699: How to Respond When You Don’t Have Resources, with Laura West

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
What do you do when you get a request from a stakeholder, but you don’t have the resources to fulfill it? That’s a reality almost every leader faces. In this episode, the mindset and tactics that will help you respond well. This is Coaching for Leaders episode 699. Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential. Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:45]:
This is one of our Saturday casts. A few times a year, I air an episode here on a Saturday with one of our members. The next regular episode still coming on Monday, so this is a bit of a bonus. The Saturday casts are sponsored and brought to you by the Coaching for Leaders Academy. You can discover more about the academy and get an invitation for when we next open up applications by going over to coachingforleaders.com/academy. One of the conversations that comes up often in our academy sessions, and by the way, with many listeners over the years is, how do I respond to requests from other stakeholders when I don’t have the resources to be able to support the request? Whatever the request is, it is a reality of leadership that we all need to handle and navigate and sometimes struggle with. And that’s why I’m so glad today that we have one of our members with us who has really become, a leader in doing this well and not only for herself, but for her team and in helping us to navigate this effectively. I’m so pleased to introduce Laura West to you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:58]:
She is a seasoned leader and researcher with 14 years experience executing and training others in data analysis and strategy. She’s led large teams across several organizations, has a PhD in linguistics, and is an alum of our academy. Earlier this year, Laura was selected as one of our new Coaching for Leaders fellows and has taken on a leadership role in supporting some of our current academy members inside of our community. Laura, what a pleasure to have you on the show.

Laura West [00:02:28]:
I’m so excited, Dave. Obviously, longtime listener and fan, so thanks for having me.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:35]:
It is a pleasure. You and I talk all the time. You have been such a wonderful leader in our community of helping us all to get better. And you and I started talking a few months ago just about this reality that a lot of us need to handle these uncomfortable situations, which they often feel like- somebody asks for something. It’s a client. It’s a senior leader. It’s a peer. And the very first initial thought that comes up in our minds is, I don’t have the resources to be able to do that, whatever it is.

Dave Stachowiak [00:03:11]:
And you’ve really done some wonderful thinking on this and have helped your team get really good at responding to this. And I thought we’d walk through just how you think about this because I think it’s a really helpful process. And I just think that’d be useful for people to think through because this is just a reality in so many organizations, isn’t it?

Laura West [00:03:29]:
Yeah. It’s definitely been a reality in most of the organizations I’ve worked in. And I think, you know, especially in the recent past couple years, a lot of people have experienced cost cutting at their organizations or another kind of tactic is to as people leave and naturally that happens, maybe your leadership doesn’t backfill their role. I think that’s a pretty common thing we see now in in the academy. We talk about a lot of leaders’ experience. So I think we’re all very much operating in an environment where the teams are lean, and, you know, there is that effort to keep as few people as possible, and yet it seems like the requests are nonstop for a lot of teams. So I have experimented over the years with how to lead in that type of environment.

Dave Stachowiak [00:04:23]:
And I think this crosses team, organization, industry. I hear about this all the time from all different kinds of leaders and all different kinds of organizations. So I think that if you’re not running into pressures on resources, probably something else is up because all of us do need to manage to a budget. Right? Like, if we’re not thinking about this, even if we’re not getting pressure externally, being a good steward of our time and resources for our team actually is so helpful to do as a practice anyway. So even if you don’t feel like, you’re constrained on resources, I think this is just a really smart practice to have. So let’s jump in. You’ve highlighted 5 key things, 5 steps to take in order to do this well. And it starts with the response or maybe taking a bit of a delay with the initial response.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:14]:
And you say 30 minutes to an hour before you reply to the email or reply to the request. What does that do to help, and what are you doing during that 30 minutes to 60 minutes while you’re delaying?

Laura West [00:05:24]:
Yeah. Great question. So I think in short, you are checking in with yourself and checking in with others. So, again, my point on checking in with myself is, oh, how is this request making me feel, and why do I think that is? And then always making sure to check with others. So when I said before, one way you can respond is no way, my team doesn’t have capacity. Even if you’re 99% sure that’s true, I think a good first step is to always double check. Double check with your team. And if your team sits within a larger team, you check with the larger team, and you say, hey.

