By Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Leadership by Design – August 2022
For
my MBA, I have started work on my thesis which will focus on team dynamics and
what makes for a high performing team. It truly is a topic that is near
and dear to my heart and so important in building high performing teams that trust
each other to do the right thing every time.
This
weekend, I started interviews with key leaders. And the first interview
was able to interview one of my favorite contrarians. This individual is a
Tech Executive at Microsoft who manages a global team of 1000+ technology
professionals.
She
believes that high performing teams have the courage to challenge the status
quo. The way they do so is to encourage healthy debate. Her words,
“Healthy debate improves outcomes and prevents bad outcome.”
Healthy
debate or productive conflict also bring teams closer together. It
eliminates egos which can be walls and levels the playing field.
She
provided an article (see below) that resonated with her and her approach with
her global team at Microsoft.
The
article is called Fostering a Culture of Productive Conflict and
I tried to attach it with no luck, so I cut / pasted it instead.
Fostering
a Culture of Productive Conflict
It
might come as a surprise to find that even in this era of polarization and
rancorous discourse in all realms of society, it is increasingly difficult to
have open and productive disagreements at work. Nearly
20% of surveyed tech employees say that they don’t speak up to their managers,
at all. More often than not, even managers opt for inaction because
change is uncomfortable or because taking action might get them into trouble;
it’s safer to do nothing. So, it’s hard for senior leaders to get the full,
unvarnished truth, and they can end up making big decisions based on
half-truths or incomplete data.
They
are missing opportunities to learn from the frontline about what is not
working. Other reasons to encourage people to offer different points of view:
Healthy debate amplifies innovation. And repressing alternative opinions hurts
employee engagement and retention.
Here
are ways to encourage healthy debate and create a culture of productive disagreement.
The
Solution
01. ModelNew Norms - When it comes to nurturing a culture of productive disagreement,
leaders can play a highly influential role. By integrating the concepts of
openness and healthy debate into their language, they can institutionalize new
norms. Their actions can help to further reset the rules of engagement by
serving as a model for employees to follow. Leaders should incorporate the
concept of productive debate into corporate value statements and the way they
address colleagues, employees, and shareholders. They should also highlight—and
repeat often—values such as “truth seeking” and “debate” as priorities when
undertaking major initiatives and as part and parcel of the desired end state
in transformation efforts.
02.
Encourage two-way communication- Leaders make most, if not all,
decisions and convey those decisions down through the ranks. Employees are
expected to adopt new ways of working after “consuming” these communications.
And they consume a lot of them: in the digital era, employees can be exposed to
2.3 million words and numbers over a three-month period; under these
conditions, word-dense, one-directional messages about change efforts fall
flat. But employees today want to take part in creating solutions—and they have
good ideas. To create something more valuable through change, companies must
tap into employees’ creative minds versus merely delivering orders.
03.
Use tools to instill the values of debate- To help promote a culture based in
truth, leaders can evaluate the prevalence of debate in their organization’s
culture and team dynamics. They can use checklists on a weekly or monthly basis
to assess whether teams embody and actively instill the values of debate in
their organization. Among the useful questions on those checklists: Is a broad
set of voices engaged in developing our recent initiatives? Did you share a
contrarian point of view? Do you get the truth from employees without resorting
to anonymous surveys?
04. Create a sense of
psychological safety- Psychological safety is the shared belief that it is safe to
speak up in the workplace and take risks without fear of being blamed. It
creates a climate of mutual trust and respect in which employees can test the
status quo and challenge ideas. In a psychologically safe environment,
employees are more likely to take risks, admit mistakes, and learn from
failure. Psychological safety is essential to unlocking an individual’s
potential. And a Google research project has found that psychological safety is
the top driver of team success.
05. Encourage
people to share bad news- Sharing bad news can break down barriers and
expand the pool of contributors to problem solving. Energy otherwise spent
saving face can be channeled into constructive use. But bad-news sharing will
take root only if leaders practice it. Leaders can elicit candid responses.
Instead of asking team members how they are doing (typical reply: fine!), they
can ask what keeps them up at night or what their biggest challenges are.
Others can share ways they have successfully overcome such challenges. Leaders
deeper in the organization can ask the same questions of their teams. As a
result, people will raise concerns and surface problems earlier.
What
do you think about the article and about productive disagreements?
Is
it something you practice with your peers? How about your
leadership?
This
week, think about your views on the topic and let me know your thoughts.
Also,
let me know how I can help in promoting and leading an environment that
embraces productive disagreements and speaking up.
Truthfully,
I want your individual voices to be heard!
Happy
Saturday all,
-srt
