If You’re Never Wrong at Work, You’re Probably Not Leading

Welcome to my newsletter! I'm Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM. I write this newsletter I've called Scarlet Ink, which is a weekly newsletter on tech industry careers and tactical leadership advice.

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Today I'm writing about being wrong and how being wrong is good for you. For real. It'll be great. Just hang with me a bit.

I'm convinced that many people overestimate the value they add at work. I don't know how many times I interviewed someone who bragged about something that didn't sound like they added value at all.

"I was a part of the X important discussion."

"I ensured everyone was on track."

"Elbert had a bad idea, and I told him that it wouldn't work. They did it anyway."

One criterion I've used before to measure value is, "If you weren't there, would things have gone a drastically different way?"

That's a good one to give people pause, because frequently the answer is an uncomfortable, "Well, no, it would have ended this way regardless."

In that case, you've clearly impacted nothing. Here's another one I like to use, that also requires a bit of pondering.

"Am I doing / saying something that may be proven to be wrong?"

Why are these useful ways of measuring value? Because if everyone knows that you're right, then you're moving the inevitable forward.

For example, "This new feature causes massive attrition among our customers. Let's roll it back."

Yeah, duh. But everyone knew that was what needed to happen. If you weren't there, someone else would have said it.

Anyone can join an important discussion, and add nothing important to it. Anyone can ask people, "Are you on track?" Anyone can recognize an obvious flaw in an idea.

You know what's hard and adds value?

1. Insisting on having a discussion on a topic others think is not necessary.
2. Disagreeing with someone when they say that their team is on track.
3. Proposing a different idea when you think someone's idea won't work.

What is common between these points? You can be proven wrong. People will disagree with you. You might look foolish.

That's how you know that you might be creating true value. Because adding value can't possibly exist at the intersection of playing it safe. Playing it safe means doing what others would do. By definition, a person who adds value is doing things that others would not do.

Now I'll walk through a few categories of creating value.

Do the unpopular but correct thing.

It's easy to follow the crowd. Similarly, it can feel good to anticipate what the crowd will like and suggest that as your proposal. And that can be a good thing politically. But it's not really adding value.

"I think our remaining bugs are minor, and not worth holding the launch. I think we should announce that we're going to go live!"

"Yeah!"
"Go team!"
"Heck yeah!"

That's fun and can be good for your career. But it doesn't actually add value.

It's personally risky to not do the popular thing. However, that's where you find the largest value. Because it takes a bold leader to step up and say, "I know that many of you disagree with this, but we're going to do it anyway."

We had a software product heading towards launch. Our team was fully engaged in getting the last bugs fixed before the launch date. Our VP asked for a demo.

We walked him through the demo. He asked some questions about the bugs, about the features, and about the UI. He asked how we felt about the launch.

We felt good. We knew all major bugs would be fixed before it launched, and while the UI wasn't perfect, it was certainly good enough to be given to customers.

He thought about it a bit and said we should hold the launch a few weeks until we improved the product a bit more.

We were stunned and upset. We'd been driving towards that date for months. It took stress and effort to hit the date. People had worked long hours, and serious mental effort had gone into figuring out a path to nail that date. We were thrilled that we had figured out a way to launch on time. We were finally convinced that we were going to make it. And with one statement, he asked our whole department to take a step back for weeks.

In the end, was he right? Yes, totally. That date, like most launch dates, was an artificial date with no reasoning behind it. Launching a few weeks later would make almost zero business or customer impact. These few weeks gave our bug fixes time to bake. During that time, we were able to tweak the UI to be a bit better. In general, it became a better launch because we weren't rushed. It was an unpopular decision, but it was the right decision.

Our VP made that decision, and he had to know it would be unpopular, but he did it anyway.

It's easy and tempting to say, "I trust all of you; your plan sounds good." It's much harder to say, "I understand what you're saying, but I disagree."

And yes, the VP managed our group, so he absolutely had the authority to make that decision. But theoretically any of us decision makers could and should have made the same call. I absolutely knew that our launch date was artificial, but I was blindly (and excitedly) working my butt off to hit that date.

I should have stepped up and stopped the launch planning before it got that far. And on future projects I was much more careful to watch for unpopular but correct decisions like that one. Just make certain that you're usually correct about your unpopular opinions.