When You Don’t Agree With The Message (But Still Have To Deliver It)

Ever been stuck delivering a message at work that makes you froth at the mouth like a rabid dog? Welcome to the club. This week on A Job Done Well, Jimmy and James tackle one of the most soul-crushing tasks a manager faces: delivering a decision you know is wrong.

From performance management systems designed by third-rate sportsmen to closing sites for arbitrary profitability targets, the hosts dissect the emotional toll, the credibility crisis, and the sheer absurdity of corporate life. They explore why it’s so stressful, and why some battles are just not worth dying in a ditch for.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Jimmy and James also share hard-won wisdom on how to handle these situations without losing your mind, your credibility, or your job. Whether it’s picking your fights, translating corporate nonsense for your team, or knowing when to just suck it up, this episode is a masterclass in surviving the corporate madness with your sanity intact.

Five key points:

• Delivering a message you don’t believe in is one of the toughest asks of a manager—it’s emotionally draining and compromises your credibility.
• The stress comes from the emotional load, loss of control, and being accountable for someone else’s screw-ups.
• Bad coping mechanisms include checking out, passive resistance, blind compliance, and public meltdowns—all of which erode trust and effectiveness.
• Good strategies involve using data to argue your case, being honest with your team, and picking your fights wisely.
• Sometimes, protecting your integrity means knowing when to push back—and when to walk away.

Transcript

0:03

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

James 0:15

Good afternoon. What are we talking about today then?

Jimmy 0:18

Afternoon, James. Picture the scene, right? You're sat in a meeting, decision gets made, you know it's wrong, but you are the one that's gonna have to go out and deliver it.

James 0:28

I've got a sinking feeling already. I I start foam at the mouth like rabies.

Jimmy 0:32

you thrown at the mouth, but do you push back on it? Do you suck it up? Do you disengage? I mean, what do you do delivering a message that you don't believe in is one of the toughest asks of a manager. So we're gonna explore that subject today.

James 0:46

Sounds fabulous. I'm

Jimmy 0:47

Well, we'll get you frothing at the

James 0:48

already. Yeah. I'm getting the cold shivers

Jimmy 0:51

You said it gets you frothing at the mouth. James, tell me about a time when it has got you frothing at

James 0:55

oh, well it might surprise you to hear this, but the one that always gets me. Performance management. I mean, what are these people thinking? And then they say, you've got to go and own the message. We're gonna chop 10% of your people off at the knees and you've got to go and own the message.

Jimmy 1:11

I never ended up having to give someone a rating. I didn't believe was actually fair at the end of the day, but it was, it was even just the threat of it, it is like, how do you expect if you force me to give this person a rating, I disagree with, how do you think I am going to own the message? It's absolute bullshit.

James 1:33

people. Anyway, so there's one, but then there are others. Obviously on a number of occasions I have had to sack a number of people because of reorganization that one sort to another. Yeah. And that's always really shitty that you've got to do that. And I don't like doing it, but interesting that one doesn't doesn't jive with me quite as badly as the performance management thing, just 'cause I could understand why they were doing it. So it's when things, people are doing something, which I think is fundamentally stupid. That's why I really struck on, whereas if it's something unpleasant that has to be done. Okay. I don't like doing it, but so what I suppose, my point I'm trying to say is there are levels of pain.

Jimmy 2:10

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess my, my experience of having to do it was, similar to you, I could never get my head around the own, the message bit when it's made up nonsense. But I had to, go out and close a number of sites. In the past where I had lots of sites across the uk and that was difficult. And it wasn't a case of, I didn't necessarily believe the message, but the driver behind it was the company's profitability. And I think that always stuck in my throat a little bit because it's, that's a bit arbitrary, you know what I mean? If

James 2:43

What was the target? Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy 2:44

And if I closed one or two sites, did that really materially make a difference? No, obviously, but. It was the cumulative actions, but it was an arbitrary, this is what we wanna make, or this is what our target is and this is what shareholders expect, or something like that. So whilst I could understand the logic of actually not having lots of small sites and having bigger sites, that kind of the economies of scale works, just that the driver didn't make sense to me.

James 3:13

Yeah. But why is it so stressful? And I think it's really the, sort of the emotional load of it. Yeah. When you're doing something that fundamentally you don't agree with, you just feel frustrated. You've got a loss of control and you just feel compromised by the whole damn thing. So, yeah, it's just, it's a shitty job when you have to do it.

Jimmy 3:32

Yeah. And actually it is being accountable for someone else's. Decisions, if I mean, so someone else has set the target, someone else has made that decision. If I had made the decision, I found it a lot easier to, to deliver the message.

