Please Reassure Them

You're working on a high-risk project, and the VP of Marketing wants you to reassure the product manager that you'll meet the promised delivery date. Or you've been tasked to find out why one of the company's products was recalled, and the CEO wants to know whether a repetition could ever happen. Or some other embarrassing event has occurred, and it has fallen to you to find a path forward. Isaac, who was in the lead of whatever unit got into such a mess (if the event is in the past), or who is in the lead of the unit that could create a future mess, has asked you to "please reassure them," that everything will be OK and all is well.

Isaac has given you his word that all will be well. That's nice, but very far from good enough. If you do as Isaac asks, your career is at risk.

Here are some guidelines for avoiding your own entanglement in the looming failure you've been charged with investigating.

Understand your personal risks

Although your role as investigator is legitimate on the surface, it's possible that your real task is to provide the answer almost everyone wants: everything will be OK. If there's strong evidence that everything will be OK, the risk to you is small. But unless you have access to independent, objective expertise, or unless you're qualified — and permitted and able — to assess the evidence yourself, you'll be relying on the judgments of others if you declare the situation under control. That could be a very risky act indeed.

Nobody can predict the future

Assurances Although your role as investigator
is legitimate on the surface, it's
possible that your real task is to
provide the answer almost everyone
wants: everything will be OKof the 100% kind about future events, from absolutely anyone, no matter how respected or expert, are so much bilge water. Nothing about the future is 100% predictable. There's always a small chance of the unexpected occurring. The Titanic was widely believed to be "practically unsinkable."

When you receive such 100% assurances, ask probing questions of the person providing the assurances. Start with, "How can you be 100% certain of anything involving the future?" And get their responses in writing. Such things look a whole lot dumber in print than they sound in person.

Be judicious in your reporting

If you can't persuade Isaac to be more circumspect, then gather enough information to provide a foundation for a report along the lines of, "They seem convinced that all will be well, but I couldn't find hard data strong enough to support their claims."

You probably aren't free to refuse to pass Isaac's claims along, but you're certainly free to include your own assessment along with Isaac's claims. In formulating your own assessment, be careful to restrict it to facts. Unless you have justification, you really can't say that Isaac's claims are false. But you probably can say that you haven't found support for Isaac's claims.

When you do provide the result of your investigation, take care to be explicit if you're merely passing along the judgments of others. Express your projections in terms of probabilities, quantified to the extent possible. If you can supply percentages, do so, but otherwise use phrases like, "strong likelihood," or "small chance." For example, you could say that there's a 90% chance that things are OK.

If in your judgment a report about the uncertain future is required to make predictions without reference to probabilities or chance, there's an elevated likelihood that you've been cast in the role of someone to be blamed in case all does not go well.  Top    Next Issue

Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Workplace Politics:

When Leaders Fight

Organizations often pretend that feuds between leaders do not exist. But when the two most powerful people in your organization go head-to-head, everyone in the organization suffers. How can you survive a feud between people above you in the org chart?

Organizational Loss: Searching Behavior

When organizations suffer painful losses, their responses can sometimes be destructive, further harming the organization and its people. Here are some typical patterns of destructive responses to organizational loss.

How to Create Distrust

A trusting environment is critical to high performance. That's why it's important to recognize behaviors that erode trust in others. Here's a little catalog of methods people use — intentionally or not — to create distrust.

Deceptive Communications at Work

Most workplace communication training emphasizes constructive uses of communication. But when we also understand how communication can be abused, we're better able to defend ourselves from abusive communication. One form of abusive communication is deception.

Narcissistic Behavior at Work: VI

Narcissistic behavior at work distorts decisions, disrupts relationships, and generates toxic conflict. These consequences limit the ability of the organization to achieve its goals. In this part of our series we examine the effects of exploiting others for personal ends.

See also Workplace Politics and Effective Communication at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming September 26: Congruent Decision-Making: I

Decision-makers who rely on incomplete or biased information are more likely to make faulty decisions. Congruent decision-making can limit the incidence of bad decisions. Available here and by RSS on September 26.

And on October 3: Congruent Decision-Making: II

Decision-makers who rely on incomplete or biased information are more likely to make decisions that don't fit the reality of their organizations. Here's Part II of a framework for making decisions that fit. Available here and by RSS on October 3.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenmTqiwrQZdcOsEDpkner@ChacNnNEOZqPJWeVaXTZoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, USD 28.99)

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

10 Non-Technical Phenomena That Lead to Technical Debt

When organizations set about gaining control of their accumulated and newly incurring technical debt, a common error of thinking is that the problem can be addressed by modifying their technical processes alone. That can be effective in cases in which the causes of technical debt are found only in the engineering and IT organizations. But those cases are rare. This program surveys ten examples of organizational phenomena that lead to technical debt and which are not restricted to the engineering or IT organizations. Indeed, many of these phenomena cannot be found in the engineering or IT organizations, or if found there, they have relatively small effects on technical debt. For each of the ten phenomena, we describe how it leads to technical debt formation or persistence, and what can be done to mitigate its effects. Most important, we explain how effective control of technical debt requires contributions from a broad array of organizational roles. Read more about this program. Here's a date for this program:

• Wherever you are: it's a teleseminar: September 20, Teleseminar, Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI). Register now.
   

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented 6:00 PM June 29 (Eastern Time), Monthly Webinar, Technobility Webinar Series. You can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.