Meltdown by Chris Clearfield & András Tilcsik

Author:Chris Clearfield & András Tilcsik
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Published: 2018-03-20T04:00:00+00:00

You need to realize that most people are really concerned—consciously or not—of offending authority and ruining social relationships. So, as a boss, it’s not enough for you to create a generally pleasant environment and have an open-door policy. You need to be much more active than that. Don’t wait for people to come to your office to speak up—go to theirs. If no one speaks up in a meeting, don’t assume they all agree—actively ask for divergent viewpoints. And schedule frequent conversations when people can share ideas with you. That way speaking up isn’t extraordinary but a casual, routine thing.

Most of all, Detert warns that it’s not enough just to avoid doing things that stifle skeptical voices. “You need to realize that if you are not encouraging people to speak up, you’re discouraging them. Not doing anything negative just isn’t enough.”

But what if all these steps trigger an avalanche of unfounded concerns and off-base comments? Is there such a thing as too much speaking up? No doubt, some ideas you hear will be bad. A few might come from disgruntled employees inclined to complain for complaining’s sake. “When you encourage people to speak up, you shouldn’t expect that they’ll only bring good ideas to you,” says Detert. “But you need to weigh the costs of wasting time on some useless ideas against the costs of missing something very important. You need to decide what matters more.”

In a simple system, encouraging people to speak up may not be so important. Failures are more obvious and easier for everyone to notice, and small errors don’t usually cause big meltdowns. But in a complex system, the ability of any one individual to know what’s going on is limited. And if the system is also tightly coupled, skeptical voices are crucial because the cost of being wrong is just too high. In the danger zone, dissent is indispensable.

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