Warn: A little of your time to save others a lot.
The Opportunity Filter, Part 4 [What Leadership Looks Like]
Links to The Opportunity Filter, a “What Leadership Looks Like” series by David Drury:
In The Opportunity Filter, we have examined ways to prioritize between options and clarify responses to things that come our way.
To warn is different than the other parts of The Opportunity Filter. To dodge a potentially damaging opportunity might not be enough, you may want to warn others about it. This can be a simple as warning others in your organization that a spam emailer is using your name to trick people, or as complex as calling a friend to let them know that someone cheated you or betrayed you and should not be trusted.
To warn others means that just dodging is not enough. Others need to know what you know and why it should be dodged by them as well. The reason something escalates to the warn section is that the option is more than the fact that it isn’t worth your time, it is also an option that would suck the time away from others in your organization or other colleagues.
Warning others has some unique nuances, so here are a few of those when you choose to warn instead of dodge:
1) Time Exchange
A good leader discerns when to exchange a little of their time to save a lot of time for others. You are giving colleagues the professional courtesy of your experience or knowledge. They may not know that the opportunity might take way more of their time to extricate themselves from than they estimate. They also might not know someone else has researched it and come to a conclusion that it is not worth the time.
2) Prioritization Refocus
A warning can help you clarify the priorities of your organization. When you determine to decline an opportunity it is good for your own clarity, but it can also be a chance to clarify what is best to spend time on throughout an org. By sharing that decision it helps everyone save time because it doubles down on the most important things. It also helps confirm for yourself what you decide, by giving a window of input from others. You might not want to do this in an org that lacks a clarity of focus (as others might pressure you to change your mind), or you might choose to do so in order to shape your orgs lack focus.
3) Ethical Contrast
A warning can also underscore the values and ethics of your organization in contrast with an opportunity. From time to time an something comes along that you know is unethical, or it is run by a person that doesn't do things in a way your org would be ok with. This is a chance to make a stark contrast clear.
A leader I worked with was once invited to speak at an event by mail. But the information in the invite included a promotion for the event, and the leader's picture and name were included on the promotion already! It said something like, "featuring speakers like..." as the only signal that these people were not confirmed (and in some ways, no doubt, others invited felt obligated to go and speak as it seemed like they were already promoting them). My leader declined the invitation to speak and said their name and likeness should be removed. In addition, I warned our team that such tactics signal an unethical approach to promotion, and so we should all decline being connected with that leader anymore.
In these kinds of cases, it underscores internal org ethics and values. But it can also help others know not to give the time of day to leaders stooping to such manipulation.
360 Dynamics:
Bosses
Your boss needs your help in making decisions on the use of his time. The boss may need to know about an opportunity that is already problematic to avoid. Also, if you have been in the institution longer than the boss, you can help frame the opportunity with the history (some of that history perhaps not being good) so they know of it. Other times it's good to give a boss a warning about a mistake that was made. It may have been committed by you or someone else, or might even be the mistake to choose to be involved with an opportunity in the first place. Since then you found it to not be worth the time, so giving this warning helps redeem the lost time. A boss loves nothing quite as much as when you help save her time.
Peers
Some opportunities come to you in your organization and then if you say "no" they start to ask others. And of course, sometimes they are sending a carbon copied email text to several of your peers at the same time. These round-robin outside asks are a chance to tip off your colleagues about your decision not to do something. If you've already spent some time deciding, why not share it with peers (even though a simple blind carbon copy or a forward where you give your backstory) which can be a soft warning that signals this: maybe this isn't worth my time as much as it seems at the beginning.
Employees
It can help people on your team to know you've already made a decision on an opportunity and to warn them that it likely doesn't make sense for them to either. If you haven't delegated it for them to do, it's likely because it's not the best use of time. They don't know that if you don't tell them. You also don't want your name used to gain entry with others on your team, even if you say no. If you give an excuse to someone asking for your time, but it's mostly to save face externally, you might need to give some internal rationale with more of the real reason to employees so they know it is more than just being busy.
Those are some of the nuances of the warn portion of The Opportunity Filter. Be sure to subscribe to learn more about what leadership looks like in this series and beyond.
Let’s discuss your ways of warning others or the thoughts you have on The Opportunity Filter in general by clicking here: