Imagine that you’re in a board room, locked in an intense negotiation. Maybe you’re selling your company, maybe you’re signing an NFL contract, maybe you’re fighting a legal case. During a negotiation, there’s a lot of meaning to what side of the table you’re on. Most significantly, everyone on the same side of the table is on the same team – we might not like each other, we might not always disagree, but we’ll close ranks and look out for one another if needed because we’re representing our shared goal more than ourselves.
The cardinal rule of meetings with your direct reports is that you are always on the same side of the table. From the moment you walk in to the moment you leave, every single thing that your team does is a reflection and extension of you:
- If they say something dumb, you don’t get to pile on.
- If they’re at a loss for words, you don’t get to cross your arms and sit there while they squirm.
- If someone on your team is getting hard questions that they’re struggling with, you certainly don’t get to join the tribunal and bombard them with hard questions yourself. Write them down and save them for a coaching moment afterwards.
- If shit hits the fan during your team member’s presentation, you don’t get to distance yourself and hope none gets flipped onto you. You aren’t allowed to say “well I don’t agree…” to someone who is representing you.
(The only exceptions are for cases that are truly insane, like your direct report assaulting someone or getting naked on a table. In that case you’re of course permitted to physically defend yourself; you don’t need to get naked and assault people alongside them)
Your team isn’t going to be perfect. If you have a large enough team, from time to time they will mess up while you’re in the room. But when this happens you can either handle it well, or poorly.
Here are examples of what to do when someone on your team is messing up. These approaches avoid over-defending your team, which would shield them from autonomy and consequences, but also avoid turning on them as part of the angry mob:
- You can gracefully take the reins from them and start to lead their portion of the meeting (You do know how to lead the conversation, right? After all, you’re their manager). It’ll be moderately embarrassing for them, lightly embarrassing for you, but will keep things moving.
- You can stop their portion of the meeting and request to circle back. Positive work environments are generally understanding, and it prevents a counterproductive corporate public execution.
- You can say things like “I don’t think we’re ready for this conversation” and then play defense on the topic for the remainder of your time, and/or take the ownership (/blame).
- In rare circumstances, someone’s performance can be so egregious that there’s no saving it. In cases where they are presenting something that you specifically asked them not to, AND it’s going terribly, it can be permissible to be neutral - not attacking your team member, but not overtly defending them (after all, they directly went against your advice). I would only take this approach if you’re at the point where you’d be prepared to fire them shortly after.
Finally, you should commit to your team that you will always be on their side of the table in the meeting. A simple statement like “if this gets heated, I will help to navigate the conversation” sends the type of unambiguous signal of support that people often need to hear.
For a real-world practical example, I once had some mid-level team-members (Senior PMs / Engineering Managers) who were asked to present their product to a very sharp, incisive, but (potentially) intimidating board member. A few steps that I took:
- I gave them a full rundown of the topic, and a bio of the person they were presenting to.
- We had 2 prep sessions, one to kickoff the content and one for presentation prep.
- During prep, I told them the areas where I would need their expertise and the types of questions that I would handle personally (e.g. long-term roadmap strategy). I also asked some questions about the team’s subject matter so that I had at least a high-level understanding, in case the conversation absolutely went to hell and I had to step in and steer the meeting solo.
- I told the team that I would explicitly act as a spotter to catch things in case the meeting got really contentious, and made sure to stay alert for that during the meeting.
Why It Matters
Sports teams have not forgotten the ancient rules of teamwork even as the corporate world has totally abandoned it. Watch a press conference after a team loses and it was obviously one guy’s fault: teams will go well out of their way to avoid blaming their teammate, no matter how obvious their failure was, because they know that blaming your teammate doesn’t absolve you. And that’s in spite of the fact that professional sports teams are famously savage about managing performance, reliably cutting or trading players without warning.
There are practical reasons to close ranks. Blaming people both eliminates any hope of them redeeming themselves, and more importantly instills a culture of fear that impacts future performance. It’s the curse that keeps on taking.
It’s also simply a matter of honor. People leave their team’s side of the table out of a misguided grasp at self-preservation. But people aren’t that dumb. If someone messes up, that reflects directly on their manager too. By staying on your team’s side of the table, even if it’s uncomfortable, you’re showing that you have honor. And in the long run, the best people only want to work with other honorable people, because they’re honorable themselves.