Success Strategy: Avoid “Permission by Omission”

How many times have we seen someone do something wrong and have not said anything? We are giving "permission by omission."

Unfortunately, we frequently do this in our professional and personal lives.

If we see any employee doing something inaccurate and do not say anything, we are giving the employee permission to complete his or her task inaccurately. We are not just giving permission to do it wrong now, but also to do it wrong in the future. If we observe an employee taking shortcuts that could lead to an unsafe situation and do not say anything, we are giving permission to work unsafely. If we see an employee being rude to a customer and do not say anything, again we are giving permission.

This also applies to other managers' employees. Depending upon the situation, we may need to say something immediately to the employee. At least we need to report the situation to the employee's supervisor.

The same principle applies in our personal lives. This is especially true with children. Of course, if he or she is learning a new task, we need to realize that proficiency will not be immediate. Giving positive feedback for incremental improvements is important. However, if we see our child do something against our values, we need to say something. If we catch a child in a lie, or being mean to a pet, and do not address the issue, we are giving the child permission to continue this behavior through our omission to say anything.

Keep in mind that the person may not know that they are doing anything wrong! They may very well want to be doing things right, they just don't know what the right things are. Unless they are told, they will never know.

This also ties in with assertiveness and how we allow people to treat us. That, however, needs to be a topic for a future blog!

Comments are welcome!