Our team faced multiple problems, seemingly interlocking, no obvious path forward. A bunch of us had some ideas and suggestions but none of us felt we had authority to make anything happen. We also felt like were in a fishbowl with everyone else in the organization watching us.
Our Director called us into a meeting on this topic. I can remember feeling a sense of relief that he was stepping in and would tell us what we should do. We settled in our seats, notepads and pens ready.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he started off. “But I know what we’re NOT going to do.” He went on listing things we were not going to do. He included things like:
He added “And I’m not going to throw you under the bus when something doesn’t work perfectly from the start.”
He concluded by saying, “I’m confident you guys will come up with a solution and make your recommendations to me by the end of the week.” Then he walked out of the conference room. We still had about 100 minutes of our 2-hour scheduled meeting we could use.
We went into the meeting thinking our Director was going to tell us what to go do. Instead, he kicked-started our conversation about what we should do. Years later I recognized that this Director had brilliantly set this up so that we owned the projects and brought our personal responsibility energy into the implementation.
Try this tactic when there are confusing options. Focus your attention on what you’re NOT going to do, and it may become more apparent what you should do.
