Thanks For The Advice, But . . . .

Have you ever faced a situation where management ignored your advice?   Went left when you said go right?

Of course you have.  Likely it's happened to you more than once.  The experience is a frustrating one, isn't it?  And can be more than a little blow to the ego,  if you dwell on it.  After all, you're the professional, the knowledge expert responsible for Compensation in your organization.  That's what you're being paid for.  To know what to do.  Not only should management  be listening to you, or so you think, they should be agreeing with you.

Wake up and smell the coffee

But this isn't the classroom or a WorldatWork or SHRM certification seminar.  What all too often happens in the real world can be quite a bit different than what you see in the textbooks or hear from conference or webinar speakers.  Sometimes management takes your input, listens to your reasoning and proposals,  but then decides to move in a direction different from what you had recommended.  And they may not even explain why.

Every seasoned practitioner at some point needs to become accustomed to the realization that the recommendations they present to management, be they for large projects or part of day-to-day advice, aren't always going to be accepted - and not necessarily because they're bad ideas.  When management decides to go "rogue" on you it's not necessarily a reflection of your capabilities or professionalism.   Or even mistakes that you might have made.  They simply have a different perspective than you.

In such circumstances the decision-makers usually have more angles to consider than only the compensation point of view.  Whether they be looking at business projections, the potential impact of share price, financial strength of the company or simply confidential plans going forward that you're not privy to, they need to weigh your recommendations against what else they know that relates to the matter at hand.

After all, it's their business, their budgets, their employees.  They can do what they want.  Hard as that may be for you to swallow.

What you have to be careful about is how much you want to push your viewpoint in the face of management reluctance, self-interest or just flat-out bias.  That may not be a career enhancing move.

Don't have a thin skin about this

When leadership chooses a different path than the one you've recommended, that decision doesn't diminish your role in the organization, or the degree to which your viewpoint is valued.  If you have done your job and made sure that the relevant information and decision points are on the table, and that your leadership therefore has their eyes open to the issues and ramifications, you can relax that you've done all that there was to do.  You can sleep well tonight.

Because your responsibility is to advise, to offer the best professional recommendations that your knowledge and experience has prepared you to offer.  Management is counting on you to provide this.  That is the measure of your importance.

Consider the police officer making an arrest.  Their job is to gather information (clues) and apprehend a suspect based on those clues.  But then someone else is responsible to prosecute that suspect, using the information gathered by the police.  Or they could decide not to prosecute.  It's their decision.

But we're still human, and it can rankle.  Often we'll find that our ego is in full bloom once we make a recommendation - as if anyone who disagrees with us doesn't respect us or value our opinion.  That they don't love us anymore.

Get over it.  Shake it off.  Because they'll be another issue tomorrow.  And you can be a hero then.

Chuck Csizmar CCP is founder and Principal of CMC Compensation Group, providing global compensation consulting services to a wide variety of industries and non-profit organizations.  He is also associated with several HR Consulting firms as a contributing consultant.  Chuck is a broad based subject matter expert with a specialty in international and expatriate compensation.  He lives in Central Florida (near The Mouse) and enjoys growing fruit and managing (?) a brood of cats.

Creative Commons image courtesy of Solo

Comments

[Dan Walter]

Chuck,
Great to have this perspective. This made me think about the US House of Reps insistence to vote again and again to show their disapproval of the new health care structure. I have seen compensation pros do the same thing. "I told you so" is seldom a great way to build consensus. Reminders that you think someone else's decision is wrong is like to just make that person not want you around for the next decision.

Excellent reminder.

[John Nichols]

And you have to be big enough to be able to handle the consequences should the alternative go wrong. As Dan says, without the "told you so".

[Nancy]

This makes sense for strategic incentive type work. Years ago, I assessed a job as non-exempt. My HR manager as well as the department manager wanted the job to be exempt. I repeatedly questioned their reasoning and pointed out the checklists I had done. At that point, I had already made some many CLMs that one more did not matter. I really do wish I had pressed the issue more. Of course, a year later one of the 43 employees in that group, reported their inappropriate status to the DOL. ALL 43 of them got back overtime wages for the year in question. Shortly after the audit I left for another position which was much more rewarding (as people listened as well as paid better). I never said I told you so to that HR Manager, which I so much wanted to, but I certainly couldn't stop thinking it!

[Vidal F.]

What a great article! Serves to remind us we're not "God" nor have super-powers, and are there to enable the business (which is a big enough role) not to drive it.

[Randy]

Great article and reminder. An adage comes to mind whenever providing recommendations that are not accepted - remember this isn't personal, it's businees. I try to instill that attitude with the compensation analyst that work for me simply so they don't get so caught up in the "drama" and lose their objectivity.