Three Ways To Build A Culture of Dissent

It is hard enough trying to swat the annoying dissenters who spring up like flies all the time. No matter what idea you propose, there will be some naysayers who will find fault in your well thought through plans, point out flaws in your personality and style. There are only three ways in which you can deal with opposition – by agreeing to their demands, by disagreeing with them or ignoring them. Dealing with dissenting views can take up a lot of energy. This is clearly the hardest part of work – surviving in any set up which has a culture of dissent. You have constantly stay on the edge and avoid getting pushed over by contrarian ideas. All this makes you pretty good at defending your ideas and doing the research to help you emerge victorious during those debates. On occasions when you feel genuinely convinced, you even take the ideas of your sworn enemies into account by graciously acknowledging them.

When you are in the early stages of your career, or as they say, in the lower elements of the food chain, you do not even have the authority to ignore anyone. So you have a string of people who are commenting on your ideas and work, finding fault and debating every syllable of every proposal you write. You patiently incorporate their ideas in the proposals and try to influence your opposition and experience career success. It is not just your peers and high-ups in the office who give you feedback on what you could have done better, you are also given unfettered advice and criticism by friends and family.

Then lady luck smiles. You get the big promotions. You have a string of successes behind you. You are the big cheese in your organization. People kowtow to you. You have the ability to fire someone – anyone who dares to disagree. Why would they anyway? They are in awe of your ideas by now given your track record of success. Almost all of them do – except that new hire and the new summer intern, who seem to ask the most inane questions. They seem to question YOUR ideas. They always have suggestions on how you could do it better. So you take a swift decision. The summer intern does not get hired into your company. The new lateral hire is asked to leave because she does not fit in well with this company’s culture of getting stuff done. She seems to spend more time questioning the basics, you told her. With the two of them gone, peace prevails. The people who challenge you are not there. You are surrounded by people who agree with every idea of yours. That’s a great place to be, right?That turns out to be a big mistake.

The heady cocktail of success, money and strong ability to articulate ideas in writing or while speaking that is the hallmark of most successful leaders is paradoxically the reason why they often cross over to go to the dark side.It is hard for some who is successful to be told what they can do better or at least differently. They will think of their long string of successes and mentally discount any suggestion by telling themselves, “Would I be this successful if I was not absolutely brilliant”. It is much harder for a person who has not experienced failure ever to try an alternate path.During a job interview when someone tells you that they have never experienced failure, ask yourself, what makes this person behave this way. Is this person embarrassed to talk about his or her  failure or is it that the person has had a long history of success. Both attributes in a colleague can make it a liability. Organizations that have experienced success can often become arrogant enough to stop listening to the customer or consumer and by not having a dissenting voice, can sow the seeds for their failure.Successful leaders would do well to have at least a few dissenters among their group of advisers. Dissenters force you to rethink about potentials gaps in the idea and may even suggest a better approach than what you came up with.

Here are three easy things that help you build a culture of dissent:

1. Seek feedback regularly: Ask your peers what you could have done differently. Then go back and ask your team members and with the people who are your fiercest opponents. Brace yourself to hear unpleasant truths. When you hear feedback that makes you squirm, ask what you can do in future to be better prepared.

2. Give feedback regularly: Giving people feedback regularly about what you appreciate about their work or what you think they could do differently. Notice I did not ask you to tell them what they could have done better. When you hear someone suggest something different, ask them how they came up with that approach or idea.

3. Leverage the newcomers and junior members of the team: In team meetings ask the junior members of the team and the new hires to share their point of view before you share your view. Ask them to defend their view and in turn ask everyone else what they think could be a potential reason that may make the idea fail. Ask someone who has no background or education in that area to evaluate your idea. You will be amazed at what you can learn from a novice.

Building dissent does not have to be always done by asking “Why something will fail”. The Appreciative Inquiry method will lead people to ask what is working. That can be just as powerful. Building a culture where the voice of dissent spurs innovation or puts forth an unseen point of view can be the greatest strength of an organization’s culture. This is exactly the advantage of a democratic government that the dictators miss out. Look at the price they pay.—————-

Must Read: Why Leaders Lose Their Way by Bill George <Click Here>