James 3:49

Yeah, and it's usually somebody else's screw up. Quite frankly. They've messed something up because they've messed something up. The outcome is bad, and because the outcome is bad, you've got to do something in present. So it's difficult.

Jimmy 4:00

Yeah. And going back to your point about why is it so difficult, yes, there's the emotional load of it, but there's also that you get caught between, are it's the, I know it's, it'll go over your head, James, and some audience, but it's the club versus country argument. Where, well, who are you loyal to? Are you loyal to your club? Or your loyal to your, the organizations. Is it your team that work for you or is it the organization? Where does your loyalty and when you get into some of those discussions, like your one about performance management, you're gonna have to dump on some of your team that can cause you that can cause you issues.

James 4:37

Yeah, the other one, it's a question of credibility. When you are asked to do something that you fundamentally think is stupid and you know everybody's working for you, thinks you're stupid, and you've gotta stand there and smile and say, oh, isn't this a good idea? Yeah. What is that doing for your credibility? And I suppose you, I've c oh, we had a conversation once about Rob the knob. Do you remember Rob the knob? Fortunately I've worked with lots of Robs, so, which one Rob? The knob was, I'll lead your imagination.

Jimmy 5:07

Rob that you've ever

James 5:07

the work is now. Is it me? Is it me? Oh, yeah. And if you're thinking it, you probably are. He just used to stand up and spout this, the corporate line, and everybody was looking at it thinking, you're a knob. Yeah. Nobody believes this. So you're not, you're just destroying your own credibility by following through on that. So, yeah, that's a big issue. I think credibility. For Qualit for absolute clarity. If it is, Mr. Scratch is listening. It wasn't you, Rob.

Jimmy 5:36

that narrows the field Anyhow the, a couple other points I think there is the, that control, like, did I make the decision? And but I'm the public face of it and, I get the kind of, the hate that people are focusing on me rather than the actual decision maker. And I think the other thing is when. Sometimes if you push back and say, this doesn't make sense, this doesn't work. Are you putting your career at risk? So that tension of, am I doing the right thing? Is a real one I,

James 6:05

Yeah. And well, the real thing for me is values. yeah. If you doing something that you fundamentally do not believe in. But it, it really depends. All of those things come into it. I suppose for me the question is how violently do you disagree with what you're being asked to do? Yeah. 'cause I can, I will fro about performance management. However, nobody I, used to work in call centers. No one was gonna die. So was this really worth getting that excited about? Yeah. So it really is a question of, yeah, how important is this to me? And is it worth getting excited about? I think.

Jimmy 6:42

Well hold that thought 'cause we'll come back to some of the ways that you can handle it. But I guess overall for different reasons, different perspective. Like you say, it's the emotional load that it puts on you at being pulled different directions. But then before we get onto the, some of the good ways that we've experienced that you can handle it let's explore some of the the bad ways. 'cause we've blunted our way through this many a time.

James 7:09

So the one for me, the obvious one, and we had to do excellent podcast with Jackie, which talks about values, and she pointed this out, but it's where people, it's something fundamentally great against their values. They've got nowhere to run. So what they do is they check out.

Jimmy 7:24

Yeah.

James 7:25

They have no choice but to check out. And you end up with a whole load of people who are just disengaged with the organization because they've got to do things that they don't believe in. And that's bad for the people who are doing it, but it's also bad for the organization that's caused 'em to do that 'cause you're not getting any discretionary effort. So that in some ways is the easiest thing to do. Just put your head down, do the bare minimum and get on with it. But in many ways, that's the most toxic I think.

Jimmy 7:50

Well, and I think on a similar, There is the passive way of doing it. Your point about bare minimum, trying to figure out how do I do something that keeps people off my backs? I mean, the, one of the classic ones, I'm not sure if you were in the team when we had this, it was one of those, complete these. Online learning things that

James 8:13

Yeah.

Jimmy 8:13

sent down and we were shocking at it 'cause it was bullshit. It was corporate box ticking in the extreme. And so we knew it was bullshit. And so we were really ha haphazard at doing it, but we drew a lot of heat as a result. And so. We hadn't quite figured out what bare minimum was. One person's bare minimum is another person's unacceptable,

James 8:36

So slightly below bare minimum. It might be a little bit pregnant, isn't it? You just don't wanna be there.

Jimmy 8:41

well, I used to have and I used to have a team leader who worked for me He had a lot of potential, but it was useless. Right. When I, he was only young. When I pulled him up about it, I said to him, look, what's going on? You are always late. He says, well, I'm not as late as as James sometimes is. Okay. But you know, you don't fit in your spreadsheets often enough. Yeah. But I do them more often than James does them, and. I went through every aspect of his performance and he had a different person

James 9:07

They blamed

Jimmy 9:08

like that, that he was doing just a little bit better than them. I was like, you haven't got to grips with the fact that when you put that all together, that means You're like the worst of the worst. You couldn't get With it anyhow.

