“I want people who can think for themselves.”
I hear that from leaders a lot. Then something urgent comes up, and those same leaders start telling everyone exactly what to do.
I understand the temptation, because I’ve done it myself. You probably recognize the situation. Some urgent issue or opportunity comes up, the clock is ticking, you have a solution in mind, and explaining what you want done just seems like the fastest way to get things moving.
But starting quickly isn’t the same as finishing quickly. The team still has to do the work, and your answer probably leaves plenty for them to figure out.
I’ve seen this scenario repeatedly. An executive prescribes an approach, and the team jumps into action. Then they run into details the executive hadn’t considered or dependencies that complicate the approach. Without the bigger picture, they have to guess, go back for more direction, or keep working until someone (maybe you) points out they’ve gone the wrong way. Then they have to do some of that work again.
A little attention to punctuation can help.
Start with periods.
When you’re communicating a strategy or asking a team to solve a problem, you have a responsibility as a leader to explain it clearly. Explain why we’re doing this and what’s happening in the business that makes it important. Describe what success looks like and how we’ll measure it. Lay out the principles that should guide decisions and the constraints the team needs to work within.
Make those statements end in periods.
“Our biggest competitor cut prices 15 percent against our core line last week. Our strategy is to win on service with our top accounts, so we’re not going to match their prices. We need to retain at least 90 percent of those accounts through renewal season. Bring back a proposed approach by the end of the month. We can spend up to $250,000, and we’re not going below our current margin floors.”
Statements like those give people something specific to work with. The situation they’re solving for is clear, and they can evaluate possible solutions against a defined outcome.
At this point, the team’s job is to use question marks to make sure they understand.
“Which accounts count as top accounts?”
“Are any of them already talking to the competitor?”
“Does the $250,000 cover people’s time, or only hard costs?”
Their questions will probably expose something you haven’t worked through, so be open to that.
Then ask, “How do you recommend we get there?”
Now switch punctuation.
The team comes back with periods. They explain their proposed approach, the decisions they’ve made, and what they need. Your job is to use question marks to make sure the approach fits the strategy and the guiding principles.
“How does that keep the accounts most at risk?”
“How will this make our service more valuable to those accounts than the competitor’s discount?”
“How will you measure progress? When will we know we’re on track?”
“What would have to be true for this to work?”
You’re checking the approach against the outcome, success measures, principles, and constraints, and helping the team think it through. That takes honest questions. If you’ve already decided on the answer and keep asking until someone guesses it, people will figure out the game pretty quickly.
You can contribute ideas, too, but let the team go first. When you do, explain your reasoning and let the team examine your suggestion as seriously as any other.
Keep doing it when the pressure rises.
Urgent moments are where a strategy gets reinforced or sabotaged. Strategies get executed through many decisions like this one. When leaders repeatedly hand down the “how,” teams can get used to just waiting for instructions. Each time a leader asks how the team’s proposed approach fits the outcome and the principles, the team gets more practice connecting its decisions to the strategy.
This approach doesn’t mean you have to slow things down. The whole conversation might only take five minutes. You need a shared understanding of the problem, and you’ll benefit from the team’s firsthand knowledge of how the work gets done. Conversely, an executive’s quick “solution” can leave a lot of unresolved work downstream.
This is co-creation continuing throughout execution. Inevitably, new information will arrive, dependencies will change, and proposed solutions will turn out to have problems, so each conversation is another chance to work out the next move together. If you want people to think for themselves under pressure, you have to keep making room for their thinking under pressure.
So pay attention to your punctuation. Mind your P’s and Q’s, so to speak. Use periods to make the outcome and boundaries clear, and invite questions that test understanding. Then delegate the “how” to your team, and use questions to help them examine it.
In my experience, you’ll end up with faster and better solutions that keep your strategy on track.
