Have you ever been in a situation when you had to decide between what you are told to do and what your gut feeling tells you? Between higher instructions and the obviously more productive solution? I’m not talking about vital decisions here, but situations when you have to deviate from what you are told to do for a sound reason. What do you do? Follow instructions blindly, ask permission to do it differently, or simply do it your way? My experience is that sometimes getting permission to deviate is more difficult than simply doing it my way. If you deviate, you owe an apology for not following instructions. But the weight of an apology given, when the end result is positive, is a featherweight compared to having to apologize for wasting your time and not following your beliefs. There is an ABBA lyrics that go “the judges will decide, the likes of me abide”. Most people are like that, which is perfectly ok. Although it’s just as much ok to be your own judge sometimes.
My story on this
A while back I have worked in controlling for a subsidiary of a large multinational. I had some really good colleagues in my team, but the team was understaffed, and for different reasons, I was not able to hire. Then a quarterly presentation came up to which I was invited. All subsidiaries were requested to prepare a deck of about 20-25 slides with a given structure and topics to cover. I was the fifth presenter that day. I saw four great presentations right before me.
When it was my turn, I came on stage and showed the one slide I had. It was a simple P&L with a few short comments on the side and a couple of figures highlighted. I verbally explained all the business, recent events, structural changes, the process which led to these figures, everything. Then answered a number of deep-dive questions from colleagues. When I was done, the head of the department to whom I was reporting asked why I have only 1 slide? I said that with the number of guys in my team we cannot handle any extraordinary tasks, such as this presentation. This is also the reason why we sometimes fail corporate deadlines. The air was frozen for a minute. Then he said that my message is clear, thanked me for the presentation, and told me that if I needed any support from him, it is granted.
In preparation for the event, I looked at the presentation template, which was lengthy and covered a number of topics about the business. However, my agenda was different. First of all, I wanted to stand out as I was the youngest manager in the room and I had to build credibility. I also wanted to highlight that as we are the smallest team in the group, we have problems respecting all deadlines. So I decided to do something punchy. Had I asked permission from my boss to present this way, she would have said no. She would have suggested me to prepare the presentation as it was requested and try to make my point on the slides as that was supposed to be the logical way. After this event, I said I was sorry not to have asked permission, but given the end result, my way was proven to be the correct one. Sometimes it is easier to ask for pardon than permission. And this time it was well worth it as well.
Let me tell you another story. While I was working in Iraqi Kurdistan, our company received funds in US Dollars. Some of the spendings were in local currency though, amounting to about 50kUSD a month. There were two options to get that cash. Take Iraqi Dinar from the bank at the exchange rate of 1000 IQD per USD, or go to the bazaar and get 1200 IQD per USD. I did the math and went for the second option. It was not against company policy as there was no company policy for this. So I had my treasury guy go to the bazaar once or twice a month to exchange money, saving about 10 thousand USD per month. Once I went with him as well. I’ve had 20kUSD in my pocket, he had about 30. We visited a couple of exchange shops, asking for the best price. After 4-5, we went back to the one offering the best rate, which was a tiny, dirty shop of about 12 square meters. We flipped the 50k on the table, he counted, told his 8-year old son to bring the cash, we counted, put it in a shopping bag, and left. We used a shopping bag as 60 million Iraqi Dinars wouldn’t fit in our pocket.
You might think that there are certain risks attached to somebody walking around with 20-50kUSD in his pocket in the Iraqi bazaar. I however knew that this place in Erbil is actually safer than the New York subway. To fully understand, you have to live there, experience the culture, know the people, which I did. Obviously, I didn’t ask permission, as it would have been denied. My boss would also think that I’m crazy to even ask. So this went on for quite a while when one day I was chatting with my line manager in Europe and told this story. He was puzzled for a few minutes, shocked, then angry for a few seconds then he said: “Pista (that’s my nickname), what the f***…”. I told him this way we saved at least a 100kUSD for the company and assured him there was no risk attached, as our statistics proved. I said sorry for not mentioning it before, but that was just the right thing to do. He asked a few details, like security setup, etc, but I told him it’s basically my treasurer with a driver and a shopping bag. He asked me to try to apply some measures like a briefcase with a code, so I promised I will try. I kind-of tried 🙂 Anyways, it was easier to ask pardon than permission. The end result was a lot of money saved for the company.
Applying this practice at work
Some companies have many rules. Some don’t have any. Some managers direct every single move of his/her colleagues, some let them free. I believe that employees should always behave in the best interest of their employer and that’s the most important rule of thumb. Needless to say, you shouldn’t be an idiot. Don’t use company money to play poker and be sure to give back with interest once you win. This is called theft. Or don’t deny a request from headquarter because you think it’s stupid and senseless. That’s arrogance. Neither of these will lead you far. It can happen that you are requested to send a weekly report on something that clearly doesn’t make any sense. If there is no way you can argue against it, then just go with the flow but dedicate the least amount of time/effort and move on to worthwhile tasks. Like filling in the report with the same thing each week. If you were right and nobody actually reads the report, you will at the end apologize for this partial low-risk disobedience but will prove your point and save time/money for your company and yourself.
I have to put a disclaimer here. Don’t think that you should always act differently than you are asked to. Don’t think you should not or cannot ask permission. I’m simply telling you a few stories through which you can see that sometimes it is better to ask for pardon than permission. But you have to be 100% sure what you are doing and why. Otherwise, you might get in trouble and you even deserve it!
Conclusion
When faced with a decision where your gut feeling tells you something different than the rules, think about it. Always act in the best interest of the company, as a rule of thumb. If you are sure deviating is worthwhile but you have a low chance of getting permission to do so, remember: it is sometimes easier to ask for pardon than permission.