“Go ahead but I think you’re wrong.”

There’s a new feature for the house called “quote of the week”. The rules are simple.

1. Someone has to say it to you in real life.
2. It can’t be the punch line to a joke.

This ones comes to us courtesy of my company’s VP. A few weeks ago I gave him an update on a project I’m working. At what should have been the end he said “Go ahead but I think you’re wrong.” We talked for another 20 minutes. It wasn’t fun because everyone in the room (other managers mostly) started trying to help. The lesson is that when a boss’s Boss^5 says “Go Ahead + whatever” You should focus on the go ahead part. In the long run the key thing is if you fix the problem.