Tip: You Can’t Push a Rope
Not everyone is ready to follow your advice, no matter how brilliant.
It may be the wrong time. It may be the wrong company. You may not have the clout or persuasion to get management over its inertia.
Your job is to gauge the best course of action and provide advice. If you have laid out the pros and the cons, and the consequences of not following the course of action you propose, you have to let things take their course.
People will not be led if they don’t want to be. If you can find a way to document the impact of inaction, they may be ready to change course six months from now. Maybe never. Maybe a slightly different approach will get the nod.
Tricking management into doing something it doesn’t want to do may work sometimes, but that approach is more likely to poison relationships. Unless you have leeway to do some skunkworks trials, you may have to just drop your smart idea.
If you can’t live with that, you’re either too thin-skinned, or you’re working at (or consulting for) the wrong place. Decide if you want to do something about that, and do what’s right for you. Just don’t complain when no one will follow your advice.
More Quick Tips.
Tags: business, management, decision-making, choice, style, independence, leadership
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Communication Plans, Consulting, Executive Mindset, PR, Persuasion, Quick Tips, Strategic Thinking
3 opinions for Tip: You Can’t Push a Rope
Rope Pushing and Freelance Writers
Oct 29, 2007 at 10:32 am
[…] chuckled when I saw the headline over at Common Sense PR - Tip: You Can’t Push a Rope. Although the post is more or less aimed at working in/with corporate environments, it’s […]
Quit Trying to Push a Rope » Slacker Manager
Nov 1, 2007 at 6:48 am
[…] Eggerston might have been talking about public relations when he said: “People will not be led if they don’t want to be. If you can find a way to […]
Lauren
Nov 4, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I enjoyed this advice. One of the main worries I have about getting out in the job world is that my boss or client won’t take me seriously because of my age. I am usually good about standing up for myself and my ideas or opinions, but I think I may back down when put in a business situation. I am just going to have to constantly remind myself that just because someone disagreed with my opinions or ideas, it doesn’t mean that I am bad at my job.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: