She looked, then looked again, then looked again at the screen in front of her. She moved the belt back a couple of inches and then looked again. I began to count the seconds. All this to determine whether the elderly lady was carrying a bomb. The line behind her continued to grow. Finally, she asked a colleague to examine the image on the screen. He took a short look and waved the bag through. A collective sigh of relief went up from those in line. I began to wonder about her training, her experience, and her concern about whether she could lose her job for missing one piece of contraband.
Some might argue that those working for the Transportation Security Administration have a more critical job than the average employee. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how often the world is slowed by someone afraid to make a decision. Look around your workplace. Chances are, you know them. It might be the assistant who’s constantly in your office to ask permission. It might be the project leader who tries to be so precise that he never acts. It might be the customer who asks for one more detail with every contact and never says “yes” to the purchase. Have you ever felt the day’s momentum grinding to a halt? This could be the reason.
So how do you foster more confidence in the decision makers around you? Here are two quick tips:
Give them permission to fail. That’s right. There are few mistakes in life that cost us jobs, substantial money or bodily injury. Most of it’s little stuff that’s a nuisance and we all make those errors. So unless this person has a history of making poor decisions, encourage them to act with more confidence and stop worrying so much about being perfect in their execution. No matter what they do, they will still screw up at times, just like the rest of us.
Explain the bigger picture. Some people don’t act because they don’t have enough information. Show them how their decisions fit into the larger context. Explain the possible outcomes and how what they decide will be influenced by factors outside of their control. A day on any job is just a series of on-going decisions. If they don’t act, someone else will and they, and their job, might become irrelevant.