Do I Need to Say That?
We’re all leaders. And leaders like to lead. A lot of times leading looks like sharing our opinion. I’m guilty as charged. We’re leaders so we’re always looking to make things around us better.
I do it with restaurant seating procedures, the check in process at my gym, the subway system in New York City, the Uber app. You name it and I will find a problem and try to solve it.
That’s why we’re leaders.
We’re always looking to contribute.
But, the problem is many times I just talk and share without pausing and thinking.
When I share my opinion on the check out process at Trader Joe’s with the cashier he isn’t negatively affected by it. He’s actually probably amused and wondering what’s wrong with me and honestly doesn’t really care what I think.
But, when I continuously share my opinion with people on my team on their projects then that can have an unnecessary negative affect.
The 20% Rule
I recently implemented a rule for myself.
If what I say to the person on my team who is working on this project will not make the project at least 20% better then I’m not going to say it.
Because the minute I say I would change this font or I would add the website to this post or I would choose a different picture for that graphic now it becomes my project instead of theirs.
And that’s ok if what I’m saying will make it significantly better (at least 20%).
I want my team to own the project, and the more I share my opinion the less ownership they feel.
Have you ever rented a car? Do you put the same care and concern into that rental car as you do your own car that you own? Of course not. The same principle can be applied in our work environments.
The great leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith says this, “Will this comment improve the commitment of the person?” If not then there’s no need to say it.
One more thing to consider in this:
Is what you’re saying even right? If you hired this person to do the job wheather it’s accounting, music, production, marketing, etc. then they should be the expert in that area. They are the ones reading the articles listening to the podcasts and doing the research in their particular area which most of the time means they know more about the subject. If you don’t trust that they are the expert in the area and you feel like a the leader you know more about their area then you need to reevaluate their role and find someone else.
As the leader your job is not to go deep in every single subject, your job is to go wide over a variety of subjects.
For example when I served as the Creative Director at a church there’s no way I could be the expert and constantly know the current trends and best practices for social media, video, website, email marketing, graphics, photography, production, etc. So I had to hire really good people in those areas and trust that they know more than me. My job was to be knowledgeable enough to go wide in all of those areas, but trust that my team was going deep in those areas and making decisions based on their expertise.