Laura West [00:06:05]:
I know we’re all busy, but I just wanna double check. This request came in. I think it would be about this amount of time next week. Can anyone confirm if they’re available? And then you’ve kind of checked that box and done some due diligence. That’s the first way that you can not just say no and take a step. And the second thing I do, because that often ends in, you know, no response, no one has time, again, if you’re operating on a lean team, my second step would be to throw together a quick 15 minutes with some colleagues, and it works best too if you can grab a couple of colleagues who don’t sit on your team and are even cross functional. So maybe somebody from the product team and somebody from- we have a part of our org called implementation and optimization. And they’re technically minded people who are in high demand, but they’re creative and their technical skills are really high.

Laura West [00:07:07]:
And then maybe one person from your team who is a good on their feet thinker. And you spend 15 minutes, tell them what the request is, and say, any ideas how we might respond to this request in a helpful way that would not require any of us to work overtime? And I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been saved by somebody in that meeting saying, actually, someone on my team got a similar request, and this is what we did, or somebody from, you know, maybe product saying, we actually wrote a script that automates part of that, and not everybody knows about it because we did it for this other client. And now you have some options. So that’s kind of what I tend to do with that 30 minutes to an hour is just some quick checking in and problem solving.

Dave Stachowiak [00:07:57]:
I think it’s interesting, like, when coming to this conversation in the spirit of this, I very much hear it’s like, okay. We’re not just looking at the polar opposites of, like, yes, and all of a sudden I have to work tons of hours or no, and I disappoint whoever and seem inflexible. How do we get creative on this? And at least let’s cover the bases and sometimes even something comes out of that that didn’t even think about initially.

Laura West [00:08:21]:
Yeah. And maybe there’s this perfect miraculous solve, like, you know, sometimes happens. Someone has a way to automate it. Somebody actually does have time on your team, and you just didn’t know because something got canceled that happened to me recently. And I was very surprised, when I just was trying to check that box that, actually, the answer was, yes, I do have time. And maybe nothing comes out of those meetings. But regardless, now for step 2, which is, you know, now you respond and you do what I call show your work. Now you can respond and say, you know what? I checked with my team and I checked with the larger department and confirmed we’re at full capacity.

Laura West [00:09:03]:
I also met with and, you know, list some of the people you met with, so there’s that visibility to leadership that you’ve kind of taken a lead role and and got some people together to think about solutions and say, you know, here are a couple of things we discussed. Maybe they’re not a perfect fit, but you’ve come back and you’ve shown whoever was making this request, I cared enough to take 30 minutes to an hour to come up with a few ideas and to make an effort.

Dave Stachowiak [00:09:36]:
And to your point from a moment ago that even if in step one of, like, that 30 to 60 minute initial pause, get a few ideas, even if nothing emerges, that that’s a helpful process to go through to be able to really respond with credibility to the request or whoever they are even if it is still a no. Hey. Here’s the due diligence I did and the process we went through and the visibility around this and the care we took with this request even if we’re not able to say yes in this case.

Laura West [00:10:05]:
Absolutely. Yeah. It goes a really long way.

Dave Stachowiak [00:10:08]:
Which leads very quickly into step 3, which is presenting options. And I’m wondering how you frame these, and then particularly when it is something that’s leaning more toward a no or there’s really not an obvious way we can do this without a lot of other interventions or resources. How do you frame those and think about it?

Laura West [00:10:30]:
Yeah. I have found that there’s 2 or 3, like, go to things that you almost always can offer. One thing is to say, as strapped as your team might be, I have found that almost any team can find somebody with 30 minutes. Right? So one thing you can offer is so and so could take 30 minutes to train a person on your team, stakeholders who’s making the request, to execute this at a higher level by the timeline you said you needed it by. And that’s like a good faith effort to, you know, empower the person who’s actually asking to do the work themselves or have their team do the work themselves. So that’s a good go to to offer and throw into the mix. Another thing is play with the different elements of the request. So, inevitably, there’s a deadline.

