AUA: How Do You Tell Leadership What They Don't Want To Hear?
About this episode:
Original Air Date: July 6, 2026You can see it clearly: the project is FUBAR, the reporting is rosy, and the people with the power to do something about it are several levels above you. But sending a flare up the chain feels risky—especially when your boss's boss's boss is the one you need to reach. So what do you actually do?
In this mini episode, Rodney and Sam respond to a listener stuck in that exact spot and offer a few moves that don't involve career-ending emails or anonymous screeds nailed to the CEO's door, and also explore whether you can quietly reshape the data story being told upstream in a way that's helpful rather than accusatory.
Mentioned in this episode:
FUBAR (“Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition”)
In this episode:
Rodney Evans
Sam Spurlin
Listen now:
Episode transcript:
Sam Spurlin:
Hey everyone. Welcome back to At Work With The Ready. I'm Sam Spurlin and I'm joined as always by Rodney Evans.
Rodney Evans:
Hi Sam. Hi everyone.
Sam Spurlin:
Every other week we're tackling one tough thought provoking listener question and sharing a few ideas that might help. So let's dive in. Rodney, what you got for us this week?
Rodney Evans:
What is your best move for signaling to upper management, think skip level above your boss's boss, that they aren't getting the truth on an initiative or important project? Assuming sending an email is an unprotected means of communicating that it's FUBAR. Wait, what does FUBAR stand for again? Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition?
Sam Spurlin:
I believe so, yes.
Rodney Evans:
I think that's right. Yeah.
Sam Spurlin:
Yeah.
Rodney Evans:
Okay, great. Skip level above your boss's boss.
Sam Spurlin:
It's way up there.
Rodney Evans:
So your great-grandboss. Yeah. Okay, got it. All right. Yeah. Should you send an email to your great grandboss saying this project is fucked?
Sam Spurlin:
Well, it depends how long you want to stick around.
Rodney Evans:
Do you like your job?
Sam Spurlin:
Yeah. I mean, there's so many things going on in this question. And one of the things that just came to mind that didn't even write down in my notes is like, because I'm not an expert in the legality of all this, but isn't this like why whistleblower laws exist for various reasons? So I don't know if it's rising to that level of malfeasance that you're trying to figure out what the law is or the rules are around whistleblowing, but hey, maybe that's an option.
Assuming that's not what we're talking about here, there's two things. One is I think probably a bit of a grasping at straws because it seems like the obvious thing if this were an option for you is like, do you have an ally kind of at that level or closer to that level that you can confide in and then that person who is kind of closer to the great grand boss can go and have that conversation. I mean, that seems obvious and if it were the case, you probably wouldn't be writing in an answer to us, but just in case you hadn't thought of it, that's the first thing.
The second place where my brain goes is kind of testing whether you're the only person who sees this. Assuming you are not, build a coalition of other folks who are on the same page with you and you as a coalition, as a group, can figure out what to do. I think it's a lot different if you as a solo individual email that person versus you and 10 other people from various parts of the organization or various parts of the project have a concern to go to that person. What about you? What are you thinking about with this one?
Rodney Evans:
Yeah, I would add to that that I've had success in these situations doing the peer-to-peer move, which is sort of like the coalition building, like talking not hierarchically about what's going on. And my tip is that when you do that, this is one of my go-to moves in consulting too, is like I don't talk about it very emotionally. I'm not like, "Can you believe that they're lying to these people and that they have created this campaign for the emperor to have new clothes?" When I talk about things that I think are potentially dramatic or really screwed up, I just talk about them as facts. I'm just like, "Do you see this? I see this. Do you see the same thing?" And I think that when you are the person who can take the emotional charge out of a situation, first of all, it gives you a lot of power because people are like, "Oh, maybe this is not as terrifying or dramatic as I thought it was."
Two, it gives them an ability to engage in a way that feels safer. Because if you go to someone and you're like, "Hey, director level buddy, isn't it crazy how fucked up the C-team is? Do you think we should tell them?" Eight out of ten people are going to be like, "No, and also get out of my office, this conversation never happened. You're on your own." So to the extent that you want to build coalition or talk to peers, speak in facts and try to take the charge out of this situation. I think that can help.
Sam Spurlin:
Yeah. That's a lot better than my last idea, which was anonymous screed nailed to the CEO's door or whoever.
Rodney Evans:
Wow. You're swinging for the fences.
Sam Spurlin:
Martin Luther style, probably not that. I mean, the only other actual thought that I had is, all right, if you see this thing that's going to happen and there's nothing you can do, that means you are kind of ahead of the curve in terms of thinking about the fallout of that. And can you just get started on preparing for the fallout that you're pretty sure is going to happen in a way that you are more prepared for that inevitability?
Rodney Evans:
Yeah, I think that's right. The one other idea I had before you get to the inevitable fallout is a lot of times in a lot of work design problems, when people are like, "We have this issue and we see it all different ways, and we all believe that our version of the truth is the real one." A lot of times I will push a team or an individual to just start bringing some data and some reporting to look at and investigate because my assumption is that the grandboss in this situation is receiving some kind of information about what's happening on this project and it's just incomplete or it's spun to look better than it is or whatever.
And so my provocation to the listener is like, is there anywhere that you can influence the way the information is being reported and just like add some data or add a leading indicator or add something to the data story from the posture of being helpful and supportive and like, "Hey, I have seen this reporting and I think the way it's being produced might be creating some blind spots for people who aren't close to the work. Here's what I'd suggest instead." A lot of times just getting people to look at the same thing without telling them what it means will do the work for you of unearthing the issue or the crisis. And so I'm like, is there a way you can get in there before you get to nailing the screed to the door that's just like, "Hey, do you guys want to look at a leading indicator? Here's a couple ideas for what might help." It's also a little less risky.
Sam Spurlin:
I like it. All right, that is it for this mini. If you've got a question of your own, hit us up at podcast[at]theready[dot]com.
Rodney Evans:
We will see you back next week for a full episode of At Work With The Ready. Thank you for being a listener.