40.  How do I stand up or push back professionally?

Joe Marantano: Drew, welcome to another episode.

Drew Freeman: Hello. Hello.

Joe Marantano: I'm excited. It's our third episode of the day as we're working ahead a little bit since I'mnna be doing a little traveling and I'm excited about this next topic.

Drew Freeman: We've been knocking them out today so.

Joe Marantano: Far we have been. So I've got a pretty good question that I really like and I want to hit you with it.

Drew Freeman: Let's do it.

Joe Marantano: Drew. How do I stand up or push back professionally? How do I stand up for myself?

Drew Freeman: It's a really good question and definitely something that has been a learning process and, process that's evolved for me. So I think it's worth noting here that this is going to depend on the industry that you work in. It's going to depend on the company culture, it's going to depend on the team culture. Everything's a little bit different. But there are some best practices that we can give.

Joe Marantano: Yeah. And I think should. We should throw out here that we're using this question in the context of stand up for my research, stand up for my team, like its value, its impact, that kind of thing. We're not really talking or giving advice about if you are facing harassment or bullying or anything like that. We're not really touching on the HR side of like professionally standing up for yourself. This is more on the advocating for.

Drew Freeman: Your value side and standing up for your work.

Joe Marantano: Yes.

Drew Freeman: So the first place that I would start is that all of your pushback or standing up for your work or disagreeing should be based in the research, should be based in the work that you did. That may sound really obvious, but it's really easy to let emotions kind of be the driving factor when you actually encounter this in the wild.

Joe Marantano: Yeah, that was my first thought as well, is, you know, when you're doing so, make a fact based argument rather than a personal emotional based argument.

Drew Freeman: With that being said, facts are not the most persuasive. Facts aren't going to always be the thing where, well, I can just present the facts that show that this person is incorrect and they will immediately understand that they are incorrect and change their opinion. It's much more effective and persuasive to make sure that you're really listening to what the person is saying what their concerns are. Accept those. You know, accept those as valid feelings, valid concerns. And really to speak to them where they are, and to do that, you have to be a good researcher and understand where they're coming from and what they're saying.

Joe Marantano: Yeah, anybody who's been in a relationship knows that you might have a disagreement with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, whatever, and you'll hear them make their argument or their case for their thoughts, and you'll think, well, that's just silly. And to you, it might be silly, but it is not silly to the other person. And it's the same with your stakeholders. Even if the concern they are expressing is not quote, unquote valid, it is still a fear or concern that they have and thus needs to be addressed.

Drew Freeman: Absolutely. So the kind of. The way that I have learned to do that, and this is just Drew speaking, this might not be the best course of action for you, but the best way that I have learned to do that is to really try to dig into. Okay, so tell me more about that. Tell me more about what you're worried the risk is here. And then really speak to. Okay, well, the research says that that might be valid. You know, the research says that a, that's a real risk that we do have to worry about. But here is what participants are saying on the other side of it, that sort of thing.

Joe Marantano: I totally agree. The way that I've always handled it is, you know, I'll listen to concerns, and then

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Joe Marantano: I'll come back the next time we meet and I'll say, so last time we talked, you expressed a concern about A, B and C. This is how A, B and C can be addressed or why A, B and C. This is the evidence that shows that A, B and C are already addressed or whatever. But I'm taking that concern and showing them that I gave it thought, that I did work on it.

Drew Freeman: Absolutely. So I think another really common type of pushback or concern that I've gotten giving research presentations or just being a researcher is the concern or the pushback that I didn't make the best research choice or my research isn't valid for a, B and C reasons. How do you go about addressing those types of pushback, Drew?

Joe Marantano: If I had a dollar for every time a stakeholder used the phrase statistical significance.

Drew Freeman: Oh, my gosh.

Joe Marantano: Right. So what I do to address these things is I try to preempt a lot of it. You know, if I know that I did IDIs with only six people, eight people, whatever, I'll Upfront, say, this is not meant to, you know, the sample Size was only 6. This was not meant to give us a definitive what folks are doing. That's not the point of this research. The point of this research is to tell you why we think folks are doing this. I'll also address the drawbacks of the methodology. If we're doing a survey, I'm going to come out right up front and say, I can tell you what folks are doing. I cannot tell you why that it's not what this research is for. That is not what we are trying to do here.

