Q: Although I consider myself a seasoned manager, I’d like your take on how I might respond to a couple of critical work situations that continually create a verbal traffic jam for me. How would you respond when someone takes credit for your idea or when you believe a decision made by the boss is wrong?
A: We all have experienced that pressure-packed moment with a colleague, boss or client where the right thing to say gets stuck in the verbal traffic jam between our brain and our mouth. However, here are some suggested responses you might want to keep in your back pocket to redirect the situation and regain control.
Someone takes credit for your idea: This is not a matter of if this situation happens but when it happens. You make a relevant point during a group discussion. Either it isn’t heard, goes unacknowledged or is rejected. Yet minutes later, a colleague expresses your same idea, is praised and gets credit for making it. Ouch! If you want to prevent being trivialized by this misappropriation of your contribution to the discussion, reclaim your idea with composure and calmly say without skipping a beat: “Thank you for spotlighting my point.” Deliver this response in front of others and offer additional detail or clarification for impact. Game over.
When the boss makes a decision that you believe is wrong: This is indeed a sticky wicket, and it’s important that you choose your course of action wisely. That said, if this decision negatively impacts the entire work group, keeps you specifically from doing your job or puts the company in jeopardy, you might consider the following response: “This is my preference, and I would like to share my perspective for your consideration”—again, use a calm tone without any defiance in your voice. This should allow a possible redirection in the conversation toward a desired change that will still convey openness for other approaches. Be prepared to clearly and carefully communicate how you would address this sensitive topic and its possible other outcomes.
Regardless of other difficult work-related situations you encounter, there a few simple—but not always easy—principles to guide you that can be helpful:
- Using conflict as a natural resource, practice clear, direct communications to avoid misunderstandings.
- Don’t react, respond to a conflict on how you might resolve matters. Again, it’s a skill that requires practice and patience which can truly result in power and influence.
- Attack the problem, not the person.
- Look past positions to the underlying interests. As a former lobbyist, I learned that compromise may not produce all that you or the opposing party wants, but it can serve as a resolution so the focus can return to more important or pressing matters. No one person “wins” as all parties involved experience some wins and losses.
- Continue to focus on the future.
Joan Lee Berkman is a marketing and public relations consultant. if you have a question for Joan, send it to business@townandstyle.com.