James 9:19

well, but that CBT computer-based training, your example is just a classic, Yeah. All right. It's dull and it's pointless and it's tedious, but for God's sake, just get on with it. That's what passive resistance really doesn't help you.

Jimmy 9:31

yeah. But equally blind, compliance is no good. So just, always towing the party line. Didn't you have those people that you worked for, James, they're always on message. And you just didn't believe it because you're thinking, you know this is bullshit, yet you're still telling the co company down. The problem with that is not only does that particular message not land, it damages their credibility everywhere because you're just still, you're always thinking, well, you're just saying the right things, isn't

James 10:00

Well, but it's interesting. That's blind compliance, credibility problem as well. But if passive resistance kills your credibility from above blind compliance kills your credibility from below. 'cause everybody knows you're a dick. Pass me the sick bag. You know why you spouting this? You're spouting this so you can get the next level of BMW, whatever the hell it is you've got your eye on. Yeah. But it's just yeah. Does you know good whatsoever, you're just promoting your own position?

Jimmy 10:27

And of course one of your personal favorites just the public disagreement to everything.

James 10:33

No, this is the way to do it. Nice big emotional bus.

Jimmy 10:37

Can I just point out, this is the section of the podcast where we're talking about bad ways people handle it

James 10:42

Things I wish I had known 20 years earlier.

Jimmy 10:46

Exactly. Yes.

James 10:47

But no, there are, there is one, one instance I remember. And we were doing a big core system replacement job and I was the operations rep on this thing and obviously I was the operations rep. So for me, getting operational flexibility into this was the most important thing, right? The IT guys and the people who were running the program couldn't give two buggers about that. Yeah, and I just had these major bust up with him. I kept banging on and banging on, and three days later I found myself off the project. So Be a lesson to Yeah, I got what I wanted for.

Jimmy 11:19

you gotta love a law of a meltdown

James 11:21

Well, obviously, but the point there being it didn't help me, really Didn't

Jimmy 11:25

Yeah.

James 11:26

So, yeah, public disagreements probably not the best way forwards.

Jimmy 11:31

So having spent a amount of our career in that area of what went wrong in our post corporate lives, now let's let's have a focus on what does good look like? So I think there are a few principles that we can share with people around what good looks like.

James 11:47

Yeah, so my first would be. If you don't like it, have a balanced, maybe not disagreement, but an argument about it, but do it from the basis of facts and data and knowledge. Right. So for example, I have been told in the past that there is a reorg. Everybody has to cough 20% of their staff. On you go, James. At which point I have stood back and said, well, actually, we've put in place these productivity improvements. Here is my head count for the last two years. As you can see, I've already coughed 20%. Therefore, I do not think it's appropriate for people to keep coming back at me. Well, it's when you've got data and stuff like that, then you can have a sensible argument. And actually, if you're providing data to your boss probably thinks this is a stupid thing to do anyway. You're providing him with the ammunition to go back as well. So I do think there is a time and a place to have a sensible debate, but it's not in the middle of a room with a load of people and it is with data and facts.

Jimmy 12:46

And a great example of that. James do you remember the well, you probably don't remember the capacity management argument I had. So in this big room full of all the great and the good, we've gotta save loads across all of these teams. And the CEO turned around to me and said, capacity managers, bear in mind, this is one small part of this business, tiny. He says, how many have you got? I can't remember the exact number. It's something like it's something like 30 odd. And I say, okay. He said, I've, I know the answer, the right answer is zero. And I could have reacted, I could have got emotional about it, I could have argued with him. I said should we pick that up offline and have a discussion about it? And because that wasn't the time and the place, there's no way if I locked horns with him in front of everyone, he would've had to feel it beholden that he had to destroy me. So anyhow we went off, had a one-to-one and to your point, I went with the facts and figures about what they did, the value they added, how we had reduced the number over the previous years. And we had a sensible discussion. We came out at the end of it, and do you know what the answer was, James

James 13:53

Go on.

Jimmy 13:54

30,

James 13:55

Okay. Yeah, exactly.

Jimmy 13:57

no change. But if I'd gone in with that argument right in front of everyone,

James 14:03

Oh, and challenged him. Just

Jimmy 14:05

I'd have got destroyed. So the first bit. Pick the right time and place to have that discussion and argue calmly from a point of view of facts.

