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Have you noticed that "I didn't know" has become the excuse of choice for leaders on the Capitol Hill hot seat?  “I didn’t read the memo,”  “I didn’t read the report,” are two lame excuses for not knowing what was going on, therefore not being responsible for what was going on.  At least theoretically.

Can you really hold a busy person responsible for not doing his/her own homework and not paying attention to what’s important?  As an HR leader, I wonder if you are up against that same frustration when trying to get your own boss to pay attention to critical issues before the fan picks up speed. As I ran this theme by my CHRO pals they all said, “I can’t count the many times I’ve put critical issues in front of my boss, only to have them completely ignored.”  Are you one of them?

What do you do to get your busy boss to focus on critical issues coming out of HR? Who do you owe your allegiance to?  How can you be most effective in protecting what matters?

Every time I heard “I didn’t read the report” by one of the political appointees, one thought repeatedly came to mind: There is a team of career professionals desperately committed to the agency's mission,  who worked really hard on that report that their boss is now so industriously ignoring. And they're desperately wishing that the Secretary (or at least his lieutenant) would read the friggin’ memo! They know better than anyone in the world what's really at stake. They signed up to serve the nation, not cover some political operative's butt. That part just goes with the territory, unfortunately. So more often than not, they clamp down in frustrated silence.

Maybe it’s my lifelong DC upbringing, where I was raised among the government families who stayed, as presidents and their administrations came and went.  Or maybe it’s the fact that my father – the CIA case officer who discovered the Cuban Missile Crisis – tried desperately to get the obstinate Kennedy administration to “read the report” before we all evaporated into a mushroom cloud. The only reason why we’re all alive to read about it now in history books is because my dad took desperate action to get the attention of the nation’s CEO, ultimately the nation itself.  (I’ll tell you about it in a second.)

So I’m sensitive to the fact that there are worker bees deep inside every organization throwing heart, soul and sleepless nights into the mission – only to run up against the hard wall of high-level politics that are running at cross purposes with the official objective. Or distraction as the CEO is trying to manage a firehose of critical issues. Or just garden-variety denial.

What do you do when you need urgent attention on a critical matter?  Especially from a boss who thinks that “I didn’t read the report” is a good enough excuse?  You know what? Beats the hell out of me.

But I can tell you what my father did when the Kennedy administration ignored repeated entreaties from the Miami CIA station to pay attention to the accumulation of burlap-wrapped objects coming in from the USSR that weren’t no palm trees.  With his own boss’s permission, he took it to the media.  He called his cousin, who happened to be a White House Correspondent for a small New York paper. And Dad showed Cuz everything he needed to know to write a series of articles. The articles landed on the appropriate Congressman’s desk. Congressman raises holy hell on the House of Representatives Floor.  And thus the Kennedy hand is forced. There will be no more ignoring. (And…..cue the Oliver Stone movie at this point.)

You can tell I’m proud of this story. Thanks for indulging me.  Now getting back to the present:  How many people deep inside these government agencies have been knowing that horrible things are going on? And they’re can't get the necessary attention to make the difference or even change the course of history?

How many people deep inside your organization (like yourself) know what’s going on but can't get the attention you need?  Will your stakeholders suffer?  Are millions of dollars at stake? Are lives at stake?  Or is it your career that's at stake?

Is the critical issue critical enough to be worth going rogue to force your boss to pay attention?  Who are you ultimately answerable to? The boss that keeps you employed? Your employees? Or your customers? Or the nation? Or the face in the mirror?

Question:  What do you do to get your busy boss to focus on critical issues coming out of HR?

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Martha Finney

Martha I. Finney is the author of The Truth About Getting the Best From People, and a consultant specializing in employee engagement. For a free consultation on how you can build a vacation-friendly workplace culture, email Martha at Martha@marthafinney.com.

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