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It's Better to Beg for Forgiveness than to Ask for Permission
- jknupp 16y agoThe outcome of this story was favorable (which is why we're reading it). I wonder, however, if there are far more stories that begin the same way but end with "You're being fired for insubordination" or something similarly negative.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago"You're Fired" can be the beginning of a beautiful career.
- 425 16y agoExactly. Sometimes I fantasize about being laid off, so I can have excuse why I am leaving this cushy job...
- napierzaza 16y agoYour attitude reminds me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- huherto 16y agoI have a story that backfired. I had a team of 5 developers that were working in a product. The company had been trying to build the product for several years. When I saw the architecture they were using I tried to convince the architect to make some changes. They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't even let me touch the code. I was a manager I wasn't supposed to get involved. So I thought. "It is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission". So I started to build the product from scratch. I had plenty of time and no one cared what I did. After 5 or 6 months I already had a product that was way a head than the official product. When I tried to show it to my manager he got really mad. He literally screamed at me. That was 1.5 years ago. I went in a depression for a long time. They fired the architect. They fired my manager. The developers had to spin their wheels for a long time. Then they left. And the product is still not ready.
- jpablo 16y agoBut you asked permission first. And you were told "no". That's the point of the article. Do not ask for permission first.
- nandemo 16y agoHe did work 5 months on something without asking permission.
- jfager 16y ago"Ask forgiveness rather than permission" is not equivalent to "forge ahead without thought for the consequences". Completely rewriting a codebase by yourself to show up a team that has been working on it for a long time might mean better code, but it's also a direct demonstration of the ineffectiveness of that team. Of course some kind of major shake-up is going to happen after something like that. Firing people might be a little extreme, but you certainly have to expect that it's a possibility. If you don't have the stomach for directly causing people to get fired, or for conflict, then don't go out of your way to demonstrate how poorly they're doing their job. Find your way out to something else, and let them do themselves in.
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- teej 16y agoSeveral years ago, I worked for a company that held a hackathon for developers. We were given one day to build whatever we wanted for a new API that was recently released. I worked on it for that day, and for many days afterwards during work hours. After three weeks of development, I was told that I would be fired unless I ceased work on the project and got back to work. Figuring I would "beg for forgiveness" later, I kept working on it in secret. Two weeks later, it was finished and I launched it into the wild. They weren't happy, but let me stay. Six months after launch my hackathon project had millions of users and had made the company over seven figures. I didn't end up getting fired, but I came close.
- jfager 16y agoThat's not backfiring, that's exactly how it's supposed to work. The only way it could possibly be more storybook is if you had been fired and those 7 figures ended up directly in your pocket.
- jfarmer 16y agoI was all, "Hey, interesting story." Then I was all, "I wonder who wrote it?" Now I'm all "!!!". The world that might have been. Do you ever think it would have been better if you had gotten fired?
- teej 16y agoI'm definitely better off now. If I had been fired, it's unlikely I would've been successful in the space. I managed to sit on lots of panels, meet some top-tier people in the valley, and make some great connections. I didn't hit a $$ homerun this way, but my long-term prospects are good.
- GFischer 16y agoIt's a bit unrelated, but I'm reminded of this: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/regrets.png http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/regrets.png Different context, same attitude :)
- edw519 16y agoThis reminds me of my first partner in our software/consulting service business. He was absolutely fearless. We would always arrive at appointments very early so he had an excuse to "poke around". He'd ask anybody, the receptionist, someone in the breakroom, even the janitor. He'd see what was going on in the parking lot, the loading dock, even in the warehouse or factory. Seeing him in a business for the first time was like watching a kid in a candy store. In our first meeting, he always knew something about the client's business that they didn't. He'd say things like, "Automating the inventory won't help if Fred and Jean are counting 2 different things." This always led to interesting discussion and often, follow-up business. Once he even spent a week of his own time on third shift, going over procedures and reports with factory supervisors. They didn't know who he was; they just figured someone from the main office sent him. He did a complete analysis in Excel which we used in a proposal. That got us hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work. I often challenged him, "You can't just do that," I would say. To which he would respond, "These people need help and don't even realize it. We have to find a way to show them." Then the inevitable, "It's better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission." Looking back, it didn't always work. It pissed off some people and burnt those bridges. But when it did work, we often concluded that nothing else would have. I learned a lot in those days. I'm still not as fearless as my partner was, but I'd like to think I'm getting there. Thanks for the memories.
