Build Trust - Opposite of CYA is TTT
Once, during a communication seminar, the professor delivering the course was asked what he guessed the opposite of Cover Your Ass would be. He paused, thought for a moment and then delivered, “TTT. Tell The Truth!” Can you imagine for a moment what it would be like if your team was honest about the challenges and opportunities it faced? If rather than looking for a scapegoat, they went proactively looking for solutions? TTT empowers and enables this. You need to set up a culture that does not blame people for errors, but rather encourages people to fail small and often to succeed sooner. Nothing truly innovative or inventive is going to be right the first time. The concept of people being able to produce the genuinely unique at the first attempt, to achieve perfection, is simply lunacy. By Telling the Truth amongst your team, this starts to become obvious. As your trust increases with your team, boss and customers, you find yourself needing to CYA less and less and TTT more and more. It’s wonderfully refreshing to have honest debates with colleagues, particularly those who do not agree with you. If the discussion is based on fact and not personal agenda, you will be surprised how much will get done.
Recently, a new addition to my staff and I had a ninety-minute debate on the merits of one iPad strategy versus another, in terms of deployment to our sales team. We argued both sides, and we both flipped positions a couple of times before reaching a stalemate. The following morning they apologized to me for wasting so much time, and I smiled and apologized if I had been rough on him the previous day, but indicated I thought the discussion had brought up a lot of valid points. He laughed and said he felt much more comfortable knowing he had not “pissed me off” with the heated debate. Not thirty minutes after that conversation, we found ourselves meeting with the CIO about the exact same subject. My colleague was able to present three distinct options, clearly outline the pros and cons of each, and the CIO was able to make a decision within five minutes. He was impressed that the options presented to him were well thought-out, a little battle-tested and close to water-tight. Without the ninety-minute debate, there is no way it would have gone as well with the CIO. You need to get your people into the mindset of TTT, and away from CYA, to allow wins like this to occur.
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