The Pitfalls of Trying to Prove You’re Right.

Let’s say you are leading an important project, the type of project that can help your career and dramatically help your company exceed its goals.

The project stakeholder group features a solid team of subject matter experts, technical gurus and marketers.

You walk into the meeting and start barking to each team member about how he or she needs to do their job.

“Bob, here’s how I’d code the back end.”

“Sally, make sure you develop an e-mail campaign and social media strategy.”

“Bill — make sure the databases are backed up nightly. We don’t want to lose the data.”

Don’t misinterpret what I am trying to say. As project lead, you should know the details. But you should trust your teammates to do their jobs.

Make your teammates grow in confidence by believing in them to make the right decisions. No one wants to know how ‘right’ you are. The team wants to do good work — the type of work that’s innovative, customer-centric, high-quality — there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with that recipe.

Until next time,
Dan Naden