Laura West [00:11:22]:
If the deadline is just not doable for that size of the project and the resources you have, you could say, my team can’t do it this week. Somebody on my team is available next week. Is the deadline flexible? So that’s another option. Right? Move the deadline. And offer somebody from your team later on. Another idea that sometimes works that I use often is, you know, we can’t actually execute this full project, but I do have somebody on my team who could knock out part 1 in the next few days. And parts 2 and 3, we’d have to ask your team to take on or someone else to take on. So maybe you don’t have to say no to the entire project.

Laura West [00:12:08]:
Maybe you could find a little slice that is more digestible for your team. And then the final option, which is also to my point before about 30 minutes is always possible, is for you to depending on who the stakeholder is, if they’re your manager or a leader, you could say or even a client stakeholder, here are the things my team currently has that is putting us at capacity and what I understand the priorities to be. If we were to shift project y that we’re working on to next week, we could take on this new request now. Just know that would move that timeline back a week for the other project. So play around with priorities. That’s another one that works really well and is always an option for any team. Right? Any leader could tell you, yes. I want you to focus the team here now.

Laura West [00:13:02]:
So those are some go to’s.

Dave Stachowiak [00:13:05]:
When you share options like that and and those 3 or 4 different ways of framing it, how do you find people tend to respond?

Laura West [00:13:15]:
I like doing this a lot because it makes you seem like a really good partner. And what I’ve found in response is very few people are gonna say, nope. Unacceptable. I told you what I wanted. I’m insisting that you take this on in addition to all the priorities you just listed your team has. Nobody wants to be that person. I don’t think I’ve ever had somebody respond saying, unacceptable, take on the full project anyway. So it really gets them in that problem solver mode as well.

Laura West [00:13:45]:
And sometimes, just feeling like they have an option takes off their probably sense of urgency and sometimes fear that they have a project that has to get done, and they don’t know how they’re gonna do it if they don’t get help. And just having somebody take the time to lay out some options can really deescalate that. All those emotions we can sometimes feel at work when we feel overwhelmed.

Dave Stachowiak [00:14:09]:
You also invite us 4th to be the data person. You say this is, like, one of your favorite parts. You’re a data person by training. So what do you mean by being a data person?

Laura West [00:14:21]:
Yeah. So data is my background. I’m a very big fan of data, especially as someone who has a lot of strong emotions as we’ve already talked about. It’s a nice way to, like, kind of all sit down with the same set of facts and to have everybody operating off the same information. And a lot of organizations don’t do a great job of collecting this type of data. It’s like kinda metadata about what’s going on day to day in between the teams and the company. And maybe, you know, you have your super built out sales data system where you know every single person that you cold called and what they said and all of that. But very few organizations say, okay.

Laura West [00:15:07]:
So and so internally made this request of this other team internally, and here’s the impact it had or here’s how we solved it. And so just keeping a- it can be a really simple Excel sheet or Google Sheet where you’re documenting for yourself. You know, here is a request my team got. Here was the date. Here, were we able to fully execute the project? Yes or no? Here’s who we talked to to problem solve, and here was kind of the end solution. I think this does a few things. 1, that data is really useful for later when things are slower or you are having a conversation about operations or process and you can come to leadership and say, you know, for example, my team has received about 20 requests in the past 2 weeks. We have the capacity to deliver on 8 of them fully, and maybe on 5 of them, we came up with a creative solution.

Laura West [00:16:08]:
And for the remaining, you know, here’s kind of some typical options and the ones that worked the best. You just kind of can keep it very objective even though, again, teams being stressed under capacity. This can be a very emotional topic. I think everybody can appreciate and leaders can appreciate, it’s not just someone saying they’re stressed out or their team’s under capacity. I have, like, some pretty good data that I can look at and make some decisions for myself around, does that team seem overutilized or under capacity? It can help make your case to push people towards certain solutions. So if you are laying out some options and have a preference that the stakeholder take one of the options you’re laying out. You can say, you know, we’ve had similar requests in the past month, and for about 70% of them, we took this approach, and it was the best performing.

