Quote from John Freeman on January 31, 2021, 5:12 pm

Quote from Matthew Whitewood on January 31, 2021, 4:29 pm

If increasing traffic was a clear area of responsibility for me, then I would admit that it was not well thought out.

And I should bring something more substantial to the team.

Thanks for the clarifications. I think you're the only one to know if it's your responsibility or not. If it was the case, then yes I would say that preparation was not sufficient. If you intend to play the leader role, then you must propose stuff. If you wait for others to give ideas through the brainstorming session for an area which is your responsibility, then you deserve that someone challenges your leadership. Because then, it's value-taking.

I hope I'm clear?

Let's say that traffic is your responsibility. If you would have prepared better, you would have a concrete idea to brainstorm around. And worst case scenario, your idea "wins" (as I said: dangerous mindset, you want the best idea to win, not your idea). because nobody else has something better to contribute. AKA you did your job.

So you had a preparation issue and a leadership issue that exposed your flank to a power move on these two aspects. Your preparation and your leadership were challenged. I think it was a fair move from your colleague, from his perspective. However, he was a dick about it.  That's my observation.

If my assumptions above are correct, you see my point: you had a skill issue (leadership) and a work output/organization (preparation) issue. No power issue here.

There's a difference between organizing a meeting and leading a meeting: don't "play" the leader, be a leader. That means: take ownership.

So now that I have the full picture I believe, I think you were right to defend in this case because you were in a weak position. So you had to survive politically and I understand what you did. However, now you lost leadership capital in front of other people's eyes I believe.

To regain it, there is only one way: to deliver on your promise. Do what you said you were going to do, regardless of your colleagues' opinions or remarks. Then, you'll gain the respect and influence you're looking for. Also, present the result of your work with humility and you'll win.

I hope this helps. Tough love I know, but love still.

Cheers!

Quote from Matthew Whitewood on February 1, 2021, 10:45 am

I think we are interpreting the context of the situation differently.
I left out the details of the larger meeting because I wanted to address the power dynamics related to the remark and how I could address the condescending reply.

In this situation, we are having regular meetings and are working on ongoing ideas.
There is still uncertainty in both whether to develop these ideas further and who should have the primary responsibility of these ideas.

To give another example of the dynamics of the situation, one time someone externally offered to me that our team should host a webinar.
No details at the moment. Just an offer of a general webinar on a certain topic.
I dropped a simple message to the team on their interest before we started to decide to plan the details.

This is how the other team members propose ideas to the team as well.
We put the ideas out there first before developing them further.
This avoids "developing & building the wrong thing".

There are a few layers to this.
We are some preliminary feedback first:

• Talk to teammates
• Brainstorm with users
• Get quantitative data

Then we move on to develop this further.

In this sector, this is a more suitable approach.
There is less risk in putting things out there and getting it wrong.
Compared to the risk of developing an idea that doesn't work.

I understand that there's a balance.
The idea cannot be too fuzzy.
I left out the details in the interaction with regard to the idea because it was not relevant to the power dynamics of the situation.