Everyone hates surprises in the workplace
Everyone hates surprises in the workplace
(3 min read) Having hard conversations helps avoid them.
Surprises are good for family events, gender-reveal parties, and soldiers' homecoming. They make for great viral content. But trying to replicate that in the workplace is just asking for trouble.
Colleagues leaving, project failing, running out of budget, not meeting revenue goals, last-minute requirement change can often come as a surprise. And everyone hates them.
Engineers hate when they don't know why project requirements changed without valid reasoning.
Managers hate when the project is getting delayed, and the team doesn't communicate why.
Leader hates it when an organization doesn't adapt to the change or gives a low SAT (satisfaction) score on the survey.
Everyone hated it when they expected promotion to go through, but it doesn't.
A surprise in the workplace catches everyone with, well, "surprise," resulting in a surprise flywheel.
Surprise flywheel
The surprise causes anxiety and then doubt, which leads to worry and distraction. Resulting in a lack of focus and reduced productivity. Ultimately resulting in more surprises.
Why we get surprised?
There can be multiple reasons. But in my experience, the most common is when we avoid having a hard conversation.
PM didn't want to talk to engineering about requirement change; the engineer didn't want to talk to EM for project delays; managers didn't want to talk to leadership about lack of clarity in adopting the change.
How to not get surprised?
By having hard conversations. They are not easy, but they are necessary.
Hard conversations reset expectations. It offers a way to stop, evaluate, discuss, and make progress together in the right direction. It's better to reset expectations than get surprised way down the road.
Hard conversations
Hard conversations can feel like walking on hot coal. Everyone wants to avoid it.
They are never easy and hard for both sides of the table. They ruin people's day, motivation to work and can feel attacking.
But unlike walking on hot coal, having hard conversations should NOT be avoided. They are necessary to make progress.
Tips on hard conversations
As every conversation is different and depends on the people and context, there is no silver bullet to make them easy. That said, here are few pointers to get the most out of them:
Leave ego outside the meeting room.
Be open to listening, especially if you are in a leadership position like manager etc.
Ensure that the conversation is open, honest, non-Blamey, and genuine. Ask questions for clarification and don't make assumptions.
Present data to support the conversation.
Don't rush to a solution. Take time to process the discussion. If possible, schedule another meeting to discuss a solution.
Finally, here are the last two things to keep in mind about hard conversations:
The longer you procrastinate, the harder they get. Rarely do they problem-solve themselves, and even if they do, they create some others as side-effects. The best time to have a hard conversation is the first time you think about it.
People in the workplace are smart adults and respond well to reasoning. You will be surprised how better off everyone is after the conversation.
If you have been avoiding a hard conversation, stop procrastinating and do it. Otherwise, some will get surprised and will hate it.
I hope you like this post. Please let me know in comments a surprise that you hated and if a hard conversation would have avoided it.