James 14:15

Second one for me, I think is there is a time where you have to be just honest and aligned. So let me give you an example. At one point in my career, I was responsible for a operational excellence program. I had to roll this thing out across loads of call centers, and there was one area and there was no buy-in whatsoever from the senior leadership of this area that we had to do it. So I'm being told I had to do it. I'm giving it to a bunch of customers who would rather for well what's the term I'm looking for? I was about as welcome. As a what You A farer lift. Actually, I was about as welcome as a farer lift. Right? I could have argued the toss. I've been wasting my breath. Yeah. I came to the conclusion that the thing to say was, well, there is decision. We've been asked to do it. This is what we need to do. And you just make the best of a bad thing. But you're open about it. You say, yes, I know there's an issue. Yes, it's not ideal, but we're gonna do it and we're gonna crack on. Right? You're not hiding from the issue. You're just pointing out, well these are, this is the lay of the land. These are the things we've gotta do, and you crack on. 'cause frankly. Some things just aren't worth fighting.

Jimmy 15:28

Yeah, and I think that honesty, back to my example of the senior manager who always trots out the party line, at least if you're honest about, look, I know this is bullshit, but we're gonna do it. At least have a bit of credibility. Or, yes, there are potential downsides. There are risks, but if we focus on this is how we can do it. I think that honesty. It's still aligned to a degree 'cause you're still doing what needs to be done. But just being honest about it, I think can make all the difference to your team. Similarly, I think another principle is, don't just transmit the information downwards. Try and translate it a little bit. And it's probably not the best example, but back to my CBT bullshit example, when I sat down and said like, yeah, we know this is nonsense, but. It's gonna have to be done and we all we're doing is damaging our credibility and attracting a load of heat and creating a load of problems for me. Can we just get it done? The team's like, yeah, fair enough, we'll get it done. Just, everyone just got it done it's back to your point about the balance between, we know this is bullshit, but actually. It's not worth it. It's not worth a hassle. Just spend the extra hour and get it all done and there's no noise. I think that translation of it's impacting our credibility now made the kind of difference then.

James 16:44

Yeah. Yeah, totally agree. I suppose rolling on from that a little bit is try and put yourself in the position of your boss, the person who's, telling you what you are having to do. Yeah, so it's that whole what's it, the Stephen Co thing, the five habits, but Five habits,

Jimmy 17:00

Seven,

James 17:00

Oh, well, do you know if I managed three of 'em, I'd be

Jimmy 17:02

how was that? That's,

James 17:04

economy version The one I can remember, the one habit seek first to understand and then be understood, right, because. If you understand why it is important to them and why they are pushing it, yeah. Then it makes it an awful lot easier for you to swallow it. Yeah. But if you don't understand and it just looks stupid, then then you're on a hiding into nothing.

Jimmy 17:27

So, good example of that, when you really make sure that your team understand. Why they're doing something. So not just because the boss has said, but actually, the reason the purpose behind it. I think that makes all the difference. And so trying to help them to understand that purpose before you just expect them to act blindly. I think that's a key thing. I think then there's something for me about picking your battles. Where do you wanna really put your energy, if us rebelling against performance management back in the day, did it really change anything other than wind ourselves up? Probably not. But you know, you can get caught in the, every time somebody tells me something that's bullshit, I'm just gonna fight against it. Spend too much of your energy on that, it's just not worth it.

James 18:18

No. And so, absolutely. But there's two elements to that mate as well. So pick your battles. Well, A is it that important? Very interesting question. Well, let's go on about the performance management one for a second. So, towards the end of my career, I had to do it again, and I just came to the conclusion that I liked the job and it just wasn't worth it. Right? Right. So it is just, leave it alone. But then the other side of the coin is this one you are going to win because there is no point having a battle. There were some corporate things, you've just gotta suck up. You are not gonna win it.

Jimmy 18:48

And in that example, performance management, we know it's bullshit. We know it's wrong, but we're not actually gonna fundamentally change the DNA of that organization. That to this day will still be doing the

James 19:01

No. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy 19:03

So why would you put your energy into something that you are not ever going to be able to change? So be realistic about it.

James 19:09

But then the final thing actually, so it's easy to say, well do, be reasonable compromise, go and have a conversation. But there does become a point where there is a line, right? And I think it is really important that you protect your integrity. So some battles are worth fighting. Yeah. But for me, the question is, right, if something genuinely crosses the line well, are you really clear in your own mind what that line is? Yeah. Because well, as we said Yeah. How bad can it be? Are people gonna die? Now? For example, and we touched on this last week, but the the guy was the, there was a chief of staff in the Pentagon who has just been sacked. Right now, I obviously wasn't involved in the conversations, or it has the guess that he's been sat because he told the Secretary of War or whatever he calls himself that he was a fucking idiot and thousands of people were gonna die, and it wasn't a good idea. Now, actually in that instance, what he supposed to do, right? Yeah. You can't have your soldiers go off and get killed. People are going to die and you can't live with yourself if you let it happen. So there does come a point of which you've gotta protect your integrity and. Had that fight, but those instances are really pretty few and far between, I think.

