Donald Meader: Surrounded by Insanity

Transcript

[0:00:14] RW: Hi everyone. It's Rae Williams, host of Author Hour where I interview authors about their new books. Your career is often at the mercy of other people's decisions. No matter how hard you work, you can feel like you're fighting a losing battle when you're tasked with implementing ideas, you know are doomed to fail. While it's true, you can't control the stupid people who force you to make these decisions. You can execute their bad ideas without ruining your career. Donald Meador is our next guest and the author of Surrounded by Insanity. He's seen a lot of bad ideas, destroy promising careers during his time working in corporate America and he chats with us about the simple steps you can take to avoid a similar fate. Here's a conversation with Donald Meador.

[0:01:04] Donald Meader: Yeah, this was really an outpouring of just the frustration that I felt as a middle manager in corporate America. Because the truth is you are 100% at the mercy of others people's decisions in other people's visions. Most of the time you're actually working on projects that you really don't care about or are you actually may think are a bad idea. And yet you're the one who has to find a way to implement those and if they fail, you're going to be the one on the hook, even if you don't think they're a good idea. I know that, you know, I saw this in a lot of the experiences that I had in corporate America. I remember sitting in a conference room with, oh, probably 30 to 40 executives and you know, one of those executive gets up and he stands at the front of the room and he says, "This new $10 million project is going to save us $50 million in network optimization." Now he spoke with complete confidence, but the problem was that statement was completely false. Now as an engineer, I couldn't really let this stand. And so I kind of raised my hand and say, "Yeah, you know, I don't think that's accurate." And of course he stared me down and said, "Yes, it is." Well, the first thing I had to do was I had to get up and go to a whiteboard. And so I started to kind of diagram and explain mathematically why he was actually wrong. I actually showed him why what he was saying wasn't true. And when I finished, I kind of looked around the room and the executive just looked at me and said, "No, you're wrong." And so I went and sat down and I just, I couldn't believe it. I just looked around for confirmation. Surely someone else saw that this was a bad idea. This project was not going to work and they didn't. And for some reason we still had to do it. We still had to find a way to do what he was asking us to do, even though it didn't make sense. And that's when I really figured out, it's like, you know, I've just got to find a way to survive some of these bad decisions or it's going to end up actually impacting me and my career.

[0:03:08] RW: So what is it that you took as your, your first step, not just in writing the book, but in, in realizing that you are in the midst of insanity and you had to break out of it? Well, I think, I think the first thing you have to realize is you're probably fighting the wrong battle. I think the first thing when you see some craziness like that, either a project or a process that just doesn't make sense. You just want to start screaming. You look around, it's like surely other people realize this is dumb, right? And so you want to fight back, you want to try to fight for the good. And, and the thing is, it's already over. You've probably already lost. Those decisions have already been made. And so, so many people spend their time and energy trying to fight back against something that's already over. It's already done. And so that's the first thing you have to realize is most of those decisions had been made at such a high level that the ship has sailed. And so you can't waste your energy trying to fight that. What you've got to figure out a way is to implement it without it negatively impacting you. All right. And so in terms of, and I find the chapter, the first chapter in the book is actually 'You Have Already Lost It'. Something I definitely gonna ask you about because I think that's just a brilliant way to start a book. But I also wondered why, but that explains it. But the second chapter is 'Manage Your Boss', which actually sounds terrifying. So tell us a little bit about that.

[0:04:29] Donald Meader: Yeah, I mean, I think if we want to be honest with ourselves, our success runs through our boss. If you don't like them, they don't like you. The biggest thing is that's your, your path to success. And so you have to find a way to understand exactly what they need. And you've got to find a way to make your boss' successful or you're not going to be successful and your boss is actually a really simple person. The one thing they really care about is themselves, just like everybody else. If they've got to choose between themselves and you, guess what, they're gonna choose themselves. And so what you've got to do is tap into that a little bit and find out what it is they need to be successful. If you can focus on making them successful and making their life easier, I promise, in turn it's gonna make your life easier.

[0:05:14] RW: All right, so, but how, how do we even, I mean, I don't want to go down this stereotype of the evil boss or the boss that is, I mean, and it might be the truth or the boss that is, you know, very much as you set out for themselves. But how do we begin to do that without losing our sanity though?

