But the long-term effect it had on the team was neither good nor particularly funny. By using self-deprecation to spare my own feelings, I was doing absolutely nothing to communicate to my team why I was asking them to meet a tough deadline or revisit something that they thought was already finished. My goal was not to get the team aligned around our purpose but rather to end the conversation as quickly as I possibly could. I was communicating, intentionally or not, that the work I was asking for was meaningless—because if I took responsibility for conveying its meaning, I would be the person
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