Only words

An old manager of mine and I had a misunderstanding a few years back and it’s stuck with me. We had set aside half a day to pound through a ton of work for an impending deadline. Fifteen minutes into the meeting, we got stuck and I didn’t know how we were going to move forward so sought my manager’s direction.

“We can’t move forward on this until we know,” I said. 

The response from my manager, “Brilliant.”

“That’s not helpful,” I replied. “What should we do?”

“Brilliant,” she repeated.

My expectation was that my manager would know how we were going to move forward, because she’d been in the organisation for over a decade and was a lot more seasoned in the unique idiosyncrasies of the place. To me, hers was an incredibly frustrating one-word response. We managed to move on from the issue without really solving it, but our interaction played on my mind.

A few days later I approached her and asked if she would be happy to talk about our meeting. She was open and let on that in the twenty-four hours prior to our “moment” she had been sideswiped by layer upon layer of bad news. My shoulders dropped as I felt her every word. At first I felt empathy for her circumstances and then I felt annoyed at myself for being so pushy. 

I recently watched Brene Brown’s Netflix special and one thing in particular stuck with me. She is a masterful storyteller and shared how she discussed a moment of misunderstanding with her husband. Before she explained her thoughts and feelings she framed it with, “The story I’m telling myself is…”. You see,  we humans do this, we project and perceive what someone else is thinking, what someone else is feeling and make up a story. I’m a little embarrassed to say that on this occasion I had made up a story.

“We were trying to move forward quickly,” I said. “And when I asked you what to do, you replied ‘brilliant’—it felt dismissive and it felt like you weren’t prepared to work hard.” Yep, I went there and I said it aloud.

“Who is 150% committed to our outcomes?” She asked. 

“You,” I replied—feeling a little sick because I know how hard she works, how much she sacrifices and I know the hard yards she’s traversed over the years. “But we got stuck and I could see you were getting annoyed,” I added.

“Yes, it wasn’t just because of all the challenges going on around me, but also because I didn’t have an answer for you. Honestly, I didn't know what to do.”

“I guess I was frustrated at you, because I assumed you would know. Sorry about that. I’m OK if you don’t know, if you don’t have the answer. I just expected that with your history in the company, that you would know the next step. Sorry for pushing you, but please—don’t be afraid to tell me that you don’t know.” 

I'm confident and a bit of a powerhouse in terms of getting things done, but when I’m on a mission I can bowl people over and lose my tact. In other words, if you’re blocking me I might mow you down, because you’re slowing my progress. That’s hugely unfair and an ugly trait. I really don’t like that about myself and to be honest the conversation I had with my manager didn’t go the way I had anticipated. But the direction it did go in was perfect, because I needed to get better.

“We work well together,” she said. “And I’m OK with you pressing, because of our working relationship. I’m also comfortable saying I don’t know something, but if you notice that I am getting frustrated help me by saying ‘Shall we go back to that later?’ that way we avoid getting stuck.” That was a bombshell for me. Not only had she told me where her head was, but she empowered me to help move things forward with specific instruction. That’s good management. That’s excellent leadership. And later, she told me how highly she values my work ethic, that I’m the “get it done” guy on the team.

“Brilliant” wasn’t only a word. It was a vessel and it was loaded. “Brilliant” felt dismissive to me, but it was a word my manager used to cope in a set of circumstances that she had no control over. And you know what, that’s OK. 

That particular manager is up there as one of my all time favourite humans. And after that incident I worked harder to get to know her, how she communicates and how I could best support her, because I was wholly committed to helping her far surpass all her goals. In fact the feelings and the commitment went both ways. We discussed the importance of keeping short account when it comes to our communication; ensuring we are on the same page, being quick to apologise, forgive and address uncertainty. 

I’m glad we had that moment of frustration and misunderstanding. And I’m grateful for someone who is OK with uncomfortable conversation. We both learnt. We both grew. And I discovered that sometimes words aren’t “only words”.