[0:05:30] Donald Meader: Yeah. I that's a really difficult question because the truth is you're going to have to hang on to it by a thread sometimes, but what you're going to see is that there is some logic behind some of these decisions and the way things are made. I think we get the evil boss thing, but the truth is a lot of times there are some information you don't know when. Sometimes our bosses are having bad days and so you definitely want to understand that, but again, the biggest thing is to understand what are the priorities that your boss has and how can you help them achieve that? Because even the biggest jerks I've ever worked for, if you are helping them, it's funny, their attitude changes a little bit and they start to see you as more of an asset instead of an impediment. And so there's certainly some exceptions, but most of the time, even the worst bosses in the world, if you're focusing on that relationship and focusing on trying to make their life better, then it always ends up that you're going to have a better relationship and you're going to be more successful in the future. And especially if you're in corporate America for any amount of time, even a bad boss, he's not going to be your boss very long. Because there's rotations and reorgs and things like that. And so all you've got to really do is wait it out a little bit, keep your sanity and focus on making them successful. And in turn, you're going to be successful as well.

[0:06:44] RW: All right, so going back to some of the chapters of the book, because I love the names of your chapters. One is 'Reality is Irrelevant' and of course I have to ask you about that. What are we talking about there? Which reality is relevant? I feel like there's a lot of realities that are actually relevant, especially when you're at work, but talk to us a little bit about that.

[0:07:05] Donald Meader: Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, the results of your work don't matter. What matters is the perception of your results. That's actually what influences your career. And I actually learned this pretty early on in my tenure. I was, you know, felt like I was doing a great job, working hard, putting in extra hours, you know, doing all the things that you're supposed to do to be successful. But twice a week I would take a long lunch. I would take a lunch for about an hour and a half, I'd go play racquetball. And now I cleared this with my boss beforehand. He was fine with it. He knew that I was still getting my work done, no problems. We get into my end of year review, great review. He says, "Man, you can't do anything better." Well, hey, I'm young and ambitious. I want to impress, you know, "What can I do boss? What can I do to improve?" And he thought for a minute and he said, "Well, those long lunches, the perception is you are not working hard enough." And I'll be honest, I was blown away when he said that because I was still putting in 50, 60 hours a week. But the problem was not everybody saw that. My peers didn't see the extra hours. All they saw was this guy was taken an extra long lunch two days a week. And so they resented it. And I said, "Man, that guy's not a hard worker." It doesn't matter how many hours you work or what you are actually doing. All that matters is the perception that people see and what they do. And so if you don't control that, then you're going to lose no matter what. And that's the truth of it. And so you have to understand that that is actually more important than your results is how people think of your results.

[0:08:47] RW: All right. So what are some of the things that you've seen happen when people just kind of aren't doing these, these various things? Paying attention. What the perception of their reality is actually managing their, their bosses, realizing that they've already lost if they're trying to fight, you know, these top decisions that have already been made without them. What are some of the things that you see happen to people?

[0:09:07] Donald Meader: I think the biggest derailment is almost internal because a little piece of you dies a little bit, when you don't get the appreciation that you think you deserve and if things don't go well and, and the truth is that, you know, school and in the things that we do in the training and leading up to this, don't prepare us for the reality of the corporate world. If you're in school, there's a direct correlation between how hard you work and your results. If you study really hard, good chance you're going to get a good rate. When you get into corporate reality, you may be passed over for promotion for someone who's working 20 hours when you're working 50 because they're playing the perception game. And so what happens when you see those things that you feel is just this inherent unfairness. Because there is some inherent unfairness because it's being judged by well people is that you start to get bitter, you start to start not working as hard, you get unsatisfied, you start job hopping and you really see this huge decline, not only in just your workout, but just just personally your attitude. And we've all been around those people in the environment that are, they get negative and they get cynical and that's what happens is because they feel they've been treated unfairly. But the truth is they just didn't understand the actual environment that they were in.

[0:10:22] RW: All right. So tell me a little bit about some of your, some of the chats are missions that you've seen or some of the readers or the people who you've worked with that have gotten the most out of these ideas. And I know that at the end of your book you asked for it, you say you love crazy corporate stories. If you have any of those, I would love to hear them too.