- msuster 16y agoGreat story! And exactly the point. The other saying is "you can't make an omelet unless you're willing to break eggs." I don't mind getting messy from time-to-time. When you take risks like your partner did it backfires sometimes. But I'd rather occasionally get shut down for trying too hard.
- eru 16y agoYes. But keep in mind: You can break an awful lot of eggs, without making an omelet.
- j_baker 16y agoThis is especially good advice if you work in a large company. Banging your head against the wall is often more pleasant than getting permission to do something new or different. So my solution is to just mock up a prototype before I tell anyone about it. It's easy to say "I want to do this, and can prove it's not all that difficult". Even better if you can say "I had this idea that was so great I went ahead and wrote it!" People are a lot more likely to take your work seriously after it's already been written than before.
- roqetman 16y agoI fully agree with this. Getting past big company bureaucracy absolutely requires this attitude in my opinion.
- strick 16y agoIf you enjoyed this article, you will probably love Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Lecture-Randy-Pausch/dp/1401323251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276700690&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Last-Lecture-Randy-Pausch/dp/140132325... I had already watched the lecture on YouTube and thought I wouldn't get much from the book but I was wrong. The story of Pausch muscling his way into Disney's Imagineer team is fantastic.
- hboon 16y agoAlso watch Randy Pausch's lecture on Time Management: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0
- wallflower 16y agoTangent story [Asking for Permission] http://kbiri.blogspot.com/2009/01/lens-story-about-yesterday.html http://kbiri.blogspot.com/2009/01/lens-story-about-yesterday...
- josh33 16y agoThat's not exactly a counterpoint, as the intonation behind "ask for forgiveness, not permission" is that you are doing something the other party would not want if asked directly.
- wallflower 16y agoCorrected it.
- russell 16y ago"It’s Better to Beg for Forgiveness than to Ask for Permission", Grace Hopper, one of our pioneers. She also coined the term "debugging" and was one of the creators of COBOL.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- nollidge 16y agoWhy do people put distracting animations next to the content which they presumably _want people to read_? I don't care which Twitter users looked at your page, and if I did I could very well find that information without the animation drawing my eye to it. EDIT: Thankfully there's Readability. But I'm sure the author would rather I read it as he presented it.
- Periodic 16y agoIf I were to follow this philosophy more often I'd try to be damn sure I knew exactly what I was doing before I did. Going off on your own to do something because you know others would not agree is a bit arrogant. It has to come from a belief that you know more than they do. So if you are going to do something when you know your boss/colleague/co-founder would disagree then you had better make sure you do know more than they do.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoSometimes it's better, sometimes not. Life is complex and subtle. That applies to business, personal relationships, friendships, personal hobbies, society, culture, everything. If you bind yourself to the naive "official" level of policies, rules, and regulations then you will miss out on the rich vein of interactions based on tacit and implicit knowledge, culture, and norms. Flirting is a perfect example of this sort of thing. Full of subtlety and complexity and none of it 100% direct and straightforward. All of life has similar elements. If you treat your job, for example, as a mechanistic process then you'll probably have about as much success as if you treated romance the same way. Developing the skills, experience, and judgment to know how, when, where, and in what way to "break the rules" and when not to is a an ongoing, lifelong adventure for everyone.
- tjmaxal 16y agoThis usually works best in overly bureaucratic or draconian situations.
- fuzzythinker 16y agoOne of Colin Powell's leadership slide points. http://www.blaisdell.com/powell/ http://www.blaisdell.com/powell/