Uncategorized

Timing is everything. Where we are and when can dictate whether a project succeeds or fails, a relationship starts or doesn’t, or whether we respond well in a heated moment (or not so well).

There are definitely better times to start or quit. Better times to posit your suggestion or stay quiet. Times when you’ll be lauded and times when you’ll be shunned. So how do you judge?

One of my favorite sayings is “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today.” This is a great reminder to get started on an idea, one that you’ve had for a little while. One where you’ve been using timing as an excuse (whether you don’t know the perfect time or think you missed the perfect time). Chances are if an idea is sticky enough to keep resurfacing in your mind, this is a clue you should take action.

Then of course there’s reading the room. These are the times when you really want something to work. You think something is a great idea. You may have even mentioned the idea in passing to test it’s reception. In these cases people may agree with you, but not share your excitement or verify your thinking. Or maybe people can’t understand or explain what it is you want to do. Worse yet, maybe you can’t explain it. Reading the room also includes factors outside of your direct control – the company’s not doing well, the economy is uncertain, or something generally is telling you “not yet.”

The trick is there’s no such thing as perfect timing – perfect timing is mostly hindsight bias after all. There is only knowing yourself and understanding the environment you’re operating in. There’s telling a story people buy into (or not).

So if you want to time something right, get to know yourself better. Observe the people and the world around you. Get really clear about the story you tell.

Don’t worry about perfect timing. Worry instead about using the time you have to focus on the right things. Anything else is just wasting time.

Work on the problem – throw yourself at the problem until it is no longer a problem, or at least until its diminished enough to be a headache you can live with. To do this well, you need to spend big blocks of time getting to the root of the issue; to take it a part until you understand it. Then spend more big blocks of time creating and testing the solve. Then a little less time implementing the solve. Total time depends on how complicated the problem is and how much authority you have to fix it.

Ignore the problem – if the problem is outside the core function of your work, transitory, or simply annoying, you should probably ignore the problem. If it gets more annoying, consider method 1.

Hire someone to work on the problem – if your problem is the volume of work that needs to be done and you are confident you can hire and train well, then hire – it frees up time for you to work on big problems.

If the problem requires specialized knowledge or you don’t know how to understand the problem, then pay for an expert. Be prepared to follow their advice and challenge your assumptions if you don’t agree with that advice.

If it is a big problem you already understand then consider the trade-offs between spending time to hire versus your other options. Hiring means you have to bring someone on, train them, help them deeply understand the business and the big problem, and them task them with solving the problem. Then be OK with how they solve it (because it probably won’t be how you would solve it). This will take much more time than you solving a well-understood problem on your own.

Most problems can be ignored and many problems do not require hiring. By no means should you hire someone to solve a problem that can and should be ignored. You will waste both time and money.

Volume problems aren’t really a problem, they’re a signal that what you’re doing works well and that your output is appreciated. They also mean it’s time to grow.

If you can’t articulate what your problem is in the first place, then you probably don’t have one. And no one needs a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

Start by first doing research. At least google your question or learn a little about the person you’re going to ask. If you make an ask to the wrong person, your ask will go nowhere.

Once you’re positive you have the right person, ask someone who knows you both to make an introduction. If you don’t have such a person, you’re making the wrong ask to the wrong person.

Once you have the attention of the askee, ask whether your assumptions are true. If you ask the wrong question to the right person you’re wasting everyone’s time, and you and the peer that introduced you look bad.

Once you’ve validated your assumptions or corrected them, seek to understand where the askee is coming from. Sometimes they will tell you, often you must at least partially guess. The better you understand the askee, the more context you’ll derive from your ask and the better your follow-up questions will be.

Once you have your answers and info, decide what clarity you need to seek in your follow-up asks. Once you’re done engaging, be sure to thank them. Bonus points for following up later with info about how their answers helped you.

Asking is hard work, and it means more than just writing a great subject line or neatly organizing the body of an email. It is not transactional, and it is unlikely the answer to your ask will immediately result in the outcome you want (unless your expectation is simply meeting a new person or learning something).

If you’re not asking correctly, you’re pitching. In a pitch you’re fighting against statistics and the chances of your pitch landing are very low. The chances of you annoying people are very high. The chances you learn anything are almost nothing. And the chances that you create a mediocre perception of yourself are almost certain.

By all means, make the ask. But do it with a thoughtful approach. It is the only way to get an answer that will lead you to the next ask.

If you do this well with consistency, one day you will be in a position to be asked. At that time you’ll understand why asking thoughtfully is so important. If someone isn’t good at asking, you’ll have a hard time answering them because they aren’t you, they don’t have your experience, and aren’t lucky in the same ways that you were. But if they are good at asking you’ll be glad they asked, and flattered that such a thoughtful person sought them out in the first place.

Bowling and surgery both require one. So does landing an airplane or chipping from the rough. If you want to remove a spleen or make par it requires practice, experience and consistency. It requires a point of view, understanding how others do it and why, and then adopting the elements that suit your own unique attributes and skills for the given situation.

An approach doesn’t require doing exactly what you’re told — not only is that likely to be someone else’s approach, it’s also inefficient if you run into something other than a standard scenario where you have to think for yourself.

An approach requires hard decisions and hard conversations. It requires giving the benefit of the doubt and having a reason for what you’re doing and why.

You may not land planes full of people or be on the pro bowling circuit for a living, but if something as serious as human lives or as simple as a game benefit from an approach, why not try it in your work too?