Photo by Felix Mittermeier.
We’re on vacation this week and trying to give the computers and our brains a rest. We’ve got two new co-pour style pieces for you below. One from Melissa. One from Johnathan. No headlines. No hot takes. Just ruminations about life and work and all the ways it could be great.
— Melissa & Johnathan
Why Melissa’s bringing corporate values on vacation
Careful, your organization’s values are showing
We staycation. I wish I could tell you we do something super glamorous and far away and jetsetter but we don’t. Maybe someday that will make sense but our youngest kid is still young enough that big travel is a Big Endeavour. For now, we putter around our city and go to all the cool things that are too crowded to do on weekends.
We recently took the girls to an amusement park on the Toronto Island. As parks go, it’s pretty mellow. You have to take a ferry to get there. The rides are meant for little kids. They work for older kids but there isn’t a vomit coaster to be found in the whole place. The whole thing runs on paper tickets and by the time you’re a tween, you’re too old to find any amusement at this park.
On the first ride inside the park, a sign said 3 tickets to ride. The teenager running the ride said his boss told him it was 4 tickets. He’s got a line of parents and children who expect one thing and are told something else. And he’s trying hard to get the parents to go along with him. They aren’t having it.
As this whole thing unfolds, I’m thinking about corporate values.
We meet execs who aren’t sure what values are for or worry that they’re a total waste of time. I understand the concern. But, here I am, watching this teen try to navigate a tricky situation.
On the one hand, there’s what his boss told him to do. On the other hand, there’s a sign that contradicts his boss’s instruction and a growing mass of parents and young children. And on the other side of his decision is a set of outcomes. How battered he feels by the parents. How angry his boss might be about the lost revenue. How the parents feel about being shaken down for the extra ticket.
This is where your corporate values who up. Not in the moments where the answer is obvious but in the ones where it isn’t.
If you know your company values the additional revenue, you make one call. If your company values compliance of employees, you may make the same call but for a different reason. If you are told to value the family experience of the park above all else, you make a different call entirely. And there’s no right or wrong. There’s only right for this organization based on what they value.
The teen making the call is doing so on his own. Should he listen to his boss and piss off the parents? Or should he listen to the parents and piss off his boss? Most people show up to work wanting to do a good job. If someone is failing to do a good job, consider that they’re missing important context. This kid genuinely didn’t know what constituted a good job because he didn’t know what the organization cared about.
Fast forward a couple hours, we’re at the butcher by our house. We’re there at least once a week and they know our crew. Our little kid insists on being the one to press the button to open the door. And our big kid wants a snack. She’s got some allowance money and even offers to get something for her sister. But…she dropped some change on the walk to the butcher. She is 20 cents short. We could pitch in but we’ve only got plastic. Running a credit card through a machine costs more than twenty cents.
The man working the cash register grabs two dimes from a cup and says don’t worry about it. He says this to my big kid directly. And in that moment, she learns several important lessons all at once. About kindness, about humanity, and about community.
And just like that, I know what their company values. I don’t have to see their company handbook. I don’t have to look at the posters in the breakroom.
Does your company have stated values? And if so, where do they show up for your employees? And without seeing a list, could your customers or partners guess what they are?
What Johnathan’s disagreeing with
Last week I spoke with a person who wants to move into management. A privilege of our work is that Melissa and I get have a lot of these conversations. Sometimes people seek us out, sometimes a friend sends them. We try to be helpful where we can.
We also try to follow up. To see whether our advice did the thing you want advice to do – to see if it actually helped. And I’ve noticed something about those follow ups. I’ve noticed that there’s a kind of advice we give that tends to work out best. More about that in a minute.
So anyhow, this person was asking about moving into management. We talked about books to read and where to apply the grains of salt. We talked about the skills that were helpful to develop early, and how normal it is to feel underwater. I wasn’t sure if I was being particularly useful. Then they said,
“Anyhow, the advice I’ve gotten is just to make sure people know that I’m interested in a move. So that I’m well positioned when an opportunity comes up.”
And then I knew I could be helpful.
“The person who gave you that advice is wrong.” I said.
It’s not a 100% lock that they are wrong. And it’s certainly very popular advice to give – I’ve heard it lots of times. Put your hand up. Ask for what you want.
But I mentioned in the opening that there’s a pattern to the advice Melissa and I give that tends to stick. The pattern is this: we seem to be good at dispelling the bad advice you got from someone else. So let’s talk about this advice. Because I will bet a shiny nickel that several of you are labouring under some version of it right now.
This is advice grounded in “how it’s supposed to work.” Your manager is supposed to respond well to a request like this. They’re supposed to see it as initiative, as an expression of potential. As the organization grows, they’re supposed to look for places where you might be a good fit for a new opening. Maybe the person giving this advice had a boss like that. Maybe they think they are that kind of boss.
But to believe that most bosses will do the things they are supposed to takes a real suspension of disbelief, doesn’t it? I mean, we’re working as hard as we can over here to help them out. And I agree that they should do these things, and be held accountable for them. But there are a lot of managers in the world. If we’re giving advice, we’ve gotta start in reality, right? I can tell you that most of them want to do right by their people. We know that, we’ve talked to thousands of them. But are they educated, equipped, supported, or recognized for it? In reality? Hit or miss. Really hit or miss.
Here’s how a lot of managers actually hear a request like this: “Shit.” For many bosses, this request is a signal that you’re unsatisfied with your current role. It means they’ve got more work to do. Work they might not know how to do. Work they might not want to do. Some of you reading this know that your boss is one of these. I see you.
If it comes at exactly the right time – maybe the team is getting too big and they haven’t put any thought into how to cope – it could be welcome. Sometimes your lotto numbers hit. But most of the time they don’t have a pat answer, and can’t just poof up a new team for you to lead.
So they buy time. And now you enter that gross phase where you’re both trapped. The one where you don’t want to keep bringing it up, but also worry that they’ve forgotten. The one where they have no new ideas and hope you don’t bring it up again. I mean, tell me I’m wrong, here.
Advice like this is a trap. If it were an obvious dead end you wouldn’t take it. Instead it works more like a lottery ticket. It’s attractive and easy to follow, plausible enough to believe, but unlikely to actually work. Work advice is full of these. Other hits include: “Keep your head down and you’ll get recognized.”Also, “Tell them they’ll get a bonus if they get it done.” And who could forget, “Just go get a competing offer for your boss to match.” Advice that assumes your boss will always behave as they’re supposed to is a trap. It’s not that it won’t sometimes go your way, it’s just low odds. I want you to have better odds.
And if you find that you’re in a trap because of bad advice, stop taking it. I’m not saying don’t put your hand up. I’m saying don’t stop there and assume that it will work the way it’s supposed to work. But if you’re a long time reader, you already know what advice I’d give on the subject instead.