Laura West [00:17:04]:
Like, typically, it allowed us to execute the project on time with only slightly less accuracy or something like that. And you’ve kind of have your own dataset that you can go to and that you can bring data points to the forefront and really help influence people. And it makes a big difference, like somebody who does some generalizations, you know, like, we’re always getting requests, and we never have the resources versus somebody who’s saying, you know, in the past month, we’ve had about 20 I mean, you just sound night and day. There’s a difference between, like, professional maturity, I think, there. And the reason I noticed that is because I fell into the generalization camp very heavily, and I had a mentor one time point that out to me and say, whenever you make a generalization, I’d like you to kind of double check whether that’s actually true. And I found that when I would actually go back to the data and I would say, you know, we get these requests all the time. Well, then I would sit down and look back, and we, you know, maybe have gotten that request 3 times in the past year, and it just felt, again, like the feeling aspect. It felt like it was all the time.

Laura West [00:18:18]:
So it also just helps me to check, do I have a right kind of clear assessment of what is happening and at which frequency and what is working well and what isn’t? And, again, keep that objectivity on something that might feel, because of the stress that surrounds it, like it’s, more common problem than it actually is.

Dave Stachowiak [00:18:43]:
So 4th step, be the data person. Even if you don’t tend to do that by default of, like, doing a little bit of that can help as a starting point. And then 5th, you say, prioritize, but tell. Don’t ask. Tell me about that distinction.

Laura West [00:19:00]:
Yeah. So this is kind of a newer one that I’ve had a lot of success with because I find and I’m curious, Dave, if you have found the same. Stakeholders aren’t typically great at prioritizing, like, if you were to ask them directly. What is the priority? I think a lot of us here, well, it’s all important or this is important or they just have a hard time. I need to talk to some people before I would know how to put them in order or because it’s a more involved question that really requires some deep thinking even if only for 20 minutes or so, that email kinda just gets pushed aside that chat kind of like they don’t come back to it, and you’re sitting waiting for that direction on what to prioritize. So what I like to do instead is do a little of the deep thinking first for 15 minutes. What I know about the business priorities, what I know about that stakeholder, and say, based on your priorities or your KPIs, our KPIs as a business this quarter, here’s what I’m gonna prioritize based on this recent request coming in. You know, I’m gonna keep going with projects a, b, and c that I told you are in flight.

Laura West [00:20:10]:
I’m gonna go ahead and take 30 minutes, somebody on my team to train someone on your team, and we’ll make sure we hit all our existing deadlines and keep going unless I hear otherwise or making it so that you have permission in writing, even if it’s just permission you’ve given yourself to make progress and keep going has made a big difference. And, again, I found that one with the feelings again. Like, I kept feeling resentful when I was sitting around waiting to get we call them steers a lot at our company. Like, the client hasn’t given me steers, and I’ve been sitting a week waiting with resources pulled aside to get the final steers on what to do. And so I really coach my teams now. Do you know with 80% certainty or clarity what you think the client is gonna say to your what should I prioritize question? And almost every time, we have a very good sense of what we think they’re gonna say. And so I say, you know, write them back and say, you know, in order to continue moving on the project, here is the plan going forward, and we’ll deliver it on this day and confirming that in writing. And they can always write you back that same afternoon and say, wait wait wait.

Laura West [00:21:28]:
Stop the presses. We actually do want you to switch priorities, but it kind of takes control back for you and allows you to continue working and do some of that prioritization yourself. And, honestly, a lot of times, if it’s up between options 12 and I’m not sure what the client or stakeholder would choose, I choose whichever of those is gonna be easier on my team, and I just say that is gonna be our approach. And I make sure in the email that it’s clear, you know, they can respond and give us alternative direction, but that we’re giving ourselves permission to take this approach until we hear otherwise.

Dave Stachowiak [00:22:10]:
When David Marquet came on the show, former US Navy captain and talking about leadership, one of the distinctions he made is exactly what you just said, Laura. Rather than having his people use the language request permission to, which is often used in the navy of of saying I intend to. And I hear that distinction so clearly in what you’ve just said is most of the time you kinda know where you’re probably gonna hear from anyway. So, like, taking the lead of saying, here’s what we’re gonna do unless we hear otherwise. We’re moving forward on this. And you’re prioritizing. And to your point from earlier, like, you asking me, like, do I see this too? Yeah. And the most common reason is is, like, people just don’t have a clue.

