A recent conversation on the parallels of college group projects and the adult 9-5 dynamic illuminated a truth I hadn’t considered before: those assignments were never about the content of the group report, they were about developing the skill set required to work with a bunch of absolute donuts. The group dynamic wasn’t the vehicle, it was the lesson.
Flash forward to our “prime earning years” and it turns out that everything is a group project. Every report, every deliverable, every project milestone begs a reliance on peers to get to the finish line. There are dozens of lessons learned by our younger selves that remain as applicable in an office setting as they did in a 200-level econ class, but let’s look at one that doesn’t materialize until you’ve also baked in an inherent power dynamic.
The implied wisdom of being in charge
When you are a manager (project or personnel), you inherit a degree of authority. Being the center spoke for all of the stakeholders grants you some power of decision-making and delegation. Now, the classically understood double-edged sword in this position is the burden of responsibility and accountability. But there is a less-acknowledged third edge (maybe… the sword’s handle is sharp, too?) to this dynamic that I’ll call “implied wisdom.”
Implied wisdom commonly surfaces during ideation, planning, and problem solving, and it presents itself as people generally assuming you know what the hell you’re talking about. This is poison when you, in fact, do not. Implied wisdom means that your project team and direct reports will naturally incline towards agreeing with you and trusting your suggestions are sound ones. With a positive tint, we might call this trust. But the reverse angle gives credence to poorly conceived suggestions and can amplify (or even echochamber) your bad ideas. So this is why you can’t have any.
When leading a group project you can have good ideas or you can have no ideas (delegating ideation to others and adopting the role of arbiter), but you absolutely cannot put forward weak suggestions. Your group will over-consider these ideas, and sometimes even accept them as correct when they are anything but. If you’re among peers, sure, toss it out there and see what sticks. But if you’re at the head of the table, you have a greater responsibility.
The clearest example of why this matters is the breed of manager that will put forth a slew of underconsidered “recommendations” and then just let them hang there anticipating you will implement the worthwhile ones. You then have to conduct the due diligence that inevitably points toward most of the suggestions being dumb as shit, which you then have to wrap up as diplomatic pushback. And if that wasn’t frustrating enough, the manager will conclude the exercise with a platitude like “well, I was just putting it out there” or “I have a dozen ideas a day and only a couple of them are good.”
Did your blood just boil a little bit? As if it’s our job to tell them when they finally stumble onto a good idea? Like it’s a multiple choice exam and they say “it could be either A, B, C or maybe D.” So you do the math and say “yeah, the answer is C.” And they go “Ah, good I knew it was probably C. WHAT GOOD INTUITION I HAVE!”
Good ideas are tough to come by, and as much as managers would love to be able to provide clear, helpful guidance for every situation, sometimes the best we can do is sit quietly and empower those with better ideas to come forward. If your experience has led you to a sound, well-reasoned approach, share it confidently. Otherwise, acknowledge that you’re searching for solutions and then amplify the voices that bring the best ones. But don’t let self-imposed guilt stunt ideation by suggesting an answer in a room where your perspectives carry disproportionate weight.