Jimmy 20:23

and I think that's back to the point about ego versus outcome, because in that, am I making a decision? Am I getting the way? But actually the outcome is so bad. I should stand up and if I lose my job, then that's probably the right thing. A lot of the time we allow ego to get in the way where the outcome isn't that bad, isn't the end of the world. And therefore, actually should you just take that hit. Being clear on where that line, I mean, like you, I've been removed off projects because I disagreed with how things were being done and, I was quite happy to be removed off the project, frankly, because, I'd rather not do things the wrong way and the impact of doing it the wrong way, it was gonna fail. I don't, didn't wanna be associated with.

James 21:09

Yeah, But the truth is, I think I probably got sacked over performance management. And the reason why I say that is we had to fill in a and don't laugh at me when I tell you this. It was a anonymous questionnaire that clearly wasn't anonymous where it asked us what we thought about. Performance management and the company that I worked for had employed some guru who was actually a third rate sportsman to tell us how to manage our people. Now, I dunno about you, right? I'm not a world class sprinter. I don't know much about sports, but I don't need some third rate sportsman telling me how to manage people. And I wrote as much in the in this anonymous survey anyway. Shortly afterwards, I did get a knock on the door and told my services were no longer needed. On the benefit of hindsight, this sportsman was probably the HR director's brother-in-law. For all I know, it was fundamentally fu futile for me to do that stupid thing to do. But actually, did I want to work there anymore? No. Right. So yeah, protect your integrity. I think that's the, how bad can it be in some things, they are worth dying in the ditch over.

Jimmy 22:16

So did you did you see the sportsman waving you away as you pulled out?

James 22:20

Cheer cheerfully as he cashed his consultancy check.

Jimmy 22:23

So, key takeaways.

James 22:25

So you don't need to agree with every decision that's made in your organization for to be a good manager or a leader. You really don't. But I do think you probably need to decide how you're gonna show up and deal with those things. So that would be one of the key things I would say.

Jimmy 22:39

And I think one of the reasons why you need to be clear about how you're gonna show up is because your teams will often watch how you handle that sort of tension. They'll know whether you agree or disagree with something 'cause they know you well, but they'll watch how you behave and they will judge you it'll impact your leadership itself.

James 23:00

Yeah, and if you're listening to this and you're a middle manager in some organizations somewhere, or a senior manager, you know this is going to happen again and again. It is inevitable, right? So the question isn't so much, how do you agree or not? The question is really how do you cope with.

Jimmy 23:18

And being clear to your point about how. Bigger disagreement it is, and how big the impact is of your disagreement, and therefore, do you really wanna die on your sword? Because you can't often change the message, but you can be intentional about how you deliver it.

James 23:38

And if you really don't like something. Just face into it. Don't be passive aggressive. Nobody likes passive aggressive. Just don't do it to yourself. Destroys your credibility.

Jimmy 23:48

So we've explored the subject, some of the things that go wrong, some of the things that go right. Hopefully you found that useful. Please share this episode and follow us for more of the same.

James 23:59

Oh, I've got all my extra word of wisdom.

Jimmy 24:01

Gone in

James 24:02

Some hills, some ditches. I down ditches, not hills. You seem to down hills, but there's another story. Some ditches really are worth dying in.

Jimmy 24:09

and on that note.

James 24:10

Cheerful note gurgle, gurgle

Jimmy 24:12

So you know, how do we wanna finish? Finish on a high, talk about dying

James 24:16

you the ditch.

Jimmy 24:17

and argue whether it's a ditch or dying on a hill. I've just said follow for more, and now you've just let's make sure that nobody wants to follow for more.

James 24:27

My work is complete next week.

Jimmy 24:29

Thanks everyone. Cheers.

Speaker 2 24:31

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast

Speaker 3 24:33

from purpose to corporate jargon,

Speaker 2 24:36

but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well,

Speaker 3 24:39

easier said than done. So if you've got. Unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck.

Speaker 2 24:49

If your backlogs are outta control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised, just keeps failing to deliver,

Speaker 3 24:58

we can help. If you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organizations, get in touch at Jimmy at@jobdonewell.com orJames@jobdonewell.com.