Many years ago, I recall working with a colleague who was very bright, but also employed a very reactive work style. This individual would typically call me out of the blue or request that we have a discussion in “5 minutes”, even though there was no real urgency for such a discussion. In any event, I found it very difficult to manage these random exchanges. This is in part because he frequently tried to assign ownership to me, even though it was incorrect.
Upon further research, I learned that individuals frequently act this way for one of two reasons:
Reason #1: A decision needs to be made.
Reason #2: An input is missing (e.g., capacity, owner, specification, direction)
When finding yourself in a similar situation, remember that your job isn’t to absorb ambiguity by default. Rather, it’s to unlock movement. One way to do this is by replacing the discussion with a forcing question:
- If the issue is missing capacity, you can ask: “Please confirm how many applications your team can build over the next 3 weeks.”
- If the issue is missing ownership, you can ask: “Please confirm who is responsible for leading this workstream.”
- If the issue is specification, you can ask: “Please confirm the minimum input required for development to begin.”
- And so on …
In this way, you’re forcing others to provide real constraints (“I can’t tell you how much capacity the team has until next week.”) or fail to provide one. Either outcome is useful, and your time and energy are protected.
Always remember:
Do not let other people’s lack of readiness become your burden to carry.
Do not accept a meeting when the missing output could be provided asynchronously by the true owner.
Of course, not every chat request requires this level of thinking. But if someone requests a meeting before providing basic inputs, they try to push ambiguity onto you, or if the issue is truly staffing, scope, or ownership, then leveraging this approach will save you considerable time, prevent you from becoming the default “shock absorber”, and force decisioning by the correct owners.