Choosing your battles

I often hear leaders say to their people, “You can swing by my office anytime. I have an open-door policy.”

This sentiment, while it may be well-intentioned coming from the person saying it, has always struck me as an empty platitude. Why? Because it’s simply not true. Swinging by to see the big boss with an issue directly means that work across the staff failed, or the person’s relationship with their direct supervisor failed.

To highlight this point with an example, earlier this week, a high-ranking staff member made a decision to omit data that I was intending to brief in a daily PowerPoint slide. Highlighting this information may have the potential to improve a program I’m charged to execute because it facilitates transparency in team performance.

On the flip side, downplaying this information with a positive voiceover instead allows the staff to focus on issues that this person deems more important. This person also feels too much group time is spent focusing on this program.

I’m now facing the dilemma of where do I rest my fight, and where do I keep pushing an issue forward. Pushing past this key individual is career suicide, as his position in my organization is many levels greater than my own. 

This basic principle of an informal chain of command means understanding reality and being pragmatic versus a fantasy world of empty platitudes and leadership mantras. While the person in the above example is not technically my boss on paper, they are a key component of my staff and one that I cannot simply steamroll past, nor would I want to as it would burn an important bridge. This is where I decide to choose my battles, and my intention is to do what we affectionally call in the Navy as to “shut up and color.”

The truth is, despite a stated open-door policy, there are grave risks in going directly to the head of an organization when considering a course of action that affects others.

This is where I think if anyone has ever worked in a cross-department dynamic, they will understand the complexities at play here. If an initiative requires no work or effort from other department staff members, then the idea might get traction should it be something that’s contained to a particular department. However, if there is an effort required from cross-department team members to make one’s idea stick, then there must be buy-in across the staff before moving forward.   

So, in this situation, I’m not going to die on this one hill. The long game is where I’ll keep my focus because I believe that playing nice and working well with others pays big dividends later on. There are larger wars to be won than this one slide in a daily update brief.

However, I’m interested in your thoughts. What “hills” are you willing to die on? What battles do you fight, and why?