In World War II, Winston Churchill appointed a team that he called
his Statistical Office and gave them a clear goal.
Depress me and disagree with me.
Churchill realized that, as a leader, he was larger than life, and
that his team would want to agree with him the way that in years later
people on President John F Kennedy's cabinet wanted to agree with him.
Churchill further instructed his team to depress him with the bleakest,
most depressing facts and figures.
There's a relatively new idea that is sweeping through management science.
Here it is.
Teams should make decisions like scientists.
Namely they should develop hypothesis, devise critical tests, and
be data-driven rather than outcome driven.
Some of you are probably wondering,
well what's the alternative to evidence based management?
It's known as the advocacy method.
Thus, I want to distinguish inquiry from advocacy.
Inquiry means scientific hypothesis testing.
Advocacy means making an argument and attempting to support it.
A question I often like to ask leaders is, if you conduct an experiment and
ultimately receive data that does not agree with your hypothesis,
do you throw away the theory or do you throw your data?
Advocacy leaders throw away their data.
Inquiry leaders throw away their hypothesis and put their pride aside.
Let's introduce some key principles that will help
you lead your team to more effective decisions.
Number one, use debate norms versus politeness norms.
Too often, we treat team meetings like social events or dinner parties.
We are polite and we compliment one another.
The Politeness Ritual refers to the fact that people often say nice things
rather than what they really think.
This may be fine for a social event, but not for
making critical decisions about our organizations and companies.
Two, leave status at the and titles at the door.
When status differences are present,
those who are subordinate may be reluctant to offer their opinion.
My colleague, Dr. Hoon-Seok Choi observed that when company teams
make decisions in Japan, the lowest status member of the team speaks first.
Then the second to the lowest status person speaks.
Then the third to lowest status person offers her opinion.
Only after everyone has offered their views does the leader express his or
her opinion.
Three, conduct private votes on sensitive important issues.
People conform when voting publicly, but
they speak their mind when voting privately.
Four, invite different perspectives.
Some of you have heard of the term Devil's Advocate.
This is a person whose job it is to disagree with the group.
The truth is, most groups don't have a Devil's Advocate, and
when they do, they're not very persuasive.
If you are a Devil's Advocate, it's not enough to say, I disagree.
Rather, it is vital to provide evidence that argues the counterpoint.
It is far better to have a person who genuinely disagrees with the group
speak up than a person who pretends to disagree with the group.
Five, hold multiple short meetings versus one long meeting.
Most groups have meetings that are too long and too infrequent.
It's far better to have short frequent meetings than long infrequent meetings.
Short, frequent meetings allow group members to assimilate information and
challenge each others views.
Number six, show case failures.
At Etsy, teams have learned how much value failures can bring.
Every year at Etsy,
the team that has made the most significant failure wins an award.
The company knows that failures give everyone lots of valuable information.
And creates an environment in which teams and their leaders don't fear failure.
This is what is meant by the learning organization.
The problem with most learning organizations is that everybody wants to
learn by observation, not by first hand experience.
We all need to experience failure first hand.
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