[0:10:41] Donald Meader: Yeah, you know, there's almost too many to list. I think that any one podcast can handle I and I think we've all got them is what's so great when you see just the crazy processes that come down and just the craziest ideas that people, people happen. I think about, you know, I think about one time when I was just given this brand new project and you know, I'm sitting on a new conference call with our clients and my boss and my boss's boss is on that call, my executive director, my boss's boss. And so we're on this call and we just get this new project and he comes on to say, "Don't you worry, we're going to have this delivered by August." Well, I start to panic because there's absolutely no chance we can get it done by then. It just, it just can't happen. And my boss starts texting me and freaking out like, "What did you tell him? What have you done?" I said, "No, no, no. I had nothing to do with this. He is making up dates that I have no idea what's happening." And so that's what happens, right? You get these made up dates. These made up deadlines that you have to figure out some way somehow. How is this going to happen? But the truth is when you start looking into it a little bit deeper, there actually are ways that you can control this conversation and control the perception of your results and get ready because most deadlines are made up anyway. And so when they pass, not as many bad things happen as you think they will. And then most people probably aren't even going to remember what it was when you start looking five years in the future. But you just have to kind of prepare yourself for that craziness when it happens. And when you do that, when you follow some of the things that I've talked about in the book, when you talk about, you know, try to protect yourself when things go bad, how you over communicate, how you understand that perception battle. So much of what people remember is emotion based. Almost everything is emotional, right? Whether it's, you know that, that's why most people remember where they were when like a traumatic event happen, right? Because there's some emotional anchor there that ties it. And so if you can learn to actually control people's emotions, not only of you, but kind of what the circumstances, then you're going to have a huge advantage for folks that are just trying to do the normal, you know, keep their head down, get their work done type of thing. And you're going to have those opportunities to be successful in the future.

[0:12:51] RW: Alright and so what is it that we need to do in terms of action items? So if you could pick three things that you know we can do to make sure that we survive, what would those three things be? Well, there's really, the first one is probably the hardest one is I want everyone just to just to stop and just take a deep breath. You can do it, alright. Okay. Alright. Everyone feel a little bit better? I hope so. Take a deep breath and realize, yes, you are right. You are not the only one that sees the insanity that is happening around us. It's everywhere. You're not alone. And here's the great news. You can do something about it. You can actually be successful despite the bad decisions that are around. And so really the next thing you've got to do is just when you start at the first chapter. Stop fighting decisions that have already been made. All you're going to end up doing is get yourself labeled as somebody as high maintenance or a troublemaker or something like that. You don't want any part of that. So just stop fighting those decisions. And the third thing is realize what a huge opportunity these bad decisions are for you. Because a true bad decision actually is going to create more problems than it solves. And so if you can be the one to understand how to solve those new problems this bad idea created, you're going to be around a long time. So what you gotta do is get a notebook and a pencil, pen, whatever, and it's gotta be paper. It does. Don't do the notes and things like that to actually put it on paper. It makes a difference, I promise. And for the next two weeks, I want you to write down every single problem that you come across in your company, no matter how big, how small. At the end of those two weeks, what you need to do is write down a potential solution for every one of those and it doesn't have to be realistic. It can be something completely crazy and off the wall. You know, what work, doesn't matter. This is just an exercise to start looking at some potential solutions for these problems. Now at the end of those two weeks, you're going to pick one, pick one problem that you feel like you can influence and you potentially can change. Now this is going to do two things. One, hopefully give you a little bit of that control back. Maybe you can feel a little bit better about having something you can influence, but two, people that solve problems, get to stay employed, and people that solve problems they weren't asked to solve, get promoted. So if you can focus on those things and focus on solving the ancillary problems that some of these bad decisions generate, you're going to be so much better off and have an opportunity to really excel in the future. All right. So tell us a little bit about 'Managing Yourself', which is again, another chapter in the book that I absolutely love. How do we begin to to manage ourselves? And clearly we're imagining ourselves within the scope of still having a boss or a manager, but delve into that a little bit for us.