Dave Stachowiak [00:22:55]:
Like, they don’t know. Like, no one knows our team better than us, right, and what the resources are. And the stakeholder, the senior leader, the person that maybe we talk to only every few weeks just doesn’t have any idea what else is going on with us, with the organization, and shouldn’t. Like, that’s not their job to know that. And so Right. It’s actually on us from a leadership standpoint to say, hey. I intend to. And to your point, they can always say, okay.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:21]:
No. Like, you’ve clearly laid this out and, no, that’s not correct. But my guess is when you do that, you actually get someone having changing direction on you entirely pretty infrequently.

Laura West [00:23:32]:
Yeah. And I think some people who are earlier in their career that are on my team or have been on my team in the past have a lot of reluctance because they think someone’s gonna get angry at them for kind of taking that stance or they’re gonna get it wrong. And what I’ve actually found is the opposite. I’ve found that stakeholders, managers have often thanked me for going ahead because, you know, their emails were backed up 2 days. And by the time they got to my email, they were so glad to hear that we had gone ahead and actioned instead of sitting around waiting and then having to tell them we haven’t even started. I’ve had many, many more positive reactions to taking that initiative than I’ve ever had, why did you do that or that’s wrong?

Dave Stachowiak [00:24:18]:
You’ve alluded to this a couple of times, but I’d love to highlight it because I think it’s key. Is it’s you’re not just doing this yourself. You’re also teaching your team how to do this too and how they respond to requests as a way of professional development and helping utilize resources across the organization.

Laura West [00:24:36]:
Yes. And I think one key thing I do in order to do that coaching is I make sure to cc my team. We have, like, an alias for our team on almost any client communications. Because the way I learned the most, the fastest earlier in my career was in a cubicle, and my boss was in the one directly next to me. And I would listen to him all day long, field client calls, stakeholder calls. Sometimes he’d bring me in the meetings with him. And I just remember taking notes and being like, oh, that’s the way you dodge that kind of question, or that’s the way you smoothly and clearly articulate this other thing that I I would have not known how to address. And it was by, like, observing somebody do it well, and that’s still the best way I learn.

Laura West [00:25:26]:
So I like to just make sure they have visibility into how we can communicate around requests like this.

Dave Stachowiak [00:25:34]:
And cc’ing for professional development. You know, oftentimes, like, we’re always thinking about how do we reduce email and remove the cc’s and yes to all of that, of course. And it’s also like, I hadn’t really thought about that from the standpoint of, like, who do I copy on this that maybe is on my team that reports to me that I want them to see what I’m saying for the purpose of professional development and helping them to get better at this. Like, what a great invitation for people.

Laura West [00:26:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Not everybody in your team is gonna read every email because they know that’s a bunch of cc’s. But I’ve found there are many high performing people who read every single one and will bring it up in our 1 on ones and say, like, oh, I noticed the way you said that. And that was cool that the client responded that way. So I think there is a lot of interest in people having that visibility.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:28]:
And speaking of visibility and email, you have also done a practice of a weekly recap, especially to some of the key stakeholders, and that’s helped with this too, it sounds like.

Laura West [00:26:39]:
Yeah. And, you know, I’ve managed bigger teams lately. I was managing a department of, like, 40 people. Now my team is more focused on a very strategic account. There’s 10 people I oversee. And so often, what can happen in those situations is your stakeholders can think, man, the team’s so big. You have so many resources. Why does it always seem like you’re always, quote, unquote, at capacity? And I think I started doing this a few weeks ago in some ways in desperation to, like, why is there that disconnect between, like, them thinking that maybe the team isn’t being fully utilized and not- I assumed good intentions.

Laura West [00:27:20]:
Right? That it was there was a disconnect and there was a gap, and that that was part of my job to close that. And so I just started ending the week with an email to, in this case, the client saying, here, I just wanted to review and summarize for you all of the things the team worked on this week and the progress we made on certain initiatives. And that list always is just a bunch of bullet points in just phrases. Right? I don’t spend an hour crafting the email, and it always tends to be pretty long and even surprise me all the stuff that was moved forward or going on in the background. I even bring up if a stakeholder had contacted us because they were having issues with the platform or us taking time to onboard somebody from the client side, and maybe our main stakeholder didn’t even know that all of that was going on. So having it recapped at the end of the week and all at once makes it look like, oh, yes. That makes a lot of sense that your team was busy. Look at all the things you did.

