Can we build quality products quickly? Photo by Adobe
By Dr. Daneen Skube
Tribune Content Agency
Interpersonal Edge
Q: People in my company find the fastest way to do projects, then these projects fall apart later. But I want to do them right the first time. I get a lot of pressure to agree that quick and dirty win the race. How can I do quality work with all the peer pressure to build fast but crappy systems?
A: You can do quality work by not directly opposing the majority. Instead, you can agree with your colleagues that saving time is important while inquiring in a neutral tone about how much time it will take to redo projects. You can also influence your team by asking in a fact-based manner about the fallout that members have personally experienced when a project unravels. Most people are surprisingly short-sighted when it comes to the consequences of poor decision making. Their default is what’s comfortable, easy, and fast in the moment. The awareness that quick and dirty doesn’t win the long-term race is often out of their consciousness. When you see a truth, don’t beat others over the head with it like a bat.
You want to be like the television detective Columbo, who gets people to admit the truth by calmly asking questions. When you approach co-workers with questions, you leave bread crumbs to the truth which they will follow. Bold declarative statements will only get you into power struggles. You might be tempted to use a slogan like, “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong,” but right and wrong are not the point. The point is effectiveness and influence as well as how to achieve both when the majority isn’t seeing the whole problem.
As Marcus Aurelius, the ancient Roman statesman, once said, “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Again saying things like, “Are you nuts?!” is not what I’d recommend. I recently chuckled when I saw a new bumper sticker that said, “Make America think again!” The slogan from former President Donald Trump’s campaign originally was, “Make America great again!”
In and out of the workplace, thinking beats greatness in the long run every time. The reality is there is no greatness without a lot of humble thinking. Obviously, you can’t force your co-workers to think but you can pose good questions that encourage them to engage their brains and connect the dots between current decisions and future problems. When your team sees that fast and dirty also create a lot more work and loss of reputation, they may be encouraged to do quality work on the front end. Decades of work by sociologists tell us there is no such thing as the wisdom of the crowd.
Most majority ideas tend to be limited at best and destructive at worst. The popular slogan during the ’60s was “question authority!” It became popular because of the maxim that just because a majority agrees with an idea doesn’t make it true. When you disagree with the majority, the crowd will try to eat you if you get into a power struggle. If you learn to be like Columbo in your approach, people can discover the truth as you leave questions like breadcrumbs. What others discover themselves will always influence them more powerfully than what you tell them.
The last word(s) Q: I’m a pessimist, which I think is a realist. I’m often more anxious than my co-workers. Is there a way to use my pessimism but not be so anxious?
A: Yes, James Cabell, a 20th-century American author of fantasy fiction, observed that the “optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds, while the pessimist fears this is true.” Don’t simply worry, but prepare for what you think could happen and your proactive pessimism will make you calmer and more effective.
Daneen Skube, Ph.D., executive coach, trainer, therapist and speaker, also appears as the FOX Channel’s “Workplace Guru” each Monday morning. She’s the author of “Interpersonal Edge: Breakthrough Tools for Talking to Anyone, Anywhere, About Anything” (Hay House, 2006). You can contact Dr. Skube at www.interpersonaledge.com or 1420 NW Gilman Blvd., #2845, Issaquah, WA 98027. Sorry, no personal replies. ©2023 Interpersonal Edge. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
