Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here. And I hope you're doing well.
Today's topic decision-making discretion and influence.
And all of this has been very top of mind for me, because of
an interesting experience, I had the other day, I was on my way
home and I wanted to stop at this restaurant in my
neighborhood to pick up some food, too.
Go, I hadn't placed an order. My plan was I'll just stop in
order. My food, get it and leave, but I
didn't actually check the hours that they closed and apparently
they closed at 8:00 p.m. and I got there around 810, I think
they were just, they were closing the door.
There were still people inside, you know, finishing their food,
but I walked in just as the person was closing the door.
And as I walked in, he kind of looked at me and I kind of
looked at him and we bought we both looked kind of confused
like what is happening right now and they're walking up to the
counter. And finally, he says, are you
here to pick something up? And I say well yes, but I have
to order it first because I didn't realize that this man was
actually trying to close the restaurant and he says, Go.
But we're closed and I said, oh no, you are really and he says,
yes and I'm still looking at him because my brain had not really
caught up. You know, I kind of had this
plan, I'm going to order, you know, my favorite food and I'm
going to go home and eat it and I you know my brain just kind of
got stuck in that moment of oh but no I was I was planning to
get something here. So he's looking at me, I'm
looking at him and at this point, now there are a couple
Other staff members looking at us.
And so the guy says, well what did you want to get?
And I say a chicken rice bowl, would it be possible to get a
chicken rice bowl and he looks over at his colleagues and they
have you know, the kind of confer for a moment and then I
see them nodding and he turns back to me it's like okay we can
do that. I said really oh my gosh, thank
you so much. So I order my chicken rice bowl.
And, you know, they bring it to me a few minutes later and I get
it and I leave and I'm feeling so grateful.
And there are a couple of things that happened in that moment
that I feel beautifully illustrate, these three concepts
of decision-making, discretion and influence.
So decision-making in that moment, someone had made a
decision, not at the level of the team that was running the
restaurant. But Someone else had made the
decision that we close at. 8:00, that was a decision that had
been made. Now in that moment as they were
closing, that person had the discretion meaning he had the
power to decide in that moment. The power to choose what to do
with this woman who walks in after their official closing
hours, who is looking for. Or a chicken rice ball.
He had this moment of discretion where he could choose.
Do we just say, so sorry. Come back tomorrow.
Or, you know, I'm and I'm guessing that they were also
thinking about how we packed everything up.
What, where are we in our process of closing down the
kitchen and cleaning things up, you know, maybe they don't have
the ingredients and things ready anymore.
Maybe they put it all away. So he had a moment of discretion
where even though the Vision had been made, we close at 8:00,
there was still a measure of possibility, a measure of Grace,
that they could choose to extend, to me, if they desire to
and then in that moment, also I had this ability to influence
what happened next. So, part of it was simply making
the ask I could have, you know, seen the door closing and read
the hours on the little you know, on the sign at the front
door and said oh it I'm too late.
I could have just decided to go home.
Had I noticed or when he first said?
Oh sorry we're closed. I could have just said, oh, I'm
so sorry. I didn't realize.
Okay, thanks so much, I'll see you.
But in that moment I was able to influence a different outcome
and I think of this a little bit like managing up this.
Really had all of the formal power.
I mean it was it was the restaurant, they were the staff,
they were running it, but in that moment I was able to manage
up a little bit. I was able to influence what
happened, simply by the way that I asked simply by questioning,
you know, not challenging not like, well, I'm here.
You should. You should do this.
But simply kind of being available for an alternative
thing. To happen, simply by kind of
maintaining the sense of possibility.
Is it possible to get a chicken rice bowl?
You know? Okay, I understand that is
closed and I'm wondering is this possible?
And then with their discretion, they chose to offer me some
Gray's and yes, to prepare this food for me.
And there are so many instances in your work life where you want
to be aware of these three things.
Sometimes you will be the decision.
Girl and your job is to make a decision.
It is very important that you understand how you make
decisions. A lot of us, initially, make
decisions on kind of a reflexive or reactive mode.
Meaning we make decisions based on what we think other people
will feel. We try to make decisions to
manage other people's emotions in advance.
We make decisions because we are Afraid of conflict.
Or we are afraid of letting people down.
We make decisions because there's a fear of being wrong,
or of messing up. And sometimes the way I see
this, for example, if someone will think will say, oh, I make
decisions based on, you know, lots of research.
But what that turns into is? It turns into spending way more
time than you need to, in doing the research.
Research can be quite infinite if you don't set a boundary and
kind of a hard stop, When you'll make that decision, you can be
researching things for forever, because there's always more to
discover. And what it really is.
It's almost like a fear of committing to a choice because
then you will feel a little more out of control like you won't be
able to ensure that outcome that you want.
And what you're really trying to do is you're trying to manage
uncertainty through excessive research, but there's always a
trade-off in terms. Of extending that decision.
And in terms of the time it will take to then get to the next
step. Also, sometimes people will say,
oh, I'm just very data-driven so they'll make a decision based on
data, but completely ignore the human component so they'll
Overlook the emotional part. It's interesting.
It can go either way, right? We either over focus on the
emotion and their decision-making or we Can
disregard it or just not be aware of it at all.
And sometimes we make decisions like our process for making
decisions is all about avoiding confrontation, which is another
side of I think people-pleasing is yes.
Like we have this desire that people feel good about the
decisions we make, but the other side of that is if you fear a
confrontation will happen based on the decision you make.
And just as one example I had this experience once where I was
in a program and the woman who was running the program was
deciding, when to host our call the group call and being, you
know, she's a very consensus-driven person.
She wanted to take everyone's schedule and needs into account
and for me, the thing that was so frustrating was I just wanted
her to make a decision. Just tell us when it's going to
be and she was so committed to Is that the decision-making
process when around and around and around?
Because, of course, it is going to be difficult to find the one
time of day in the week, when you've got people in different
time zones, the one time that will accommodate everybody and
for my part, it would have been so much easier and often what we
look to our leaders and our managers to do is, please make a
clear decision so that we can all then move forward.
So you want to know Sort of what is your decision making process.
What is the default? And you also want to go a little
deeper and say, what's behind? That is my desire for doing a
lot of research is that really being driven by a fear of being
perceived as wrong? Or am I really worried about
other people's emotions? You know, I like my initial
thought is oh, I like to be very consensus-driven but what's
behind? That is it Fear of how other
people will respond emotionally. Is it because there's a fear of
potential conflict or just feeling bad that somebody will
be disappointed. You want to understand how that
works for you especially as you rise in your career because you
will have more decisions to make often with higher levels of
uncertainty and imperfect information.
So getting Being comfortable with that, the other thing.
So around discretion is that sometimes, when you're managing
people, you will not necessarily be the person who makes the
high-level decision, but it will be yours to implement, or to
communicate. And that is where you have
discretion in. How do you want to implement
this decision? How do you want to communicate
this decision? And I'm thinking specifically
now about layoffs. So it might come to Is that
someone in a higher level of leadership, has made a decision
to lay off someone on your team or multiple people on your team
that was not your decision. It was a decision that someone
else made and now your job is to communicate that and to, you
know, kind of implement it. So now you have discretion
around how you want to do that. And we've seized a lot of
stories. I feel like right now about
people who do it really poorly as well as people who do it.
Well, so an example of of poorly doing it might be just sending a
bulk email to people or it might be something very depersonalized
or something that is not focused on the effect that this will
have on the other person, but just making it sound like a very
kind of cold, impersonal business decision.
You have the discretion to ask Yourself.
How can I communicate this in a way that is compassionate?
That is Humane in a way that can help support this person as they
transition out of this job into whatever they go.
Next what you know, what is it within my discretion to make
this as painless and supportive and helpful as possible?
Notice it knowing that of course, nobody wants to get laid
off unexpectedly. Sometimes that's a decision that
somebody else makes in your organization, you still have
that discretion that power to choose.
How will this go could go in a few different ways and then
influence becoming aware of how much influence you have and how
you want to use it. Because as you start thinking
about this, you begin to understand.
Oh, everyone else also has a certain measure of discretion in
the way they do things and part of your work as a manager, and
as a leader, is to use your influence, your ability to
affect what happens next in an intentional way.
So, when I sing influence, I don't mean being coercive or,
you know, like demanding or anything like that but it's
more. I have this awareness of when
we're in a relationship when we are in an ecosystem like in a
shared relational ecosystem, then the way that you show up
the way that you communicate the way that you respond to others.
Absolutely will influence what happens next.
So for example, if someone comes to you and they have Have some
really hard feedback for you, how you respond can influence.
What happens next or if someone comes to you with a mistake,
they say, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
I made this mistake and I'm now, I'm now really worried.
I'm not sure what to do. What happens next, how you
choose to respond will influence, kind of that
relationship and what, and what happens, one of my favorite
tools, or maybe, it's not even a tool, it's just a mindset, is
that anytime Someone is coming with feedback or saying I've
made a mistake. My favorite go-to response is.