Laura West [00:28:23]:
And I’ve had a really good response where the client said, wow, you guys did a lot. Or even on occasion now, we’ll say, I don’t want you to take on that other request that came in because I know you’re at capacity, because they know exactly what we’re working on. And It was a pretty simple thing to add to my weekly tasks. And, you know, it might not work in every case, but it has worked really well in this one.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:49]:
I appreciate you sharing what you’re currently trying to do. Like, so much of this is ongoing learning for all of us being adaptable, getting feedback. And it it is also interesting whenever I am talking with a leader, one of our members who says, I have someone who’s micromanaging me, either it’s a client or it’s a senior leader. One of the first things we always suggest people try is start maybe with a weekly update, like an email, just like letting the other party know whoever they are. Like, here’s what my team’s doing proactively, like, before they ask for it. And it is interesting how often it either helps that person who’s micromanaging to back off pretty substantially or at the very least to reduce the intensity of it. It’s because it’s like a lot of times that person wants control. And if you all of a sudden, they have the insight and the information and they know what’s being worked on, the the intensity of that dials down quite a bit.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:44]:
And it’s really it’s just a helpful thing for us to all do anyway, you know, even outside of, a context of resources. So glad you’re doing that.

Laura West [00:29:52]:
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. I think that sometimes, for me, when I would say somebody was micromanaging or, again, a client was just not getting it, I think when I really did some digging, I realized, well, I can actually see why they never quite knew what was going on with the project, or I think that it is kind of part of the role to keep your leader informed regularly because they have so much going on that what seems obvious to you just isn’t going to be so obvious, and then they have to play catch up when they do all of a sudden need to report what’s going on with that project or those resources. Now they need to catch up over what’s been going on the past 3 weeks, and, it just it makes their life a lot easier if they feel like they’re getting regular updates without having to ask in the moment when they need them.

Dave Stachowiak [00:30:43]:
You’ve been working on getting better at this for a while. As I mentioned, we’re all working on getting better at this skill, and, you know, I ask people all the time what they’ve changed their minds on. As you’ve gotten better at this, you’ve been teaching your team how to do it. What have you changed your mind on on it?

Laura West [00:31:02]:
Yeah. I think, it’s happened in the past 5 years or so as I’ve just hopefully gotten more professionally mature and seen again, I have someone I report to who’s very good at this, and I used to think he when I was being not generous and really wasn’t doing deep thinking around it, well, he doesn’t have any boundaries. Right? Because he never says no. I never heard him say no, whereas we were all under resourced, and all I wanted to do was say no and say, tell him, please say no. We can’t do that. But then I started paying closer attention and realized he wasn’t saying yes either. And it wasn’t that he let people throw anything at us and asked us to work overtime. He, in fact, is very good about not working overtime unless you want to and about logging off at 5.

Laura West [00:31:58]:
So I knew there was something there. It wasn’t that he was saying yes either. And so a lot of these tactics I’ve gotten just by watching him, like, how do you not say no and not say yes? And I find that he has a lot of very good relationships across the company. And when he needs something, he has a lot bigger Rolodex of people to call because he’s been this partner to everybody else and said, well, I can’t say yes, but let’s figure out what we can do. And I just think that’s such a cool evolution of the idea of having, quote, unquote, boundaries. And again, to that idea that, like, you can have boundaries and they can be flexible and you can take a minute and check-in with yourself and check-in with other people.

Dave Stachowiak [00:32:45]:
Just thinking about my own career and how many times someone that I’ve initially come across and sort of my first response to them in the workplace has been getting irritated at them for whatever reason. And then, like, how much I’ve ended up learning from so many of those people over the years. In some cases, like, building great relationships with them. In some cases, not. But there’s almost always something behind that irritation. And usually, it’s not about them. Usually, it’s about me. And it’s interesting, like, because they do something really differently than me or they point out something in myself that I don’t like.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:15]:
Right? And it’s helped me to get better. And what a great nudge from you for all of us to just remind us, like, when we sense that irritation, that’s a place for learning and growth for us a lot of the time.

