“Easy for you to say.”
During my corporate management career, that would be the response I could get from others on my management team at times, whether it was to me directly, with a sigh and doubtful shake of their head, or muttered under their breath as they slumped their shoulders and started to walk away thinking the conversation was over.
It wasn’t. I might give them a bit of a respite, but to be sure, the conversation was not over.
Desiring Shift and Choosing Change
The conversation would have started around our defining an issue —take your pick, virtually any issue will do. It would have then involved brainstorming possible scenarios for resolution, and finally, deciding on the likeliest possibility that would give us a more successful probability: We were looking for some shift, and we were choosing our change.
Hopefully we were doing it early enough in our response to whatever the less-than-optimal scenario was at the time, so that the change we chose was;
- proactive (primarily of our design and our discretion) and
- not reactive (imposed on us by someone else, because we had waited too long to take action ourselves).
The “someone else” is usually a higher-level executive, owner, or board of directors. They say they step in when we take too long to handle the business ourselves, and much as we hate to admit it, nine times out of ten, that’s a fairly accurate assessment.
Sometimes, “Easy for you to say” was not a statement directed at me, but one I would hear people say to each other, or a doubt I could read in their faces.
Doubting Thomas is a term that is used to describe someone who will refuse to believe something without direct, physical, personal evidence; a skeptic.
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio.The term is based on the Biblical account of Thomas the Apostle, who doubted the resurrection of Jesus and demanded to feel Jesus' wounds before being convinced (John 20:24-29) … After seeing Jesus alive and being offered the opportunity to touch his wounds — according to the author of the Gospel of John — Thomas professed his faith in Jesus; on this account he is also called Thomas the Believer.
—From Wikipedia
A large part of my coaching to people when I facilitated these shift sessions, as we called them, was that we had to leave the room Kākou, “all in” and ready to proceed together in our separate areas of operation. We had to be Lōkahi, unified and harmonious in our intentions and in our actions, so that in turn, our staff would trust in us as a well-functioning management team and not only as individual stars (or renegades).
You need a whole lot of trust and belief when you are looking for shift and introducing change. People generally don’t resist change in itself, they resist being changed by others they have little confidence in.
“Get my drift?”
“Easy for you to say” can mean a bunch of different things. Here are just three examples (there are more):
1. It can mean, “This will be a piece of cake for you in your situation and position, but it will be much more challenging for me. Fasten your seat belts, for we’re in for a rough ride.”
2. It can mean, “Yes, I’m agreeing to this because we went through the decision process together and I know that’s the expectation I have to fulfill, but I still don’t buy in completely. Fasten your seat belts, for we’re in for a rough ride.”
3. It can mean, “Others will do this for you (or for your position in the organization), but not for me (and not in mine). Fasten your seat belts, for we’re in for a rough ride.”
The conversation was never over for me, because I knew that second sentence was always part of the kaona (hidden meaning and implication) of each one. Unless we addressed the first part of each possible meaning to “Easy for you to say,” the second part of “Fasten your seat belts, for we’re in for a rough ride” would certainly happen.
“What executives believe are small disconnects between them and their peers actually look like major rifts to people deeper in the organization. And when those people deeper in the organization try to resolve the differences among themselves, they often become engaged in bloody and time-consuming battles, with no possibility for resolution…
When an executive decides not to confront a peer about a potential disagreement, he or she is dooming employees to waste time, money, and emotional energy dealing with unsolvable issues. This causes the best employees to start looking for jobs in less dysfunctional organizations, and it creates an environment of disillusionment, distrust, and exhaustion for those who stay.”
—Patrick Lencioni, The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive
[See my book review at Talking Story.]
Why else do you suppose it is important that you find the Doubting Thomas where you work, or in any situation where you want to achieve shift, and get them to be a Thomas the Believer?
How would you respond to any or all of those three possibilities above, whether you are managing a team, or willing to engage in peer-to-peer coaching? Might it be different in a situation with your friends, or within your family?
It is all too easy for the cynic, the skeptic, and the pass-the-buck'er to say, "Easy for you to say!"
I see this as a hand-off of personal accountability: "hey, this is not my problem, but I won't believe anyone else who can offer a solution."
The next time I hear someone say this to me, I may ask back, "then how would YOU say it?"
Posted by: Jane Chin | May 30, 2008 at 02:16 PM
Jane, I so love reconnecting with you!
Your response is a great one when inviting the conversation, for it's a conversation that will open up the hunt for the root cause of whatever is going on.
"Easy for you to say" is sadly self-depreciating, akin to saying "you're a better person than I am, and way beyond my league. I'm not just good enough." The person challenging that belief in someone, will always do them a huge favor.
Posted by: Rosa Say | May 30, 2008 at 03:16 PM