I am often asked to give people guidance through politically delicate situations. They are often amazed by what I tell them, which starts with: “OK, given that you’re going to tell the truth…” When I say this, it is not uncommon for me to hear responses back such as:
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”
“I’m not ready to have that conversation.”
“That wouldn’t go over too well.”
What?! Excuse me? You don’t have the courage to tell the truth? You’re not ready to be honest? You’re worried about what the truth might bring because it might end up badly?
Tell me, do you really expect a relationship/job/career/situation based on a lie to end well?
Now, there are many ways to tell the truth, and you should be responsible in choosing your path. Try to rush it by shouting it loudly and often in people’s faces and others will tune you out. Whisper it from the back of the room and people will find you creepy. Use it to make people look bad and people will take up arms to oppose you. (Never, ever underestimate what people will do to protect their egos.) So yes, you need to be careful and walk a line so you can speak your truth without creating more problems than you solve. But you’re still telling the truth—anything less would simply compound your problem.
*****
Example: I have a client who got sandbagged in a meeting. His workplace is one that, like many others, has seen a few waves of layoffs lately, and fear and self-preservation are the rules of the day in many quarters. So, he wasn’t really surprised when a slide he used in a meeting found itself stripped of its context and in the hands of someone who was sure to misinterpret it as presented. He knew who sent it, he knew why, and he knew he had no “political cover;” his boss would not protect him because she had her own political issues to deal with. My solution? Sunlight + responsible truth. My advice went something like this:
“Call a meeting,” I said.
“With who?”
“With the person who sandbagged you, her boss, your boss, the person who got your slide, that person’s boss, and pull in one or two other people related to the project but uninvolved in that last meeting. Tell them you need to clarify status with the whole group, because a recent game of ‘telephone’ seems to have left different people with different impressions of where things stand.”
“Then what?”
“At the meeting, tell everyone exactly what happened: you shared some information, and a single slide found it’s way into the wrong person’s hand, at the wrong time, with the wrong context. Show the slide, and blame the mistake on a ‘game of telephone.’ That’s important.”
“But isnt’ that sneaky? Won’t everyone know exactly who I’m talking about? If I’m trying to be honest, shouldn’t I just say she lied?”
“First of all, you don’t know she lied. You assume she did, but you don’t know for sure that it wasn’t an honest mistake. Besides, it won’t matter,” I said. “‘Telephone is a blameless game, so by framing it like that, people remember that any time a message is carried from person to person, changes are likely to happen. They know who goofed, so what? You’re not blaming the person, simply providing transparency. No one can argue that, and everyone will assume it was an innocent mistake.”
“Oh.”
“Besides, everyone’s going to be thinking too hard about why you’ve called a meeting to even be thinking about that. You’re making a power play here. If you get any push back, that’s where it’ll be.”
“You mean the person who sandbagged me will push back?”
“No, I think she’ll keep her mouth shut because she won’t want to be put on the spot. She’ll be nice. Watch your back later, but at the meeting, don’t worry about her. It’s the bosses you’ll have to watch. When they get the meeting request, they’ll push back on you and tell you you have no authority to call a meeting. Tell them you just need to straighten out some miscommunications, tell them to relax, and then ignore any threats they make. And do not, under any circumstances, cancel your meeting at any of their requests.”
“Why will they be so upset?”
“Because you said they have their own political struggles, which means they’re trying to justify their existence. When you act like a mature grown up and solve your own problem, they become less justifiable. See where I’m going with this?”
“Yeah… but what if I get sandbagged again?”
“Then you call another meeting, at which you acknowledge that the source of the miscommunication was the same as the last time. And if it happens a third time, you won’t need a big meeting, just an email. Then you meet with your boss and the sandbagger’s boss, and you say explicitly, either she’s incompetent or a backstabber, and either way, it’s unacceptable. Of course, I need to know more about her manager to know how best to say that, but we can cross that bridge when we get there.”
*****
So many people are afraid of politics, even though politics is the easiest game to play: sunlight + truth, every time. The truly difficult part—and the part most people flat out fail to attend to—is demonstrating the interpersonal savvy and patience to see how best to frame the truth for acceptance. But that’s a story for another day…
