There’s a right and wrong way to proceed. Here’s how to increase the chances your leader listens and takes action--while reducing the chance they feel threatened.
Ohhh that’s a really great one! As you can guess, I’m the ‘too blunt’ type. I’ve been told multiple times to ‘stop telling me how to do my job’.
The default of many people is to complain to their own manager, expecting them to tell that person the feedback (or raise it even higher). I’ve been doing it for a while, and I found it’s not effective at all (either my feedback is not passed, or nothing happens afterward).
I agree about being cautious here, especially if that leader is multiple levels above you. Still, I think that being known as the ‘cheeky’ person is not that bad. Even as people got a bit mad, they appreciate I cared enough to say something. Using your tips, there is much less chance of a mistake! :)
One obvious tip is to always do it on a 1:1 setting, and NEVER lash out in a meeting. Yep, I’ve done that mistake too 😅
I recently talked with the VP product about being more open to ideas that come from engineers. Sadly this article didn’t exist yet, so I used none of the above, and the approach I took is to be direct and respectful.
I started with a Slack message: “hey Brian, could I have 10 minutes of your time at the office tomorrow to share some thoughts I have?”. I got an easy yes.
Then in the meeting I asked if it’s ok I’ll be direct, and just shared it as it is “I’m a little frustrated about how ideas from my engineers are ignored. I appreciate your pragmatic approach, and I know you have good reasons for the decisions, but when they we raise an idea and hear nothing back about it, it can be really frustrating. Is there a better approach you would like us to use when having a some thought about a product decision?”
It was not ideal, but it worked nicely. He acknowledged his tendency to do the thinking behind close doors and not sharing the results, and invited me to tell everyone to just follow up with him personally if they feel their ideas was ignored.
Ohhh that’s a really great one! As you can guess, I’m the ‘too blunt’ type. I’ve been told multiple times to ‘stop telling me how to do my job’.
The default of many people is to complain to their own manager, expecting them to tell that person the feedback (or raise it even higher). I’ve been doing it for a while, and I found it’s not effective at all (either my feedback is not passed, or nothing happens afterward).
I agree about being cautious here, especially if that leader is multiple levels above you. Still, I think that being known as the ‘cheeky’ person is not that bad. Even as people got a bit mad, they appreciate I cared enough to say something. Using your tips, there is much less chance of a mistake! :)
One obvious tip is to always do it on a 1:1 setting, and NEVER lash out in a meeting. Yep, I’ve done that mistake too 😅
I recently talked with the VP product about being more open to ideas that come from engineers. Sadly this article didn’t exist yet, so I used none of the above, and the approach I took is to be direct and respectful.
I started with a Slack message: “hey Brian, could I have 10 minutes of your time at the office tomorrow to share some thoughts I have?”. I got an easy yes.
Then in the meeting I asked if it’s ok I’ll be direct, and just shared it as it is “I’m a little frustrated about how ideas from my engineers are ignored. I appreciate your pragmatic approach, and I know you have good reasons for the decisions, but when they we raise an idea and hear nothing back about it, it can be really frustrating. Is there a better approach you would like us to use when having a some thought about a product decision?”
It was not ideal, but it worked nicely. He acknowledged his tendency to do the thinking behind close doors and not sharing the results, and invited me to tell everyone to just follow up with him personally if they feel their ideas was ignored.