Something that I’m learning about myself is how much I value dissent and debate on teams. To be honest, I need someone to disagree with me, challenge my thinking and/or question my decisions before I can really trust them. Dissenters “cut through group think and inform better, more just decisions” and every team needs a few in order to shift peoples’ perspectives, mitigate biases and generate fresh ideas. It’s critical to cultivate dissent on your team.
Why dissent is healthy
Chef Massimo Bottura challenged the beloved tradition of Italian cuisine when he opened his restaurant, Osteria Francescana, in Modena, Italy in 1995. Favouring novelty over uniformity, Bottura overcame the ire of Italian grandmothers (his metaphor for traditional cooking) by sustaining an environment that encourages rebelliousness: “by constantly challenging his staff and asking them to look at dishes and ingredients with a fresh perspective, everyone working at the restaurant embraces the new and expands his or her skills.” Dissent helps peoples’ talents evolve along with their menu.
According to David Rock, cofounder of the Neuroleadership Institute, building a team that is diverse in culture, thinking and style breaks the comfort of groupthink:
Though you may feel more at ease working with people who share your background, don’t be fooled by your comfort. Hiring individuals who do not look, talk, or think like you can allow you to dodge the costly pitfalls of conformity, which discourages innovative thinking.
Dissent challenges groupthink by bringing more objectivity to projects, which makes ideas stronger.
Five ways to cultivate dissent on your team
Ask for feedback
According to researchers at the Neuroleadership Institute, asking for feedback, as opposed to freely giving it to employees, neighbours and/or spouses, may be the best way to create a growth-focused culture. Check out a previous article about the benefits of asking for feedback. Simply asking “how did that go for you?” at the end of a meeting or presentation makes folks comfortable with the process of feedback. Even if nothing happens right away, over time behaviour will change as leaders demonstrate sincerity in listening to what they asked for. By embracing dissent and taking criticism well this practice can become contagious, which allows for radical candor or real talk to flourish in teams.
Stage non-work debates
“The Beatles were nothing more than a glorified pop band. Like the Backstreet Boys or N’Sync.” Pretty much everyone in your workplace will have an opinion about this statement. It’s also such a ridiculous premise (although I stand by my comparison of Paul McCartney and Justin Timberlake – it was apt!) that, when I argued for the “yes” side of this debate, it was easy and even a little fun to disagree with me. This non-work debate created psychological safety for a couple of team members who took awhile to disagree with my perspective or tell me an approach to work was wrong. But – wow – did they ever flourish as dissenters when the modern memory of pop culture was challenged!
Elevate naysayers
I also manage a few folks who have no problem speaking truth to power, asking bold questions of senior leaders and/or challenging an approach to work. Their dissenting opinions make our work better. I also know that their challenging my decisions or ideas has, at times, made others uncomfortable (especially new team members). According to HBR’s Jennifer Porter, opposition is essential for productive and effective teams: “[d]espite the initial reactions of dislike, discomfort, annoyance, and resistance to opposition, successful leaders and healthy teams know that disagreement and differing viewpoints are necessary for good decisions and productive teams.” When you find a dissent role model on your team, give them a platform so that the practice of opposition can be modeled effectively.
Hold After Action Reviews
The After Action Review (AAR) is a process developed by the American military that enables and accelerates learning for everyone following soldiers’ experiences in the field. During AARs egos and titles are checked at the door and the work is dissected with three questions:
- What was expected to happen?
- What actually happened?
- What caused the difference between one and two?
Forbes’s Jeff Boss argues that this process enhances everything from creativity and decision making to trust and clarity on teams: “When learning lessons are clear, there’s more time to focus on being productive about work rather than being busy trying to figure out how to work.” Making space for honest and candid analysis of a project, which often encourages dissenting views, gets people on the same page with takeaways to apply on the next piece of work.
Show the value
Storytelling and data make ideas stick. If you want to cultivate a culture of healthy dissent on your team then you need to have a few good stories that highlight how opposition and tough questions made the work better. An example that I often use is a story about when three colleagues presented me with a problem: we hadn’t scheduled an external partner for an upcoming training session. I just started talking – extrovertedly espousing idea after idea – until on of my colleagues interrupted and said, “I think you should listen to our solution and then give us some feedback.” With a smile on my face I added, “absolutely – and next time I should just ask ‘what do you think we should do’?”.
Going forward, I’ve made it a habit to always start a problem-solving conversation with questions, as opposed to boss-splaining what to do, and having a culture of healthy dissent on our team was instrumental in forming this practice.
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This article was originally published on April 10, 2019