Drew Freeman: The thing that I have to constantly remind myself when I'm getting this kind of pushback is I am the research expert in the room. I know my stuff. I know why we made the decision to do whatever method we chose. I know why we chose the sample size we did. I know why we asked questions the way we asked them. I know my research. And I mean that both I know the research process, but I also know this specific research, this specific project, these specific participants, these specific learnings. I'm the expert in all of that. And really reminding myself of that is, is valuable. And also presenting myself as the expert. And by that I don't mean saying something like, well, I'm the expert, therefore I'm right. It's more, well, I really know what I'm talking about. And that gives me the confidence to speak up and to stand up for whatever the research is saying.

Joe Marantano: We've talked before about kind of coming equipped with answers to the questions before the questions are asked. And I think that this is one of the places where that kind of applies. Imagine after every decision you made about methodology, about sample, about, you know, which questions to include or exclude, somebody asked you why and just, you know, have an answer ready, be able to explain your thought process and articulate, we did this because X.

Drew Freeman: And if you're having a difficult time coming up with a rationale that you feel good about, that's a real sign that you should probably spend more time considering that question, considering the options, and maybe do more research into what the best course of action actually is.

Joe Marantano: Ah. And I'll also throw out that you don't necessarily need a quote unquote research reason for every decision you made. Maybe we went with an N of 6. And we went with that because of time. The timeline was a factor and we had to go fast even though we knew eight or 12 people would give us better results. That's okay. You can say, I wanted to give you something in the timeframe rather than, leave you with nothing and make.

Drew Freeman: You guess longer time listeners will know that Joe and I are big fans of quick and dirty. Good enough is good enough. And a lot of the time, the rationale or the why for why we make the decisions that we make is, well, this is the timeframe that we needed to make a decision. So this, this option that might have been better in a vacuum. That option wasn't available to me.

Joe Marantano: So, Drew, when we're thinking about pushback and, you

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Joe Marantano: know, folks who will, say, are less inclined to take what we say at face value, how do you address that? Let's say you had a stakeholder, what we'll call them a difficult stakeholder, who at the end of a readout, simply said, I'm not convinced or I don't know, or my intuition tells me this and that's counter to the research. How would you push back on that? How would you professionally tell them, you know, basically you're going with your gut and I'm going with research. What's the right way to push back on that?

Drew Freeman: I think the professional equivalent of legalese for that might be something along the lines of, I hear what you're saying. Your opinion or your thoughts are. That's one viewpoint. And here we have. Here we have n number of viewpoints, and this is what they are telling us.

Joe Marantano: I think one of the, One of the ways somebody could address this, and there's a theme here, is try to preempt it. So when you're doing your kickoff, ask your stakeholders what assumptions they have. Ask them what their hypotheses are. Even if it's not a specific hypothesis that's a part of the research plan. Just knowing their starting point will help you understand when the results come in how much convincing you'll have to do.

Drew Freeman: I think it's also really valuable, both preemptively and after the fact. If you get that kind of I'm not convinced pushback is to. To ask, what do you need to be convinced? How much m. Information. What kind of information do you need in order to be confident in making whatever decision?

Joe Marantano: Absolutely.

Drew Freeman: Okay, so let's talk about kind of the more mechanical or tactical ways that this pushback looks. And I know that from your time as a police officer and a sergeant that you have a couple of very different perspectives on this. So I think you've got a good story to tell here.

Joe Marantano: Well, I think that anybody who comes from a, first responder or military background knows that the kind of acceptable language I wasn't even going to say acceptable, but maybe because it really shouldn't be. But maybe like the more.

Drew Freeman: Because a way to push back doesn't mean that it isn't correct.