Thank you for telling me because my mindset is, I would rather
have you tell me directly and quickly so that we can address
it. If it's unsolicited feedback.
Sometimes if you feel kind of ambushed like you weren't
expecting this feedback. It can feel a little
confronting. But again, I would rather have
someone tell me directly to my face.
Ace then either talk about me behind my back or feel this
lingering resentment that pops up in the form of passive
aggressive behavior. That is much more challenging to
address but if someone just comes and says hey I want to
give you some feedback about X Y and Z.
My first genuine response can be.
Thank you for telling me. I'm glad that you're being
direct and then you can choose what you want to do with that.
Because remember, not all feedback is.
Of equal value you want to be intentional and selective about
the feedback you take to heart and the feedback that you simply
Let Go. By is someone else's opinion
about how you should be. So, becoming aware of how does
influence work around you? How much influence you have to
affect the discretion, the choices of others?
And then also, you know, as I mentioned before being clear
about about what are the decisions that are yours to
make? And when a decision is not yours
then, how does your discretion fit into that and maybe even how
might you influence a decision maker?
And sometimes that is, by the way that you communicate, the
way that you share information the way that you share your
perspective, there are so many different ways to think about
it, so that is what I wanted. To share with you.
Oh, and one more thought. This is a note that I wanted to,
for sure, mention to you, is that when you are thinking
about, how to make a decision, or when you are thinking about
what is within your discretion, you know, what is your power to
choose within a certain space? I want to encourage you to also
consider an equitable lens. And by that, I mean for example
if If you have a team that is dispersed across different time
zones and you know that if you schedule any event online that
everyone needs to come to you know that it will be a greater
inconvenience for some folks than for others just because
that's the math of global time zones and schedules be mindful
and think about what is, you know, how?
The idea of an equitable outcome influence your decision-making.
Meaning if you know, someone will have to accommodate and
perhaps be more inconvenienced, who will those people be and
why. And just being mindful that we
don't fall into a pattern of some people always having to
accommodate or adjust to others. This is also helpful in terms of
Thinking about like just understanding your team as
humans. So for example if you have some
people on your team who are parents of young children the
way that they think about their availability might be different
than if you have people on your team who are not parents or who
are parents of adult children who are no longer in the home,
the way they think about what they are available for, might be
different. And this is not to say that you
need to do kind of these like invasive profiles of people's
personal lives but it is helpful to think in terms of these are
humans and we are multifaceted and we can be most effective
when we also consider the Equitable lens realizing, how
will this affect the different humans that are on this team as
one? Also example.
So I'm currently Lee facilitating a series of group
sessions on self-care for this group of entrepreneurs who are
participating in This Global program.
And because it is a global program.
And people are all around the world.
I am doing two sessions one in the morning Pacific and one at
11 p.m. at night. So, that is not ideal for me,
however, in my, you know, discretion, Don't have the
discretion. I did have the ability to say,
no, I'm not available for that. But what I thought about, in
terms of making that decision was understanding, people will
have to accommodate because I mean we're doing this globally.
We've got people in every you know almost every major time
zone around the world. So everyone will be flexing a
little bit. And for my part, I really wanted
to be able to offer a time that would be available for this one
group. Up of folks who are on a
different side of the world to me and I thought, you know, I I
mean I could not schedule it at 11 p.m. at night, but that would
ask more of them. And in terms of equity and in
terms of wanting to design an experience where I knew some of
us are going to have to flex a little outside of our
convenience. I decided I'm willing to take
that on like and also this is sustainable for me, this is not
everyday, this is, you know, like Just a few specific days
over the next two months and like, I am willing to do this.
I can do this. And so we had our first session,
it was 11:00 at night, I want to say, I did pretty good for never
being a person who is not often awake at that time, but I
prepared and it was really satisfying to be able then to
offer this to folks in a way that made it easier for them to
attend. So, that is what I wanted to
share, you know, and as you go through, Through your work this
week, just have a little bit of awareness around you know, what
are the decisions that are yours?
What it did is it decisions that happen above you that you then
have discretion around implementing and then notice how
influence Works, notice how you might influence, the way other
people use their power of discretion or decision, making
becomes really interesting and presents this whole other way of
being Of at work. So, thank you so much for
listening. If you want to work with me a
one-on-one, then book a consult in the show notes below and
also, I will be offering another group program.
So, to make sure that you hear about that, get on my mailing
list. You can also find that in the
show notes below. All right, thanks so much for
listening. I'll talk to you next time.
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