Here’s what you should do instead
Does your team feel empowered to speak up at work?
Are you sure?
One of the most exciting lines of research that we wrote about in Meltdown was what academics call “implicit voice theories”: people’s unspoken beliefs about when it is OK to speak up at work.
Researchers Amy Edmondson, Jim Detert, and others have looked at how people form theories about when it is safe to speak up (and when sharing something could be risky).
It can be a depressing picture. Many leaders don’t actually listen and doing so can lead to lots of bad outcomes for businesses, from inefficiencies to outright… meltdowns (to borrow a phrase).
To see how this works in practice, imagine a well-meaning business owner named Jonathan.
Jonathan has owned a construction engineering firm for about 12 years, and things are going well. The firm has recently grown to 33 people, and he finally feels like he has professionals in his leadership team that really know the business. Six months ago, he made a great hire in Karthik, his new director of operations.
Jonathan loves the engineering work, but he also loves learning about leadership and management. He’s part of a few professional networking organizations, regularly attends talks, and reads lots of management books (Good to Great is his favorite. He’s got a copy of Meltdown on his shelf, but he hasn’t read it yet…).
Jonathan talks a lot about his willingness to receive input, using phrases like “You all know that my door is always open.”
But, when team members share concerns with him, Jonathan’s response doesn’t always match that stated openness.
Take this example: Karthik sets up a quick Zoom to discuss a complex, cross-functional project (aren’t they all) between his group and the sales team.
Karthik: I don’t think we’re going about this project the right way. It’s becoming clear to me that the sales folks don’t know what they want; they’re asking us for numbers that don’t make sense to me.
Jonathan: Well, that’s what we decided. It would be too much of a hassle to change now, so let’s just go with it.
Karthik: OK, but it will be a lot of work and I don’t think that we’ll get the results we want.
Jonathan: That’s just the way it is. We can revisit this in October, after we’ve done our part of the work.
Do you see what happens here? Karthik raises a concern. Jonathan doesn’t argue with Karthik, punish him, or yell at him; he just dismisses his concern.
Ignored suggestions can poison a culture. Karthik now understands that his input isn’t really wanted, open-door policy or not.
So, what can we do as leaders to get better input? I’ll draw on three recent instances from my team as examples.
1. Publicly highlight the benefits of input
My executive assistant recently shared an observation about how other successful coaches she’s worked with generate business. Because she’s done a lot of freelance and marketing work, she’s seen the inside of lots of businesses. That gives her insight on what works in other places.
In a recent team meeting, I highlighted how valuable her observation was, described why it helped me, and asked her and the team to share more.
2. Speak last and act on input
My marketing strategist, Gabe, recently suggested that we delay the launch of our podcast, The Breakdown.
We had originally intended to have three episodes ready to drop right away, followed by a weekly drip. But, because of some production delays (and my commitments elsewhere), we were a bit behind schedule. I thought it would be OK to move forward with only one initial episode in our feed, something I mentioned in passing.
But Gabe pushed back. In a recent meeting, he talked about the research that he had done and described the benefits of launching with a block of episodes.
I solicited input from everybody on the team. We discussed the advantages of delaying and any complexities that it might cause. We then took a minute to come to a “launch/delay” decision independently. After our discussion, everyone, including me, thought that we should delay.
It would have been easy for me to double down and push forward—after all, it was our goal to launch this week. But there was actually no upside to that, and it made much more sense to listen.
3. Understand your own triggers (and give your team a map to navigate them)
After our conversation about delaying the launch of the podcast, I reiterated how valuable I find my team’s input.
And I also shared a specific way for them to get my attention, one that I drew from my experience as a pilot and immersion in flight safety literature.
When I get stressed, I drive more. I push forward, digging in and getting a bit stubborn. I can shift from a stance of curiosity to a desire to argue that I am right.
But I taught my team a secret power, a specific way of engaging with me to remind me to slow down:
“Hey Chris, this is important. I’d like you to take some time to think about this before we move forward.”
It’s the same way pilots are trained to get each other’s attention. It’s a cue that tells me that I’m moving too fast and need to tune in.
And it’s one of the ways that I’m trying to gather more input from the people who understand many of the challenges and opportunities in my business better than I do.
One final note to close. The idea of an implicit theory of when people can speak up is a twin to the concept of psychological safety: the willingness of teams to experiment and share beliefs, even uncomfortable ones. Amy Edmondson pioneered the ideas around and measurements of psych safety, as we call it “in the biz,” and has written about it for decades, most recently in her fabulous book The Fearless Organization.
What about you? What strategies do you use to get your team to share with you?
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