There’s No Right Answer. Execute Anyway!

If you’ve managed for any length of time, you know that management isn’t just about barking out orders and denying a couple of raises before heading off for a three-martini lunch and a round of golf.¹

Some things about management are even hard, in ways that are different than a “normal” job.²

Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of everything that makes management hard. There are a lot of difficult parts of the job, and some vary by company. Writing a complete list would take a very long time. Longer if I tried to include solutions.

I’m just going to cover two hard things about management today.

1. Sometimes, there’s not a right answer.
2. Even if there is a right answer that we can be certain about, we have to execute on it.

Sometimes, there’s not a right answer

Sometimes, there’s not a right answer. You might be in a situation where there are only bad options. Or options with negative side-effects.³ It may not be a full-on Kobayashi Maru situation, but it’s pretty clear there’s no desirable option.

Even the choice to do nothing has negative effects.

And so, as the leader, you have to decide what to do.⁴ That decision means selecting the path you’ll follow and which actions you and your team will take. It also means selecting the problem(s) you will deal with in the future.

Those are problems you would not have to deal with if you hadn’t made the decision you made.

You’re affirmatively choosing at least one problem.

What kind of a person chooses to inflict problems on themselves, their team, and their company?

The kind of person that is willing to pick the problem(s) they want to deal with. That takes courage.⁵ That courage is layered on top of the need to navigate the unknown future that comes with making decisions.

Sometimes, there’s not a right answer.

We have to execute anyway

Whether there’s a right answer or not, we have to execute on our decision.⁶

It can be harder to execute on a decision without a right answer. Nay-saying, second-guessing, fear-mongering, foot-dragging, and other hyphenated-issues slow things down.

But even clear paths can be hard to execute on. People don’t always do what they’re asked. Unexpected issues crop up. Things take longer than planned.

And that’s just executing projects.

As managers, sometimes executing well means we have an interaction that’s uncomfortable. Maybe we say “no”, or give hard feedback. Maybe we have to push back hard on an executive’s pet project, knowing that the executive will react unpleasantly.⁷ Maybe we fire someone. Maybe we hold firm to a deadline.⁸

Our main responsibility to the organization is results: dollars, widgets, reports, operational software, risk mitigation, happy customers… So we have to execute.

We’re managers, though. So we often have to execute through others. Maybe even the same “others” that pointed out the problems we’ve selected, the same “others” that don’t want to deal with those problems.

Even if there’s not an easy, right answer, we have to execute on our solution. Through others.

Wrapping Up

As managers, we have to execute on our work. We do that through relationships and expertise more than by barking orders (for example, showing how “tough” we are by giving impossible deadlines⁹), even when all the options lead to negative outcomes.

That is hard.

Not everyone can handle that. Not everyone wants to handle that at any given time in their life.

But managers (and other leaders): if you’re in that chair, with that title, that’s what your job is. You make those choices, and carry them out.

It’s not easy. But it can be done.

If you need help to be able to make those choices or carry them out, you’re not alone. I offer coaching for managers that can help you (yes, you!) work through those tough choices, communicate them to your team, and deal with the next set of problems you picked.

1. It’s also about getting a special parking place for your BMW. [↩]
2. Normal jobs have difficult aspects, too. [↩]
3. I get a kick out of the commercials for medication where the side effects include the original malady. “Take Cough-Away Cough Syrup! Side effects include cough, headache, coughing, wheezing, cough, fatigue, coughing, impaired vision, cough, muscle pain, coughing, death…and cough.” [↩]
4. If the decision is one that you should make, Mr/Ms Manager, and you do not make it, you are choosing to abdicate your duties. (Delegating is fine if it’s appropriate. Intentionally waiting to give a member of your team an opportunity to step up might also be fine. This is about when it’s clearly your call and you fail to make the call. Everybody knows. Mental picture: baseball umpire, bottom of the 9th, important game, with a deer-in-headlights look on his face, shrugging, unwilling to call the strike.) [↩]
5. Courage: the willingness to face risk. “‘You only blinched inside’, said Pooh, ‘and that’s the bravest way for a Very Small Animal to blinch that there is.’” – A.A. Milne [↩]
6. Otherwise it’s just a daydream. [↩]
7. And possibly in a manner that limits our future career at that company. [↩]
8. If you do, make darn sure it’s a real deadline. Not a made-up fictional deadline that your team works really hard to meet, and then the work sits unused for weeks. (Maybe the uncomfortable interaction is asking hard questions about the deadline, and why it has to be when it is!) [↩]
9. Maybe your boss will be impressed by the “toughness” demonstrated by a fictional, tight deadline. Keep in mind, though, that you have to execute on your work through other people. Those people will not be impressed. They might carry out your plan this time, but what will happen next time? Hey, guess what: when it comes to deadlines, there may not be a right answer, but you may have to execute anyway! [↩]