“Someone should do that.”
Leaders hear this frequently, and sometimes we say it to ourselves. Perhaps I should have named my two children “Someone” and “Somebody” because they would always have employment opportunities!
If we don’t act, however, “Someone should do that” becomes SSDT, the dreaded leadership disease that rots organizations from within.
If someone says SSDT to you, dear leader, you have a handful of choices:
- Disagree, and explain why.
- Ignore it, and do nothing. (You should definitely write off the whiners and unconstructive complainers.)
- Agree, and decide a next step:
- Ask for help. (Maybe from the person who said SSDT?)
- Delegate the follow-through.
- Take the first leadership steps yourself. (Often it’s a better definition of the opportunity.)
When you hear yourself saying SSDT, you can
- Decide who the someone is.
- Support the person if it is not you – both active help and getting out of their way.
- Plan out action steps and go yourself.
- Seek wisdom and help from others.
The worst thing is to leave an SSDT unconsidered. It’s ok to defer an SSDT into the future, but you will run into more troubles if you ignore every SSDT and assume they will take care of themselves without a conscious process to sort, validate, and execute.
What do you think of SSDT situations? How do you handle them?
