2.2. Data Versus Opinion

“Not everyone on the team agreed with me. That’ll happen sometimes when one person has to make the final call. In those moments it’s your responsibility as a manager or a leader to explain that this isn’t a democracy, that this is an opinion-driven decision and you’re not going to reach the right choice by consensus. But this also isn’t a dictatorship. You can’t give orders without explaining yourself.

Controlling assholes won’t listen. They’ll never admit they screwed up. Neither will political assholes. They’ll ignore obvious problems and deflect reasonable feedback, either because it’s not helpful politically or because their ego can’t take it. They don’t protect the product or the customer or the team. They protect themselves.

People desire and thrive on jobs that give them control over their own decisions. Since the 1980s, management literature has been filled with instructions for how to delegate more and “empower employees to empower themselves.” The thinking is exactly what we’ve heard from Paolo. The more people are given control over their own projects, the more ownership they feel, and the more motivated they are to do their best work. Telling employees what to do is so old-fashioned, it leads to screams of “micromanager!” “dictator!” and “autocrat!

Things work in context, not in the spotlight.

We do need to accept that the power of persuasion at its worst lies in its design to interrupt. It is supposed to interrupt us, our independent, cogent, thinking selves. And it does.