We're Good, Yes?
No.
No, we're not.
I'm adding the phrase, "We're Good, Yes?", to my list of markers that indicate things in a relationship may not be settled. It's another form of the "seeking forgiveness instead of asking permission" bromide. It's a dodge to get out from under the burden of an uncomfortable situation at the expense of leaving things tangled and for the most part unresolved.
Here's a real-life example.
A product owner or executive faces a decision that affects the workload on a team. Rather than work with marketing, for example, to defer their request for new features to a future release or shift the delivery date to accommodate the request, the decision maker takes the easy path, agrees to the change without adjusting anything else in the system, and drops the extra work on the team.
To make matters worse, the team is informed by email. The team is understandably upset and more than a little confused about the immediate change in course. It's left to the scrum master to make sense of the e-grenade and deal with the shrapnel. The expected back-channeling and grousing quickly attracts the attention of a wider audience and a full-on electrical storm ensues.
After way too many expensive people are involved and someone with some skill and authority gets control of the situation, work gets renegotiated, timelines are shifted, and work that could and should have been done by the original decision maker gets done by a cadre of ancillary and executive staff.
The original decision maker circles back around to the scrum master, apologies for the "misunderstanding," and dashes off with a wave and a "We're good, yes?"
In all likelihood, they're not. In fact, the difficult conversation that needs to happen is just beginning. What lead up to this explosion? How could the decision maker handled the situation better? What do they need to succeed at navigating future occurrences like this with marketing? What's different such that the team has confidence this won't happen again? Does the decision maker understand the consequences to taking the easy way? The hits to time, money (in terms of salaries), and morale can be significant, particularly if scenarios like this are a frequent occurrence.
Whether you find yourself about to utter this phrase or you're on the receiving end, know that the work to resolve the issue and move forward has likely only just begun. Pick up the pieces, learn from the experience, and build something better.