[0:15:47] Donald Meader: Sure. Yeah. And in this kind of goes back to some of the challenges we've already talked about is how do you hang onto your own sanity, right? When you're, when surrounded by things that just don't make sense and you're frustrated and you can't handle this, what are you going to do? Well, you know, one of the first things you have to do is just expect it to be insane. Don't expect common sense and logic and silly things like that because it's probably gonna work out, not going to work out so well. But the biggest thing is you want to make sure that you're managing your time effectively because so much of what happens with these bad decisions is you get, it's a time suck. You end up having to do stupid PowerPoints are stupid meetings or things like that. That's what kills you mentally. It's just a waste of time that you have. I know, I remember pretty clearly when, you know, my boss called me on a Monday and, you know, his caller id showed up and I said, "Man, this must be important because this guy, he never calls me." He said, "Hey, I need a PowerPoint deck as fast as you can make it that lists all your projects and everything that you're working on. I need it immediately." And you could tell by his tone like this, this was a serious thing. So naturally I dropped everything I was doing. I worked on it for like the next two to three hours. I got it ready, worked with my peers, man, I've got this thing polished. It looked great. And then I sent it to him and within 30 minutes he sent it back and said, "Hey, I need all these revisions. Get all this information. Hurry, hurry, hurry." And so finally I did it, spent another couple hours and finally at about six o'clock at this point. And so I sent it to him. He said, "This looks great." The next day came the meeting he needed the PowerPoint for, I didn't hear anything. The next day he came, we're sitting here on Wednesday. And so now I'm really curious, you know what the reception was for everything that I've put together. And you know, so I called him up, said, "Hey, is there any more information you need? Is there anything I can do to help you with?" He said, "Oh, don't worry about it. We didn't make it to that PowerPoint. Anyway, we ended up going long on some other topics." And you just sit there and you're like, "Are you serious? Like you took a whole day and I just did a bunch of work that was completely useless." I mean, and that's the stuff that drives you nuts. And you and you just can't handle it. And so that's why it's, it's so important to make sure you're managing your time and your sanity first. And a couple of things that, you know, I go through there to talk about how to do that is when anything comes across your desk whatsoever, email tasks, somebody calls you. The first question I want you to ask is, "What would happen if I just didn't do this?" Like if I literally did not do this task, would anything happen at all? And you're going to be surprised? A lot of times the answer is nothing. Nothing happens. I know that we had a weekly status update we were supposed to fill out for our executive director and it took me about an hour a week to compile and put together and I had this sneaking suspicion that nobody read it and nobody cared. And so I just stopped sending it. Nothing happened. Nobody emailed me and said, hey, is where your status update? Literally nothing happened. So I didn't do it for over a year. I just saved myself hundreds of hours of work because he couldn't even get past the first question because it wasn't even worth doing. And so you're going to be surprised how many times you can't and get past the first question. And the second question is, is this something you can automate? Right? That's the buzzword today. And there's a lot of truth to that. Is there some sort of task or thing is just going to be repeatable that you can figure out a way to do faster? And then of course, the third thing is can you delegate it? Right? If you're a manager, you have a team, is there someone that can actually do a better job than you at this task? Now, it's not about dumping work on somebody, but it's about finding someone that actually could do the job maybe faster or even better. And if you look at these three questions, protecting your time is so huge because I know that me, personally, wasting my time on things that I thought were stupid is probably one of the hardest things to deal with when you're in that type of environment. And again, a lot of these are because of results of bad decisions. So if you can manage that time effectively, you're already halfway there to being able to keep at least a little piece of your sanity.

[0:19:53] RW: All right, so I know we talked about some action items to give people, but if you had to actually give people one overall challenge, so this is, you know, people who are reading your book, people who are listening to us, people who are in middle management and and kind of dealing with some of this insanity and you have one challenge to give them. What would that be? Well I think the biggest challenge is, and this is a hard one because it's almost against some of our own corporate nature, is be willing to help other people. Because the truth is you're managing and working with people, not projects. And this is tough when you're in a really difficult competitive corporate culture where you know folks are trying to get ahead or were folks are trying to win that stack rank game as best they can so they don't get laid off. But middle management, you get no support, right? There's no help. There's no training, there's no one to go to with questions. And so the only help you're going to get is from other middle managers. So make sure you are that person. Reach out and focus on helping other people through these difficult situations and focus on actually helping one another when these challenges arise. You should be doing this just naturally just by being, you know, a good person. But the truth is you're actually gonna get this back right, because people are going to be more willing to help you. And as I talked about earlier, creating that emotional attachment, those emotional memories people have of you within their perception, you're going to be someone that they want to work with and someone that they want to recommend and help in the future. So that's the biggest challenge is, you know, being willing to do something that may be contrary to what you feel is in your best interest. But the truth is you can do nothing better for your career or even for your own sanity. Then reaching out and actually helping another middle manager or even helping your own boss in times that are not quite as fun as you'd like them to be. Awesome. And then how can people contact you if they want to learn more or even share some of their crazy corporate stories as you say in the book, we're, how can they find you?

[0:21:52] Donald Meader: Yeah, and I've got a lot more of them that I haven't a don't have time to share today. You can actually find me, I have my own podcast is a compliment to the book called the corporate middle. Can find that wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also find the good of the companion website as well or on donaldmeador.com and I do love that. I love to hear people reaching out and just share some of the insanity and have that little cathartic experience that we all have together having to work in this ridiculousness that we call company culture.

[0:22:20] RW: All right. Thank you so much Donald.

[0:22:22] Donald Meader: Thank you. Enjoyed it.

[0:22:23] RW: If your workplace is defined by insanity, this book is a guide you need to thrive amongst the chaos checkout, Surrounded by Insanity. Available now on amazon.com. We'll be back with new authors next time on Author Hour.