Find Out Before You Freak Out

My daughter used to come home from her pizza job seriously pissed off at management.?

Usually, she would be upset about a rumor that someone spread about “a new management decision”. It would normally involve how many shifts she had to keep if they were to keep her on the work schedule.?

But with soccer, school, and teenager (yes, I am using that as a verb), she would invariably have scheduling conflicts, so she feared she would lose her job.?

She would stew for hours and hours about it, ruminating about how dumb management is. ?And how being a manager is just as dumb.?

Don’t worry; the fact that her dad is in management consulting and coaching isn’t lost on me.

But years ago, someone taught me an incredible lesson: “Find out before you freak out.”

Recently, a similar quote was featured on an episode of Ted Lasso: “Find out before you flip out.”

This lesson has served me so many times. Which is why I shared it with her as she grows into her own.

As long as I don't forget about it.

As a manager, I would often hear rumors or feedback from others about my team and about our projects throughout the building.

And, like everyone, I heard some terrible feedback. Basically, I heard that my facilitator wasn’t delivering a major project for the process improvement team.

So, I reacted. I called my facilitator into my office, and I flipped out at him.?

Because Tom is an incredible human, he took my inappropriate hazing and went back to work.

Well, because Tom took it so well, I decided that I should go to the next project meeting and freak out again, this time on the entire team.

I did. And it derailed the project.

I barked, yelled, and said some stupid things. A month later, we canceled the project.

I wish someone had told me to find out before you freak out the way I offered that advice to my daughter.

But the bigger issue is that, as a manager and a leader, freaking out or flipping out is not good leadership or management.

It is actually antithetical to good leadership and management.

Leaders and managers set the tone with their behavior.

When the manager flips out, so does the team.

When the team freaks out, there go the projects.

Suddenly, everyone is flipping and freaking out all over the place, and nothing is getting accomplished.

Even more, your team starts to lose touch with why they are doing their job in the first place.

So, instead of freaking out, find out.

Think. Then act. Or, as we say in our trainings, “See it, Say it, Solve it.”

Kora learned to ask her manager about the schedule before she assumed the worst based on what she heard. It turned out that the rumors weren’t true. There was no “new management decision” about scheduling.?

In her years as a pizza cook, she never lost her job because of school, soccer, or even teenager. And a big reason why is because she found out before she freaked out.

So, to all the managers out there: no matter what you have seen on TV or in real life, no amount of freaking or flipping out will ever get people moving again.

In fact, people respond in the opposite way—they freak out, freeze, or quit.

So, when you hear some concerning news about your team, take some time to respond before you react. Ask the right questions and then find an appropriate response.

Interested in learning how to find out before you freak out in your office? Drop me a line here for a free consultation.