403. Great Leaders Cultivate a Culture of Debate
The process of how your team contributes to making decisions is dependent on the expectations you set.
When working on a strategic decision, you should be able to count on your team to bring ideas and thoughts to the discussions.
But that all depends on the expectations that you set for how the team can contribute.
Does your team have a clear understanding of when they should bring their thoughts and ideas? Do they feel free to question ideas and provide alternative suggestions?
Do your team members become defensive if someone introduces a counter idea? Do you find that once you speak your mind, all feedback comes to a stop?
As a leader, it is up to you to clearly define the team’s role in the decision-making process and to encourage conversations, debate, and discourse to maximize learning.
The first step in good decision making is learning. The goal is to find the best options out of all the options.
After learning, comes deciding.
Getting to this point is a process that can benefit from different perspectives and insights but that won’t happen unless you invite your team to the table.
Supporting Insights
Good arguments help us recognize complexity where we once saw simplicity. The ultimate purpose of debate is not to produce consensus. It is to promote critical thinking. - Adam Grant
First, as a leader, it's your responsibility to figure out what must be done. You might do this by your own insight and instinct or, more likely, via dialogue and debate with the right people; but however you do it, you need to get clear. - Jim Collins, BE 2.0
Give people a chance to be heard, to present their case. Listen—really listen—to what people say. Use accurate information to make the decision, and give people a chance to challenge the information if it’s incorrect. - Chip Heath & Dan Heath, Decisive
Smart decision makers get help to counter their own bias while carefully screening their sources. - Elena L. Botelho & Kim R. Powell & Tahl Raz, The CEO Next Door
Keep Learning:
What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions
“The fact is, decision making is not an event. It’s a process, one that unfolds over weeks, months, or even years; one that’s fraught with power plays and politics and is replete with personal nuances and institutional history; one that’s rife with discussion and debate; and one that requires support at all levels of the organization when it comes time for execution. “
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
“Confirmation bias is probably the single biggest problem in business, because even the most sophisticated people get it wrong. People go out and they’re collecting the data, and they don’t realize they’re cooking the books.”
Why The Business Leader Daily?
“Exceptional leaders think of leadership as a craft. They know they will always be working to improve, and that what worked today may not work tomorrow”
- Tracy Spears & Wally Schmader, The Exceptional Leaders Playbook