As a leader and manager, I’ve often received questions from team members about things happening outside the team. What’s going on with a specific project or issue, what’s the deal with this organizational change, what have I heard about something?
I have always thought about this as Three Buckets:
- Things I have been told, and I need to make sure you know. I want that bucket to always be empty because I have already told you everything in it.
- Things I don’t know, and any answer I give you will be a guess. That bucket is theoretically always full, because there’s a lot I don’t know. I’ll do my best to give a thoughtful comment, but it’s a guess. My goal is to get an accurate answer so it goes in Bucket One.
- Things I have been told, but I’m not cleared to talk about. I will never talk about those things. But, I will absolutely advocate they move to Bucket One as soon as possible.
I think my buckets are important in building trust, in giving people information they need to do a better job across the board. Most organizations don’t communicate as well as they should. I’d like to improve that.
Important Exception: Sometimes these questions are about politics or rumors. I don’t like anything like a rumor mill. I think they’re destructive. I’ve seen it happen over and over to good people. I’ve seen it happen to me. I realize they’re a natural part of working in an organization, but I have only one bucket for that sort of thing: the trash can.