Dr Rebel: The rebel in my team bypasses me, and it upsets me. How do you think I should handle this situation?
Before I get to why people in your team bypass you and what you can do about it, I want to share a story.
In the mid-seventies, young Ken Kuturagi started working in Sony’s digital research lab. He spent hours and hours disassembling and studying devices to see how they operated. He quickly gained a reputation as an outstanding problem-solver and earned the nickname tinkerer.
At home, his daughter played on the Nintendo often. It was too slow, Kuturagi thought. He opened the device and installed a chip he had created to increase its speed. It did a fantastic job.
“Wouldn’t it be great if Sony developed a game console?”, Kuturagi asked himself. When he brought it up to his management, they showed no interest. However, Kuturagi was convinced it could be a great opportunity for Sony and shared his idea with Norio Ogha, Sony’s CEO. He was excited and understood the potential of the gaming industry, and freed Kuturagi from his regular job to work on this new concept. That became one of Sony’s best-selling products, the PlayStation. Later, Kuturagi became the CEO of Sony.
The Sony PlayStation may never have come to life without bypassing.
So, why do rebels bypass their manager?
#1: Not open to new ideas
Rebels don’t bypass you because they don’t like you. They do so because they strongly believe their idea is a big opportunity for the company, and you are not open to listening. When rebels are on to something, they go all in. They spend much time understanding the problem or challenge and learn about the context before they think of a solution. Once they have an idea, they get fired up. In their excitement, they forget to slow down to take others along with their thinking, making them hard to follow.
They have become so passionate about an idea that they won’t let go quickly. Because their drive to improve things is so strong, combined with their excitement and impatience, they share it with whoever they think might listen to them, even if it’s one or more levels higher up. They understand that bypassing their manager might bring them into trouble, but they believe it’s in the best interest of the team or the company and find that more important than their own career.
Rebels bypass you because they believe you are not interested in their idea, while in reality, you need more information to understand where the heck the rebel is talking about. And there lies the solution: take time to listen to the rebel’s idea and ask questions to understand the reasoning behind the idea. That will lead to mutual understanding; either you’ll conclude it is a darn good idea, or you can provide insights the rebel is not aware of, and you both conclude the suggestion isn’t that brilliant after all.
#2: Decision-making is slow
Rebels are action-oriented problem solvers. Whenever they see a problem, they want to dive into it and fix it immediately. If they feel their manager is not taking the necessary action to resolve problems, they may escalate the issue directly to someone they believe can make things happen.
Their eagerness to solve things isn’t ego-driven. It comes from a deeply rooted feeling to improve things. The good part? Most rebels are excellent troubleshooters. Rather than trying to micromanage rebels, free them up (partly) and let them solve the issue. It’s a win-win. The rebel will fix it in no time and become an ambassador for the change, and you have one problem less on your desk.
#3: There is a cultural difference
This is one I have experienced personally. In my country (The Netherlands), it is pretty common to interact with senior managers and executives who are some levels higher up in the organisation. However, when I lived and worked in Spain, things were different and bypassing my manager was really not appreciated.
If you are dealing with a multicultural team, it is well worth spending some time to understand cultural differences. Read Erin Meyer’s book ‘The Culture Map’, take the test with your team and discuss the outcomes openly. It helped me a lot with my team in Barcelona!
do you have a burning question for dr rebel?