
A group of Emperor Penguins. The Emperors are famous for what seems to us to be a tortuous and inconvenient way to incubate their eggs. Males spend much of the winter huddled together in large flocks to conserve body heat, each male shielding a precious egg from the cold in a brood pouch over his feet. The males fast for two months during incubation, while the females go off to feed. This seems a rather extreme approach to child rearing until you consider that this method does provide the Emperors what they need.
What they need is time. The Antarctic summer is too short for chicks to incubate and mature enough to survive a winter. By incubating during winter, Emperors give their chicks an extra two months to prepare for the next winter. And when the chicks emerge from their eggs, the food they need is most abundant — perfectly timed. Read more about the Emperor life cycle. Photo by Josh Landis courtesy Wikimedia.
Sometimes you're asked by another, "What do you need?" or "What do you need to make this work?" Recognize these questions as great gifts — most often, the asker is sincerely trying to help. Sadly, and too often, the answers we supply are self-defeating. They do lead the asker to supply what we ask for, but we ask for things that don't really help, and we fail to ask for things that would really help.
How does this happen and what can we do about it?
I've seen several different ways to supply self-defeating responses to this great gift of a question. Rather than offer a catalog, here are some guidelines for providing helpful responses.
- Know the difference between "wants" and "needs"
- Confusing what we'd like with what we actually must have can be disastrous. We can find ourselves spending goodwill and political capital reaching for nonessentials.
- A simple test to distinguish wants and needs begins with asking yourself, "If I don't get this, is the goal achievable?" If the answer is no, it's a need. If the answer is yes, then ask, "At what additional cost is the goal achievable?" The answer to that then becomes a new need.
- Know your redlines
- Once we know our needs, we usually find that some are a bit mushy. For example, we might not know how long something will take or how much it will cost, or how much mastery a candidate team member truly possesses.
- Even when needs are mushy, you probably can determine your minimum requirements — your redlines. Know your redlines and be prepared to communicate them clearly.
- Stay in your own hula-hoop
- Resisting the temptation to take on the problems of others is difficult. (See "Stay in Your Own Hula Hoop," Point Lookout for June 27, 2001) When answering the what-do-you-need question, we sometimes include the needs of others on whom we depend for our needs.
- Instead of listing others' needs, enumerate your own. Include the items you need from those others. What your suppliers need is not one of your needs. It's one of theirs.
- Respond with whats, not hows
- Problem solving Confusing what we'd like
with what we actually must
have can be disastrousis another difficult-to-resist temptation. We tend to offer what we think will be the ingredients of solutions rather than the outcomes we actually need. - Instead, focus your answers on what you need. You can suggest ways of achieving it, and those suggestions might lead to joint problem solving — a most desirable result. But be clear about the distinction between what you need and how to get there.
Most important, practice. Before you enter the conversation, assume the best — assume that you'll receive this great gift of a question. Making up your answer on the fly might work, but it's risky. It's far better to work out your answer in advance, using these guidelines. You can begin by asking yourself this question: what do I need to practice answering the what-do-you-need question? Top
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
Nasty Questions: II
- In meetings, telemeetings, and email we sometimes ask questions that aren't intended to elicit information.
Rather, they're indirect attacks intended to advance the questioner's political agenda. Here's part
two of a catalog of some favorite tactics.
Reverse Micromanagement
- Micromanagement is too familiar to too many of us. Less familiar is inappropriate interference in the
reverse direction — in the work of our supervisors or even higher in the chain. Disciplinary action
isn't always helpful, especially when some of the causes of reverse micromanagement are organizational.
OODA at Work
- OODA is a model of decision making that's especially useful in rapidly evolving environments, such as
combat, marketing, politics, and emergency management. Here's a brief overview.
The End-to-End Cost of Meetings: III
- Many complain about attending meetings. Certainly meetings can be maddening affairs, and they also cost
way more than most of us appreciate. Understanding how much we spend on meetings might help us get control
of them. Here's Part III of a survey of some less-appreciated costs.
That Was a Yes-or-No Question: II
- When, in the presence of others, someone asks you "a simple yes or no" question, beware. Chances
are that you're confronting a trap. Here's Part II of a set of suggestions for dealing with the yes-or-no
trap.
See also Workplace Politics and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming April 30: On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: II
- When we finally execute plans, we encounter obstacles. So we find workarounds or adjust the plans. But there are times when nothing we try gets us back on track. When this happens for nearly every plan, we might be working in a plan-hostile environment. Available here and by RSS on April 30.
And on May 7: Subject Matter Bullying
- Most workplace bullying tactics have analogs in the schoolyard — isolation, physical attacks, name-calling, and rumor-mongering are common examples. Subject matter bullying might be an exception, because it requires expertise in a sophisticated knowledge domain. And that's where trouble begins. Available here and by RSS on May 7.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group