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Beg For Forgiveness Instead of Asking For Permission

The concept of begging for forgiveness instead of asking for permission was foreign to me until I spent a few years in the corporate world. When I entered into the corporate world I thought that I would just work harder than everyone else, do exactly what I was told and then be rewarded. Boy was I wrong. I found out that there is much more that you must do in order to be rewarded – the least of which was to do what you are told. Managers want you to do as much thinking for them as you can. Anticipate their needs and wants. Know your customers business better than your customers do. Sometimes in order to do all this you need to beg for forgiveness instead of asking for permission. What do I mean by this?

Sometimes in order to go above an beyond you just have to “do” instead of asking if you can “do”. Sometimes in the corporate world senior management is overly conservative. This is understandable but it can also be debilitating and leave you stuck doing the same things over and over again never getting ahead. In these cases I have found that those that get ahead are the ones that just “do”. They act on their gut feelings instead of talking things over with their managers. Of course I’m talking about calculated risks and not some “bet”. Betting never gets you any where. It usually loses you money and forces you to go back a few steps. Calculated risks are what can get you ahead of the game.

In these cases I’m talking about the small things that can be beneficial. Just going ahead and meeting with the senior partners of that company you are trying to win work from instead of asking your manager if it’s OK. As long as you are prepared and you are not going above you managers head, why not? If you were to ask your manager if you should meet with those senior partners your manager may have too much time to think about it and wind up delaying the meeting or thinking that it’s not a good idea. As long as you are prepared for your meeting then go for it! You may hit it out of the park and win that big account by yourself. This is when you can beg for forgiveness from your boss and then tell your boss that you landed that big account. If your manager is worth anything they will realize that you did your homework, you thought for yourself and took a calculated risk and you just lifted a huge weight off of their shoulders. Now think of what would have happened if you had asked for permission first.