It’s 10:47 PM, a month ago. On the road, few good options exist to eat. Waffle House, Denny’s, and more than a few gas stations have served me well in the past. But 11 pm is usually the desperation deadline, and Panera is the only option within miles.
Leaders often make default decisions on the basis of ruthless pragmatism. As in what works now. Put the fire out. Get the box checked. One more item done. Got that person out of your face. Worked for me in the past, so I’m going to “rinse and repeat”. But with great frequency in our industry, pragmatism does not always serve us well. Because when we add speed, frustration, urgency, or old/bad habits, it starts to work against us. And often we don’t even see it.
A Fuji apple salad with extra apple chips. I’m the last customer. They’re turning off the lights. Sweeping the floors. Wire brushing the grill. The silent efforts of a long shift ending.
One sin of pragmatic default action is my favorite: reactively choosing the least worst option. Instead of thinking it through. Sifting for strategy or alternatives. Weighing the action against values, interests, or longer-term consequences. No. The kick-in factor becomes, F-ck it. I need to get this done and over with. And that is where we can do ourselves wrong.
I get my food. It’s dark in the restaurant now. The girl is sweeping under my feet. I’m chewing fast and politely. She moves over near the front door with her little metal dustbin. And I hear a sound from her. It’s weird. And in not a good way. I look at her. She looks at me. We both look at her dustbin. And there it is, a good eight-inch rat tail sticking out. And it’s moving.
The default for many of us, particularly construction field leadership, when faced with those obstacles of urgency and old habits, becomes: “I’ll just do it myself.” Or a lesser version where you start getting overinvolved. Leading to misalignment of time and effort on your part. And taking even more of your valuable time. But worst of all, we self-sabotage by not remaining focused on staying up at the “leader level” and doing our own jobs instead of just ruthlessly and foolishly defaulting to “moving the item” and doing the jobs of others.
We both now have decisions to make. Strategic or pragmatic? Thoughtful or just expedited? Neither is a great alternative. But for sure, the default calls out to move the item. I say, “Is that what I think it is?” She just looks at me. I look at my salad, analyzing the likelihood of it having tiny rat nuggets as well as apple chips. We both stand up. She walks over to the big trash can inside the kitchen. And without a word, dumps the bin, wriggling rat and all. I go back over to my table. Stare at it for a second and finish my salad.
We end this “tail” of pragmatic default decision making with three questions for all of you:
- How much of your time, energy, talent, and ability at work do you spend doing other people’s jobs?
- How much of that is on you because of urgency, default decision-making, old habits, lack of trust, poor time management, control issues, impatience, or reactive responses?
- What do you need to do better or differently to balance “strategic pragmatism” with more effective leadership decision-making overall?
So, I guess it worked out. Sorta. Yes, I was too hungry to deal with the fact that the place I was eating at had a rat infestation. So, I decided to eat it anyway and didn’t die. The employee decided to expedite the solution by dumping it to become someone else’s problem at some later date, so she could go home. Good on her, not so much Panera. And the little furry grey problem? It didn’t go away. It actually benefited and grew in scope, as most problems do when default governs the decision. Hope he liked the apple chips.