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Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

mooreds.com

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Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

#191

Post by untrust »

EtCepeyd wrote: post #189

Nice; instead of burdening your boss with a decision, now you're burdening them with a ultimatum , with a deadline. I guess, as a manager, I wouldn't love anything more than a report saddling me with an arbitrary deadline, one I'd have to schedule along with the rest. One of my managers used to tell me this, instead: ask for forgiveness, not permission. That one seems way saner to me.

Agreed. I actually think consensus amongst the team is more important than your boss. If a group of reports under some manager come to consensus on something they need to do, the opinion of the boss is kind of moot. I tend to operate using a bias for action, and the boss is clued in with information about our decision making, but asking for permission (or forgiveness) really just opens the door for micromanagement. This assumes basic trust has been established between the team and the manager, but in the end the technical decisions should be chosen by those on the team who are technical (read: not management).

Management (in my opinion at least) is primarily for resource allocation, career growth, and shielding the team from endless meetings and acting as a point of contact for upper management

Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

#192

Post by EtCepeyd »

untrust wrote: post #191
EtCepeyd wrote: post #189

Nice; instead of burdening your boss with a decision, now you're burdening them with a ultimatum , with a deadline. I guess, as a manager, I wouldn't love anything more than a report saddling me with an arbitrary deadline, one I'd have to schedule along with the rest. One of my managers used to tell me this, instead: ask for forgiveness, not permission. That one seems way saner to me.

Agreed. I actually think consensus amongst the team is more important than your boss. If a group of reports under some manager come to consensus on something they need to do, the opinion of the boss is kind of moot. I tend to operate using a bias for action, and the boss is clued in with information about our decision making, but asking for permission (or forgiveness) really just opens the door for micromanagement. T…

> Management (in my opinion at least) is primarily for resource allocation, career growth, and shielding the team from endless meetings and acting as a point of contact for upper management

Agreed! (And we can also call "resource allocation" "setting priorities".)

Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

#194

Post by imajoredinecon »

mooreds wrote: post #190
EtCepeyd wrote: post #189

Nice; instead of burdening your boss with a decision, now you're burdening them with a ultimatum , with a deadline. I guess, as a manager, I wouldn't love anything more than a report saddling me with an arbitrary deadline, one I'd have to schedule along with the rest. One of my managers used to tell me this, instead: ask for forgiveness, not permission. That one seems way saner to me.

> One of my managers used to tell me this, instead: ask for forgiveness, not permission. That one seems way saner to me. So you are suggesting making the change without consultation and then waiting for it to be discovered? I guess that makes sense for certain kinds of situations, but the ones I can imagine don't sound very pleasant. Maybe I'm missing something. What is an example of a situation where you'd take this…

It’s really about (a) the wording (b) the level of risk.

For something that isn’t risky, I trust my reports to make reasonable decisions and wouldn’t benefit from the “I’m going to do this tomorrow unless you say no” approach. Instead, they can just tell me they’re doing it (or let me know after the fact, or add/FYI me on the code review, or not even mention it, depending on what it is).

For a decision that is more important/higher risk, they should get affirmative agreement rather than just hoping that I see the ultimatum and silently approve.

That’s why I’m with the GP that the ultimatum-with-deadline doesn’t seem like the best choice in any situation.

Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

#195

Post by causal »

EtCepeyd wrote: post #189

Nice; instead of burdening your boss with a decision, now you're burdening them with a ultimatum , with a deadline. I guess, as a manager, I wouldn't love anything more than a report saddling me with an arbitrary deadline, one I'd have to schedule along with the rest. One of my managers used to tell me this, instead: ask for forgiveness, not permission. That one seems way saner to me.

An ultimatum implies the manager has no choice- but they can just as easily say "hold up, don't do that until I get a chance to look at it".

But if a manager is suspicious of their reports and generally doesn't want them taking initiative, they probably have bigger problems.

Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

#196

Post by thevarmint »

ryandrake wrote: post #33

This is a critical skill in big companies where everyone is swamped and busy and things get lost. I do this all the time when I’m dealing with people who don’t answer their email, or who tend to stall and delay approvals, or people who are just very busy. I’ll Email and describe the problem and then say the magic phrase “ If I don’t hear back from you in [N] days , I am going to do XYZ on [DAY N].” This way I’m not a…

In the military, it gets abbreviated “UNODIR” meaning “Unless otherwise directed”.

Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

#197

Post by imajoredinecon »

zmgsabst wrote: post #67
locusofself wrote: post #24

I like this approach to communication, except the the "deadline" part. I'd prefer my reports just let me know if they are working on something which I may want to veto (because I may have more context as to why it's a waste of time or not a priority). Giving a "deadline" to your manager is strange, and almost like a weird, annoying threat. I also would like to think I would give people on my team enough autonomy to m…

If I don’t tell you when I’m doing the work, how will I know if you’ve said no or not? If I think one day is enough time, so proceed, but you take two days to respond, now I’ve done something against your instructions. Adding a date avoids that: “I’ll be migrating the build system on Wednesday (26th); please let me know if you have any concerns.”

For what it’s worth, this seems like the fatal flaw in the OP to me. If you need input on whether something is good to do, it’s very easy for someone to reply “yes” or “sounds good,” so just ask for input. If you don’t need input, just send an FYI instead of the weird asymmetric asking-for-objections-but-not-approval.

Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

#198

Post by Salgat »

magic_hamster wrote: post #170
ryandrake wrote: post #33

This is a critical skill in big companies where everyone is swamped and busy and things get lost. I do this all the time when I’m dealing with people who don’t answer their email, or who tend to stall and delay approvals, or people who are just very busy. I’ll Email and describe the problem and then say the magic phrase “ If I don’t hear back from you in [N] days , I am going to do XYZ on [DAY N].” This way I’m not a…

This sounds like it could result in a chaotic culture where everyone does whatever they want unless actively stopped. For a busy tech lead or staff engineer this sounds like a total nightmare. If you're already asking someone about your plan, there's probably a reason for that and maybe there are limitations or dependencies you're not aware of.

You generally reserve this tactic for people who act as blockers for everything, or for people who aren't critical to the project/action but still need to be notified.

Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)

#200

Post by mooreds »

imajoredinecon wrote: post #194
mooreds wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of my managers used to tell me this, instead: ask for forgiveness, not permission. That one seems way saner to me. So you are suggesting making the change without consultation and then waiting for it to be discovered? I guess that makes sense for certain kinds of situations, but the ones I can imagine don't sound very pleasant. Maybe I'm missing something. What is an example of a situation where you'd take this…

It’s really about (a) the wording (b) the level of risk. For something that isn’t risky, I trust my reports to make reasonable decisions and wouldn’t benefit from the “I’m going to do this tomorrow unless you say no” approach. Instead, they can just tell me they’re doing it (or let me know after the fact, or add/FYI me on the code review, or not even mention it, depending on what it is). For a decision that is more i…

Thanks for the feedback. I guess I'd put the 'ultimatum-with-deadline' in between the two risk profiles you outline--something just on the edge of risk.

> Just hoping that I see the ultimatum and silently approve.

I never would have thought of this as an ultimatum--to me it's more like a 'default decision' that makes my manager's life easier while still looping them in and giving them control should they choose to exercise it.

But now I can definitely see how it might be seen as one, depending on the type of decision and the relationship between employee and manager. I should probably update the post to say that you need a degree of trust and alignment for this technique to work; you shouldn't roll this out on the first day.

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