
A group of Emperor Penguins. The Emperors are famous for what seems to us to be a tortuous and inconvenient way to incubate their eggs. Males spend much of the winter huddled together in large flocks to conserve body heat, each male shielding a precious egg from the cold in a brood pouch over his feet. The males fast for two months during incubation, while the females go off to feed. This seems a rather extreme approach to child rearing until you consider that this method does provide the Emperors what they need.
What they need is time. The Antarctic summer is too short for chicks to incubate and mature enough to survive a winter. By incubating during winter, Emperors give their chicks an extra two months to prepare for the next winter. And when the chicks emerge from their eggs, the food they need is most abundant — perfectly timed. Read more about the Emperor life cycle. Photo by Josh Landis courtesy Wikimedia.
Sometimes you're asked by another, "What do you need?" or "What do you need to make this work?" Recognize these questions as great gifts — most often, the asker is sincerely trying to help. Sadly, and too often, the answers we supply are self-defeating. They do lead the asker to supply what we ask for, but we ask for things that don't really help, and we fail to ask for things that would really help.
How does this happen and what can we do about it?
I've seen several different ways to supply self-defeating responses to this great gift of a question. Rather than offer a catalog, here are some guidelines for providing helpful responses.
- Know the difference between "wants" and "needs"
- Confusing what we'd like with what we actually must have can be disastrous. We can find ourselves spending goodwill and political capital reaching for non-essentials.
- A simple test to distinguish wants and needs begins with asking yourself, "If I don't get this, is the goal achievable?" If the answer is no, it's a need. If the answer is yes, then ask, "At what additional cost is the goal achievable?" The answer to that then becomes a new need.
- Know your redlines
- Once we know our needs, we usually find that some are a bit mushy. For example, we might not know how long something will take or how much it will cost, or how much mastery a candidate team member truly possesses.
- Even when needs are mushy, you probably can determine your minimum requirements — your redlines. Know your redlines and be prepared to communicate them clearly.
- Stay in your own hula-hoop
- Resisting the temptation to take on the problems of others is difficult. (See "Stay in Your Own Hula Hoop," Point Lookout for June 27, 2001) When answering the what-do-you-need question, we sometimes include the needs of others on whom we depend for our needs.
- Instead of listing others' needs, enumerate your own. Include the items you need from those others. What your suppliers need is not one of your needs. It's one of theirs.
- Respond with whats, not hows
- Problem solving Confusing what we'd like
with what we actually must
have can be disastrousis another difficult-to-resist temptation. We tend to offer what we think will be the ingredients of solutions rather than the outcomes we actually need. - Instead, focus your answers on what you need. You can suggest ways of achieving it, and those suggestions might lead to joint problem solving — a most desirable result. But be clear about the distinction between what you need and how to get there.
Most important, practice. Before you enter the conversation, assume the best — assume that you'll receive this great gift of a question. Making up your answer on the fly might work, but it's risky. It's far better to work out your answer in advance, using these guidelines. You can begin by asking yourself this question: what do I need to practice answering the what-do-you-need question? Top
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
Devious Political Tactics: Credit Appropriation
- Managers and supervisors who take credit for the work of subordinates or others who feel powerless are
using a tactic I call Credit Appropriation. It's the mark of the unsophisticated political operator.
How to Get a Promotion in Line
- If you want a promotion in line — a promotion to the next supervisory level in your organization
— what should you do now to make it come about? What risks are there?
Social Transactions: We're Doing It My Way
- We have choices about how we conduct social transactions — greetings, partings, opening doors,
and so on. Some transactions require that we collaborate with others. In social transactions, how do
we decide whose preferences rule?
Holding Back: I
- When members of teams or groups hold back their efforts toward achieving group goals, schedule and budget
problems can arise, along with frustration and destructive intra-group conflict. What causes this behavior?
Stone-Throwers at Meetings: II
- A stone-thrower in a meeting is someone who is determined to halt forward progress. Motives vary, from
embarrassing the chair to holding the meeting hostage in exchange for advancing an agenda. What can
chairs do about stone-throwers?
See also Workplace Politics and Conflict Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming December 11: The Rhyme-as-Reason Effect
- When we speak or write, the phrases we use have both form and meaning. Although we usually think of form and meaning as distinct, we tend to assess as more meaningful and valid those phrases that are more beautifully formed. The rhyme-as-reason effect causes us to confuse the validity of a phrase with its aesthetics. Available here and by RSS on December 11.
And on December 18: The Trap of Beautiful Language
- As we assess the validity of others' statements, we risk making a characteristically human error — we confuse the beauty of their language with the reliability of its meaning. We're easily thrown off by alliteration, anaphora, epistrophe, and chiasmus. Available here and by RSS on December 18.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group