The other day, I had an idea at work. It was a good idea. (Of course it was good! It was my idea!) Staying as generic as possible, there is someone in another group, let’s call her Q, that was presenting information in a way that made it a little confusing. Q was running the meeting, but everyone on the Teams Meeting (we are all mostly still remote) seemed to have a different idea of what was being presented. In a flash, I saw a better way to present the information, and I knew that I could help Q present the information better at our next status meeting.

I am not a leader in our organization. Q and I work in different areas in the organization, but our work has places where it overlaps. I saw so clearly in my mind what would help her have a better meeting the next time, and I determined I was going to help her.

I did some research. I came up with a few ideas, and I was ready to approach Q with my suggestion. Swim-lanes (the slang for do your job not someone else’s job) are way too valued where I work. I decided I needed to talk my boss and my co-worker about it before I reached out to Q. We all had the same need of information from Q. Would my idea make it better when we were all in a meeting together with the “other side of the house”?

The answer was not yes. The answer was not no. Instead of listening to what I was saying, my boss proceeded to design a solution on the fly totally ignoring the work I had already done and proposing a solution that he didn’t really consider the implications of. He did not consult the requirements I was working from. He started from my idea and said, “Have her use this.” (Obviously, Boss doesn’t have to respect the Swim-Lanes, but that is for a different letter…)

I was mad. Livid. I screamed at the computer, “I Quit!” (It is good we are working from home. No one can hear me except Husband. BigOne and LittleOne always have headphones on.)

I didn’t really quit. And in a way, it was a good thing. You see, I realized that I was doing to Q what my boss did to me. Instead of empowering Q, I was solving a problem for her before telling her that I thought there was a problem. I was being as disrespectful to Q, and in the same way, as my boss consistently is to me.

I know you manage people, Zerrius, so I want you to think about this story when you are looking around at your peers and evaluating your own behavior. There is a problem when a person has to present their own design when they weren’t asked for a solution. When you are asked for feedback on X, and your action is to present Y as a better solution, you are hurting the person you probably think you are helping.

It is hard not to tie your child’s shoes when you are running late at 6:30am. It is hard not to fix something that is broken when you don’t think anyone is working on it. It is hard not to want to be the one with the good idea.

And yet, respect for other people and their ideas and their solutions is just as important if not more important than just fixing something that is broken. If it is broken. Sometimes it just is done in a way that isn’t YOUR way.

In Indiana we used to say, “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” This also may imply, ‘If a fix is ready to go, you don’t have to change it just to be the one to fix it.’

There are two things that come out of this for me. One, I have to figure out a way to express this to my boss so he STOPS doing this to me before I just quit in frustration. Two, and this is more important, when I took my idea to Q, I hope I did it as, “I see this as something we can make better, and here are some options to make it better. What do you think?”

I am not sure it came across that way, but then next time I encounter this type of situation, I hope I have a better algorithm than being like my boss.