As you know, I mix my topics between helping you be successful in your corporate career, helping you grow your personal business, and helping you grow personally so you can successfully lead your own business and team. It’s all a win, right? Today I want to tackle the perspective: pushback when you see an issue.
Now, this need arises more commonly in the corporate world. I say that because, in the corporate world, you have to lead up. You aren’t the CEO of that company, which means when you see an issue, you have to push back.
So let’s say the company comes up with a new project for your team to execute. You listen, you digest it, you are always on board with getting it done, but as you listen, you are seeing a lot of challenges, a lot of gaps they didn’t solve for, and a lot of risks. You have two pathways here.
- Stay silent, execute, and move on. But honestly, know you will be miserable because you see this project as doomed to fail and you really don’t think it’s a good idea.
- Raise your concerns to your leader, share the facts, the concerns, what still needs to be solved for, etc. Let him or her know that you will follow direction, but need to ensure the key pieces have been thought through. Many times, when we have these conversations, the leadership team has thought through the pieces we didn’t hear about, they just didn’t share all of the details. So, that’s a relief, right? Other times they missed those details but you speaking up saved time and money for the organization. Either way, it’s a win.
Many times we try to stay quiet and stay out of the fray, but that just puts more frustration into our minds and hearts as a result. Then, can we be fully productive and present in our own businesses when we are feeling that way? Nope.
A little caveat. Don’t be disrespectful. But still, be you. Be confident in your concerns. Ask for clarity. Depending on your role, you may need to push fairly hard and be fully direct because that’s expected for the position you hold. The point is you, get it cleaned up, move that business forward, so you can then focus on moving your own business forward.
The goal from this lesson is to not simply learn how to push back or lead up, but how to present your ideas to your own business team to help them understand what you want to from them. Do you need someone to help you come up with the details? Or, have you come up with the details you simply need them to share concerns on those details.
Do you need to push back on anything in the corporate world? Do you already know how you will share new ideas and projects with your team?
Be Legendary!