Why Am I Left out of Critical Conversations?

 

The Scenario: 

1. Cary is a program manager at a large consumer products company.
2. Cary has been tasked by his management to drive cost and schedule completion for a critical initiative.
3. The critical initiative leadership team includes representatives from product management and software engineering.
4. Cary regularly meets with his product management and engineering peer managers to understand cost and schedule status, identify any scope issues, and document barriers to successful initiative completion.
5. Despite the regular meetings, Cary feels he is left out of critical conversations between his product management and engineering peers, only being informed after the fact versus being invited up front to provide input to the conversation.
6. Cary has repeatedly asked his peers to include him in important conversations, yet he continues to be left out.
7. Cary is frustrated and can’t understand why he’s left out.

The Message:

Regardless of your title or position, it’s likely you’ve experienced being left out of critical conversations only to be informed of decisions you could have provided input for. Definitely frustrating, particularly when your management is holding you accountable for something that you don’t have control over. I understand the frustration, but want to peel back the banana on this and focus on not the what, but the why. Why are you left out of critical conversations? By understanding the why, you may unearth some actions to help you provide better value so that peers will want to include you.

Look at these eight reasons for things you might need to change to make others want to include you:

1. You were meant to be included but were innocently omitted – The inviter made an honest mistake of not including you. Just watch out for chronic omissions with mea culpa.
2. The meeting was perceived to be a waste of your time – The inviter felt including you would have wasted your time and chose not to include you.
3. You’re viewed as too busy to participate – The inviter chose to not include you because they wanted to let you focus on more important things.
4. You’re an unproductive disruption – The inviter views you as someone who will disrupt work and increase the time and frustration to get through the conversation.
5. You’re viewed as not providing value – The inviter doesn’t see you as providing anything material to the conversation. You’re not necessarily disruptive, just not providing a helpful perspective.
6. You don’t show up even when invited – Your tendency is to not show up for discussions, so the inviter has given up on including you.
7. You have a reputation for not following up – Even when you are included in discussions and are assigned actions, you don’t follow up as expected.
8. You don’t align to a political agenda – The inviter is intentionally excluding you because your point of view runs counter to an idea or actions they want to sell and don’t want you to disrupt.

The Consequences:  When you fail to address reasons you’re left out of conversations, your consequences could include:

• Sub-optimized solutions – Solutions to problems needing your input isn’t included.
• Working to cross-purposes – You’re operating from old information or you don’t have full context.
• Wasted time and money – You’re either doing things that don’t need to be done or not doing things that need to be done.

The Next Steps: 

• Review and understand the above reasons.
• Be honest with yourself about which of the reasons apply to you.
• For items out of your control, like number 8 above, ask for help from management if you’re unable to make headway with the inviter.
• Put a specific action plan in place for how you will address the applicable reasons.
• Use a trusted advisor to keep you accountable.