern. I remind myself with this small count -- "One, Too, Many"...as in, *three requests is "one too many"* to answer as a one-off. The third time , "Document" it and send a pointer to the proper "document" -- whether that's actually a document, a dashboard, a piece of code, a google query...
I found myself nodding along as I was reading and left with 2 questions at the end:
1. How do you (generic) deal with an incessant stream of requests coming from your manager whose requests obviously cannot be ignored or deferred for long, when they are oblivious/don’t take the time to understand the “simple” off-the-cuff question is going to take 3 people one week to analyze? I have been in situations where I had to carve out team capacity just to deal with the barrage, so it didn’t distract everyone. Even worse are the requests that come in with a timeline - sometimes the only way to get it done is to throw more people at it, pulling them away from other work, or guesstimating.
2. I have learned to ask “how much effort do you estimate for this request?” when I make an ask, after my own experience on the receiving end. Any other tips to be a more effective manager?
I love how someone in the org replied to me when I asked her a question, "My team is currently prioritizing x, y, and z. Would you like your request to take precedence to one or more of those items?"
It helped me see that it was not a simple thing, and she was asking my input on what to drop to make it happen.
Totally agree on #2. Always ask whether they want the 5 min answer or the 5 day answer. Sometimes people think it is easier than it is.
Charles Oncken wrote a book called "Who's got the Monkey?" and in it he captures some useful tidbits in his own inimitable way. (From memory, so please look up his very thin book, or his classic "Managing Management Time").
A "monkey" is the next step to be taken when two people part ways. If you don't become expert in "monkey deflection" you risk drowning in other people's monkeys. If you do end up with a monkey, there are a few options, all of which are legit in certain circumstances:
1) feed the monkey and return it -- do the task
2) renegotiate whether & when & how much to feed the monkey - ask again if they need the monkey before starting to feed ... several comments go here
3) starve the monkey -- don't do the task, and see if the other party asks about it. Surprisingly often they will no longer need it (or have forgotten they asked!), and simply keeping track of the monkey is enough to still be responsible enough. This one is a bit edgy, but folks actually use this strategy quite a bit.
4) "kill" the monkey -- explicitly say no and see if they ask to renegotiate. A surprising amount of times they don't -- see #3.
The starving strategy did not cross my mind, thank you!