Too Quick to Speak for others is Often Unhealthy to Build a Cohesive Team

This scenario might be familiar to most of you. In a team meeting, when a boss inquires a younger colleague of his plan to resolve certain issue, then suddenly the more senior colleague jumps to answer for him. Sound familiar?

The senior is usually the smart for all-of-things one, who seems to know all the answers and always have a plan. He is dominant in every meeting and his answer might best serve the interest of the boss at that moment. However, in a longer term, this is unhealthy for the younger’s development. It is even worse when the boss is actually tolerating and loving this treatment for the sake of impressing his higher management.

For goodness’ sake, let the younger one answer! He might struggle to give the best answer, but it would help him to articulate his thoughts and only by then others can know potential mistake in his logic or assumptions and then correct it. Under certain circumstance, let him make mistake and learn from it. This would encourage a sense of ownership from him. Often boss complains the lack of ownership in the team without realizing this is partly his mistake.

Once I was in a business trip to USA and had a teleconference back to Singapore. There was a manager as well in the room and asking the younger engineer in Singapore. Then suddenly, his supervisor answered for him. At the end of the meeting, the manager asked me, “Is this typical in Singapore’s culture, where one question was directed to an engineer and answered by his boss?” I remembered to smile in amusement to the question, acknowledging the point he tried to make. Maybe this scenario happens more often in Asian’s culture, but I might be wrong. That is the tendency of being afraid to lose face by exerting authority or dominance in the meeting. It is often that younger engineer answers the questions as it is, not that aware of the politics implication in the office. This often frightens the boss!

So in the team meeting, when one question is directed to younger one, let him answers to it. First, from ethical point of view not to reply to something you are not asked to and second for his healthy development and to promote a sense of ownership from the younger one. Hopefully, this would promote a positive team work.