88
Practicing Reason Over Rank
for Better Decisions

Remember back to a time when someone was trying to persuade you to believe their way of thinking? Were they successful at getting you to voluntarily buy in? Or did they have to pull rank?

With so many organizations using consensus gathering to come to decisions, the need to use reason over rank is more important than ever. And the forced go-along-to-get-along approach doesn’t stand a chance in consensus gathering.

When we take the time to help others see how our thinking makes sense in a given situation, we have significantly better odds of being successful. Often, people pull rank because they have lost patience in trying to get others to see their way of thinking; or they have not given their proposed idea the forethought to anticipate questions, find gaps in their thinking and fill them, or to carefully, yet succinctly, articulate their viewpoint.

Pulling rank is usually an outcrop of frustration, and it usually sows resentment and resistance. And through time, those feelings compound with people and can destroy your credibility with others.

But reason is the result of sound thinking and confidence in that thinking, which usually reaps buy-in and support. In short, reason brings partnership, which builds up the emotional bank account with your colleagues and superiors.