Doing the Doable: An interview with Jim Lukaszewski, part 3 of 8
Read Jim Lukaszewski: The other question I get quite often is, “If I can only get to this guy, I could really help him but by boss is in the way.” My response is, “Here’s what I suggest you do: Teach your boss the things you know how to do, and teach your boss how to teach his boss how to do it.”
I think the real risky strategy is going around your boss and trying to somehow intervene in this other person’s environment. That’s a suicide strategy. If you can work for a boss that won’t let you get to the big guy, and won’t do what you’re talking about, the answer’s pretty simple—you better make another career choice real soon.
Another question I get asked is this: “I know what this person should be doing. I know in my heart what he should be doing, I know in reality what he should be doing, but he simply will not do it. What can I do? What can you tell me Mr. Magician Lukaszewski, Mr. Guru Lukaszewski, to make him do what I want him to do?”
My advice is: Change the subject. It’s his bus. He’s the driver. If he doesn’t want to do something you’re telling him to do, then move onto something else he will do. If I were him, I’d fire you and find somebody else. What’s the point of pushing on something that he who owns the gold doesn’t care to spend it on? You may not be wrong, you could possibly be right, but it’s his bus, it’s his ship, it’s his command.
It’s better to help him to the things he wants to do than to keep whacking on something he is not of a mind to do. If he won’t do what you want and you really believe in it, here again, you have a choice to make. The choice is to do something else or go somewhere else.
One of the disciplines of an advisor is pragmatism. It’s doing the doable, knowing the knowable, getting the getable, achieving the achievable. That’s what it’s about. Changing these people is very hard. Changing anybody after about age 14 is darn near impossible anyway. As they get older, it gets even harder.
The issue really is to find those things where your greatest value is to this individual and make those things work well. If you’re doing what I’m telling in the beginning, which is putting yourself in their shoes and looking at the world from their perspective, you’re broadening your own. I think you’ll find things you could help on that may, in reality, be something other than communications. It’s a very powerful platform, a very powerful thing. It does change people’s perspectives.
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Jim’s new book, Why Should the Boss Listen to You: The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor
