My Manager Shops for Answers, Help! (Ask Christa S7E76)

Introduction

Hi everyone, and welcome to Ask Christa! I’m Christa Dhimo, and my show is a free resource to help people get through common day to day issues at work. In each episode I answer a listener question about business challenges and workplace issues, and you know how it helps to like and subscribe—and I THANK YOU for the support.

This is episode 76 in Season SEVEN, which continues our focus on Dealing with Bad Bosses. Remember: all my episodes offer additional resources, too, so check them out in the show notes.

Today’s episode is about what to do when your manager shops for answers. And by that, I mean he asks experts for support in making decisions, and if he doesn’t like what he hears, he keeps going from person to person until someone gives him the opinion, number, or client readout he seems to have wanted to hear all along. That is frustrating enough when it involves opinions, but it becomes much more serious when this kind of behavior happens when there are facts involved, too.

Listener Question

Here’s the listener question, “I’m having a real problem with my manager and how he shops for answers. He’ll ask for our opinions as experts, and if he doesn’t like it, he goes to the next and the next and the next person until someone says what he wants to hear. We no longer provide our opinion, or several of us give a really light answer knowing it won’t matter if it’s not what he wants to hear, but the real problem is he does the same thing when we provide irrefutable facts—also as experts.

He’ll ask about certain numbers and will shop around until he hears the number he wants, whether it’s accurate or not. He’ll ask about clients and will shop around and eventually talk to people who may have only been on one client call— it doesn’t matter that they've barely interfaced with the client, they will become the source of his information and he’ll stick with it. There are times when it feels unethical. What do I do—help!”

This is a very real problem, and I want to say that up front because behavior like this can get minimized as, “Well, he’s just being thorough,” or, “He just likes multiple perspectives.” No. There is a difference between gathering input versus shopping for validation. A good manager asks questions to understand reality more clearly. A bad manager asks questions until reality becomes whatever he prefers.

Shopping for Answers is a Business Buster

When a manager keeps asking until he hears the preferred answer, he is not leading a fair decision-making process, and when it comes to “shopping for answers,” that’s exactly what your manager is doing: it’s about finding the information he wants so he can make the decision he wants to make. It’s a type of bias conditioning, where he’s engaging in confirmation-seeking: this is what I think it should be, so that’s what I’m looking for. He wants agreement more than accuracy. And once a team figures that out, people stop bringing their best thinking. They either go quiet, or soften their answers, or start guessing what the manager wants to hear—or they’ll avoid problem-solving if it involves their manager’s need for approval in order for a solution to move forward. And that is terrible for a business.

There are at least four problems packed into this dynamic.

First, it punishes expertise. If subject matter experts learn that accuracy loses to preference, they stop doing the full work of analysis and start protecting themselves instead. That is how organizations end up with shallow advice and hidden frustration that nobody talks about. It’s also how employees start behaving with a learned helplessness, which basically says, “why bother? What I say or do won’t matter anyway,” and THAT’s an engagement buster… which ultimately kills organizational creativity, innovation, problem solving, and yes, performance.

Second, it destroys trust, and I realize that’s an obvious one, but I’m not talking about the kind of trust that is easily won back. Teams need to believe that facts matter, that informed judgment matters, and that leaders want the clearest and most data-driven and context-driven answer available, not the most convenient one or one that confirms a bias that already exists. Once that belief is gone, psychological safety drops, but so too does the care any employee may have to state facts, or offer their best, and speak up with new ideas or ways to improve the workplace. People stop speaking candidly because they assume candor is pointless, which is also that learned helplessness thing. 

Third, it creates business risk. If your manager keeps changing sources until he lands on a preferred number, preferred forecast, or preferred version of a client situation, the organization is making decisions and driving work based on one person’s preference instead of what’s best for the business. At that point, this is not just a style issue. It becomes an operational risk issue.

And last, and this is the part our listener’s question rightly points to, it can cross into an ethical problem. If someone deliberately bypasses the most qualified sources to get a more favorable answer—favorable by way of what a manager wants to hear or do instead of favorable because of expertise and data—it will affect reporting, client relationships, internal controls, and credibility. 

Now, I do want to be careful here: not every manager who shops for answers is intentionally unethical, nor do all of them want to subvert or bypass expertise. Sometimes they’re legit trying to learn about and explore additional options. Sometimes they have an indecisive nature and hearing additional pathways helps lead to a decision. Some are deeply uncomfortable with bad news—and remember, most are not trained to be effective managers by the time they ARE managers, so consider this: many times your boss has a terrible boss they report to who might be the type to ask a million questions instead of trust that the right answer is coming up because it’s been properly vetted.

Whatever the motive, the impact is still problematic when a manager repeatedly shops for answers.

What to Do When Your Manager Shops for Answers

So what do you do? Start by separating two situations: one, your manager is gathering multiple perspectives before making a judgment call; or two, your manager is rejecting qualified input until he gets his preferred answer. Those are two different perspectives, and it’s important to know which one is which. 

From our listener’s description, this sounds much closer to the second. And once you know that, your job is not to outmaneuver him politically. Your job is to protect accuracy, document it, and respond in ways that are calm, clear, and professional.

So, first: tighten up how you answer. If the question is about facts, numbers, forecasts, or client history, answer with sources, date ranges, assumptions, and confidence levels. In other words, don’t just give the number and invite a shopping experience: engage your manager so he has more context and knowledge overall, FRAMED around the number. 

For example: “Based on the April reporting file, the figure is 12.4%. That is lower than our forecast of 14%, but it also excludes the late entries from the Northeast Territory, and if those are added, the number goes up to 15.7%, which is just over our forecasted numbers” Or: “Based on the last three client calls and the account notes [as you hand a summary of the account notes reported from your customer system], here is our read on the client’s concern, here’s what we know versus what we’re assuming, and here is what we believe the next steps should be and why.” That kind of answer provides enough detail such that any manager shopping for additional answers will be hard-pressed to find an answer they prefer, and instead be in a position to perhaps ask different questions that could make them not only more relevant, but also more pointed and supportive for the team and the client.

Second, if you are noticing a pattern, and your manager comes back to you after shopping around, stay open and focus less on feeling that your manager is shopping outside of expertise, and more on offering clarity about what your manager has found. For example, you can say, “I appreciate the additional perspective. I want to be careful that we distinguish from our verified data based on all the client notes and the most recent numbers, so I’ll follow-up with the person you just spoke with so we can match our data and be sure that we’re both consistent and accurate.” 

I do want to say that in an age where experts are trolled by those who barely live in the land of expertise, I recognize how off-putting—or maybe even infuriating—it can feel when your boss shops for answers from sources who will provide what he wants to hear instead of what the reality is. If you feel that the pattern is putting the company at risk, then talk to a trusted mentor or another resource, or call into your Ethics and Compliance hotline, or your Ombuds or any other resource available to you.  And, of course, if you’re in a position to move on from your manager or the company, that’s an option too

Additional Resources

For your resources, located in the show notes, I’m including four that focus on different aspects of this episode.

 First is a research review in Frontiers in Psychology on cognitive biases in professional decision-making, written by Vincent Berthet and published in January 2022. It’s an academic read, but a good one with plenty of additional sources in the literature review, of course. Read the Abstract and Introduction, then skim the Management section, then the Discussion section. It helps explain why leaders can become overconfident and selectively favor confirming information. Yes, it’s academic—but it’s a great read.

Next up is the classic Harvard Business Review piece, “The Hidden Traps in Decision Making,” from 1998, and still relevant. It offers a straightforward discussions of confirmation bias when it comes to those seeking an answer they prefer over the one they may not like. Remember: you can sign up for a free subscription to HBR and you’ll receive limited access to various articles each month. 

I’ve also included Wietrak and Gifford’s 2024 article called “Trust and psychological safety: An evidence review. Practice summary and recommendations.” It’s on The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development website, also known at CIPD. For sure if you have a manager where you feel chronically undermined as he hears what you have to say then finds other people to answer the same question, you’ll likely feel ready to shut down. The review I’m offering discusses how people in those circumstances are taught to hold back instead of speaking up. 

And last, I’ve offered a google search for managing a boss who shops for answers which will offer various sources for managing difficult bosses overall, including how to manage up.

Wrap Up & Submitting Your Question

And there it is, Episode 76 from season seven focused on Dealing with Bad Bosses. Like and subscribe here, but also go to my site and send in YOUR question. It’s AskChrista.com, that’s Christa with a C-H. You’ll also see answers to other questions, listed by category and season, and every season has a theme. As always, thank you for your support. And remember, if you have a business challenge or a workplace issue—Ask Christa!