Laura West [00:33:26]:
Absolutely. And not just saying yes or not just saying no is harder. It’s more work. That takes a lot more thinking. And I think that’s what my negative emotion was, right, is that I was learning how to grow in this area, and I didn’t really want to because it was more work than kind of my very straightforward just say no or just say yes and work late. I really had to do the thinking around each request. And it’s been hard, and it has been so great. And I’m glad that I’ve been able to kind of dig in after resisting for the 1st few years.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:03]:
Laura, thank you so much for serving as one of our Coaching for Leaders fellows, and thank you so much for walking us through your thinking on this to help us get better. I so appreciate it.

Laura West [00:34:11]:
Thank you, Dave. It’s been really fun.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:19]:
If this conversation was helpful to you, 3 related episodes I’d recommend. One of them is episode 241, the way to turn followers into leaders. David Maequet was my guest on that episode, former US Navy captain and author of Turn the Ship Around. He tells the story of taking command of the USS Santa Fe, and at the time, one of the worst performing ships in our navy. And at the end of his command, one of the best performing ships in the navy, he talks about what did him and his crew learn about each other and the language they use. And one of the phrases they learned is I intend to rather than having to request permission for everything. He talked about empowering sailors to be able to move forward and communicate well and most importantly, have ownership. Episode 241, a great framework for how to really provide ownership to the people inside of an organization.

Dave Stachowiak [00:35:15]:
Also recommended episode 433, how to start managing up. Tom Henschel was my guest on that episode, host of the Look and Sound of Leadership podcast. By the way, a great compliment to your listening. If you’re not listening to Tom’s show, I highly recommend it. In that conversation, Tom and I talked about the principle that he said your boss is your biggest customer. You heard elements of that in this conversation as well. A great compliment to what Laura and I discussed today. Again, that’s episode 433.

Dave Stachowiak [00:35:44]:
And then I’d also recommend episode 450, the way to influence executives. Nancy Duarte was my guest on that episode. We talked about what do executives care about. And Nancy answers that question very clearly in that conversation. The frameworks that executives care about, the levers, and most importantly, how do you frame your communications in a way that are likely to be able to influence them given the reality of all the things that they’re dealing with, facing, and thinking about? Episode 450 for a framework for that. All of those episodes you can find on the coachingforleaders.com website. I’m inviting you today to set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com. When you do, it’s gonna give you access to a whole suite of benefits.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:29]:
The weekly leadership guide that comes to you on email each week with resources, links, all the recommendations that I just mentioned each week to you along with things that I’m finding that I think will be helpful to you, but a whole bunch more. The audio courses inside of the free membership, my own personal library, and, normally, the interview notes for every episode. I say normally because I’m actually not including those today. Laura wrote up several pages of documentation on everything we talked about in this conversation. It is way better than anything I could have taken notes on. And so I’m including her notes inside of the episode notes for your access. It’s listed under responding to stakeholder requests on the episode notes. Be sure to download that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:37:15]:
It’ll also be in the weekly leadership guide. Thank you so much, Laura, for continuing to provide, your expertise to us. And maybe you’re looking for a bit more. You know, the reality is is that leadership gets harder at inflection points, whether it is a promotion, a different organization, a new team, a big initiative. These are the inflection points that we all run into in our careers. And it often brings up the reality. What worked yesterday doesn’t work today. It’s no accident that Marshall Goldsmith’s best selling book is called What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

Dave Stachowiak [00:37:55]:
And it’s one of the reasons that we get together in community to support each other. It’s doable to get through those inflection points alone, but it’s way more successful with support. The Coaching for Leaders Academy provides the community and structure to accelerate your movement on the behaviors that are most critical right now. If you’d like to find out more about when applications are next open for our academy, go over to coachingforleaders.com/academy. You’ll see an opportunity there to be reminded when our applications next open. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. On Monday, I’m glad to be back with you and welcoming Andrew Cooper to the show.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:43]:
We’re gonna be talking about the 3 people who will help you grow. Join me for that conversation on Monday, and I hope you have a great weekend.