Joe Marantano: So maybe the more standard way that there's pushback versus, at a company, in a professional setting, in a business setting, there's definitely in those worlds, in the first responder military world, even between the ranks, between the tiers, there's a higher degree of camaraderie and a higher degree of familiarity. And that means that you kind of get to push a little harder, a little more in your face. Right. It would not be unusual for a sergeant to tell an officer to use the F bomb and to say that's f dumb. Right? Or to say, no, that's a bad idea, that's stupid. It is definitely a more confrontational in your face style versus what you might see in the, we'll call it like the difference between the locker room and the boardroom. Right. In the boardroom you might see more of the subtle, pushbacks. It might be more of the I'm just not convinced. Or, you know, I know you presented it this way. Have you thought about doing it that way? And some of those things might be coming from a genuine place of wanting to improve, and wanting to make you better. But some of it might also be the more subtle. I think you're wrong.

Drew Freeman: So I think it's really important to be a sponge when it comes to listening to how your stakeholders speak to each other, how they express doubt, how they convince each other. And that's a really good, a really good mirror into what you can then be doing when they inevitably push back against you. No one is ever going to give a readout or no one is ever going to go through life without getting professional pushback. It's part and parcel of doing any job. So you need to be, you need to figure out ways that work for you to stand up for your work and that standing up for your work is going to look different from time to time. And it's go going toa be different based on who you're talking to.

Joe Marantano: The next thing I'd like us to talk about is what I kind of call knowing when to pick a fight.

Drew Freeman: Yes.

Joe Marantano: the.

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Joe Marantano: Just because you are right does not necessarily mean that the fight is worth it. Every, and I'm using the word fight in the metaphorical sense every single time that you decide to go against pushback, think of it as expending political points, you know, political capital. And you need to decide when it's worth it to do so. So if I have a new stakeholder who is really dead set having for IDIs a sample size of 10, but I know I can get the same from a sample size of 8, but my timeline and budget are going to accept 10. I might just do 10 because it is not worth pushing back against the stakeholder at that point when I can save that for when it really matters. So knowing when to pick the fight totally.

Drew Freeman: And again, that's going to be different for pretty much every project, for every stakeholder that'there's never a oh, I figured it out kind of moment. For me personally, I really like the is this a hill I'm going to die on metaphor. I will even expand it to is this the hill that's even worth stepping foot on? You know, kind of thinking about how high up this hill am I willing to go?

Joe Marantano: Yeah, there's the is this worth fighting for? Is this hill worth dying on? But then there's also the it is the argument that I am going to start or the discussion I'm going to start, is that more stressful than the work itself that they want or don't want or whatever? Like, think about if essentially the juice is worth the squeeze. You know, it might. The stress of having the discussion about two extra people in your sample size might be more stressful to you than just doing the two extra interviews. In that case, w fight back. Don't make more work for yourself. Don't cut off your nose, spite your face there.

Drew Freeman: Whereas a very similar disagreement or pushback that might very well be worth spending a lot more time and energy on is, well, I need statistical significance in order to be convinced. Now we're talking we need a much larger sample size. We need to likely make very different, concessions in the types of questions that we can ask, how we ask them, that sort of thing. That's a. That's much more likely to be something where the stress of doing that extra work could easily outweigh the stress of having that conversation.

Joe Marantano: Yeah, I totally agree. It's knowing, both the political capitol and your work in stress. Is it worth picking this fight? Is it worth dying on this hill?

Drew Freeman: All right, I think we've covered this fairly well. Is there anything that you want to leave. Leave folks with that they can take forward?

Joe Marantano: Just always think about why. Always have the. We talked about this. Always have the reason that you're doing something in your head so that if somebody does push back on you, you can express your concern. you know, but ultimately, remember what things are worth fighting for, what things are really decisions inside your control and which ones aren't. And, you know, pick your fights accordingly.

Drew Freeman: The thing that I want folks to walk away with is to remember that we make mistakes, too. Even though we're the expert in this research, remember that there are always things that we could do better and be humble enough to say, you know, that's a really valid point. You're correct. I should have done that differently. I'll remember it for next time. I'll learn that lesson. Or that's a really good point. I'll go back to the data and get you an answer to that question.

Joe Marantano: That's a great place for us to end it. I want to thank everyone for listening this week. Please give us a like and subscribe wherever it is you get your podcasts. If you have a question you want us to answer, send it over to inside uxrmail.com. if you'd like to support the show, there's a link in the show notes to do so with that. I'm Joe Marantano.

Drew Freeman: And I'm Drew Freeman.

Joe Marantano: And we'll see you next time.

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