Develop critical friends

To create bold and daring ideas we need to push ourselves out there but try as we might there are points where we feel a bit low, stuck and where critical friends become necessary.

Some years ago Gordon found himself working on a project where every week there would be a significantly long meeting, trawling through project progress where each person on the ever lengthening agenda would bring their update.   As the project progressed and the meeting got longer, the meeting start time got earlier and earlier to the point where you’d wonder if people should just come to the meeting in their pyjamas.

The ritual was fairly much the same each week.  Items would be discussed.  Instructions for rectification would be issued.  The meeting structure was so complex and unwieldy that the meeting secretaries required three working days to assemble the pack for the next weekly meeting so deadlines for updates came sooner and sooner to the point where we were being asked to provide updates by the end of the working day after the meeting had taken place so that the pack would be ready for the following meeting.

Inevitably the meeting then became even longer because of the huge discrepancy between what was being reported and what had then transpired in the interim days.   At each meeting the very very long table of participants gradually took it in turn to stand up and given their report.  If things were going well, they sat down unscathed to survive another week.   If things were going not so well, they sat down generally after a great deal of critique but very little in the way of positive support.

And inevitably again one got the impression that people stopped really bringing the truth to the table because what was the point – to be berated in front of a lot of other people with no positive purpose or resolution to issues?   Meetings were held after the meeting where people would commiserate with Gordon for the beating he’d taken and counsel him that his candour and honesty might be getting the better of him.   Friends outside the room, hostile assassins within.

This scenario is familiar to many of us.  It’s often because shortcuts have been taken with some great techniques out there – whether that’s radical candour, fierce conversations and the such like.  It’s the opposite of catalytic leadership because of the prevalence of the power structure.   In Gordon’s situation, the feedback he got from the project leader weekly was emblematic of radical candour and certainly was a fierce conversation but it was a one-way street.   Advice and demands descended downwards to Gordon, without any space allocated for Gordon to explain his wants and needs of the person dispensing demands.  If there were no obvious answers to Gordon’s challenges he was simply told to go off and find them and come back better next week.

Richard Claydon (2021) argues instead of radical candour, we need to adopt dependable candour. There are six steps.   Creating the world through reflection and action.  Actualise everyone’s potential to perform to their best ability.  We don’t judge the person, we only critique ideas.  We ask questions and think differently.  In an environment of uncertainty we can’t know what will happen or who’s going to come up with the idea.  We need the leader to flow power through the team so that any member of the team might come up with the solution and innovative concepts can emerge.

For Gordon, the creation of a star chamber to which he submitted himself for approval and usually disapproval each week may have felt a world apart from dependable candour so let’s use this space to offer up a different technique to diffuse the power imbalance that shortcuts techniques like fierce conversations and radical candour for all the good they can offer.

Mary runs her project team using an altogether different technique.  Each week each person is invited to bring along a problem that they will value from additional perspective.   Such is the positive climate that unlike in Gordon’s meetings where everyone kept their head down and tried to stay out of the firing line, in Mary’s meetings there’s usually a queue of people wanting this ideation space.   She uses a very specific technique in chairing this meeting.

This week it’s Jo’s turn to bring a challenge to the table.  Jo explains that Abraham in her team has been a great performer in keeping the accounts up to date but lately as different team members have progressed, he’s shown impatience with staying in his position and she fears although he’s not yet ready for promotion, his increasing resentfulness is actually going to damage his performance making him less likely to get promoted.  

The process begins with Jo explaining the situation, what she has tried so far and what she currently intends to do.   During this time everyone else has to remain silent in the rules Mary has set for chairing the meeting.

Then one by one each person sitting at the table, regardless of their rank or status in the team as a whole is invited to stand in Jo’s shoes.   Five minutes is allocated where everyone is invited to take a white sheet of paper and write their thoughts during which time no-one speaks.   These thoughts can be questions or ideas or perspectives or experience.   Still no one is permitted to speak or disrupt this special quiet moment of stillness within which people have time to think, really think.

Then Mary invites the first person to speak.   The opening words are critical.  Each person needs to stand in Jo’s shoes.   Words you hear from each person sound like this:

If wonder if

Could it be possible that

Reflecting on my experience I think

An alternate perspective here could be

During this process Jo is able to write down but not argue with the input given by her colleagues.   This is deliberate as it is a technique for adding richness to the ideas bank and opening up thinking.  Inevitably as the conversation passes around the table with each person having 60 to 90 seconds to input, people start to see commonality in their thoughts to those presented.  They let Jo know of this commonality but generally strive to add something new and original.

Mary provides her input as an equal to all other contributors, not as a trump card because of her seniority.  At the end of the process Jo has a few moments to reflect and collect her thoughts and provide feedback to the group.  She’s then free to take away the group input and perspective to combine with her own ideas for helping Abraham’s situation.  She has also made careful notes as to who said what so that if she needs specific coaching or more detail to elaborate on a suggestion she can do this outside of the meeting.

The feedback and input provided to Jo by her colleagues certainly has candour to it but by demanding that moment of reflection where everyone has to stand in Jo’s shoes the input also has a compassion for Jo’s predicament and the challenge in implementing ideas – there is no space or call for judgement – it’s all about what happens next.

Geared towards collaboration the technique allowed Jo to access the breadth of experience in the room.  It turned out that Bob and Miah have some similar challenges in their team as the organisation is expanding it’s increasingly hard to keep good people in their jobs.  Samuel advises he is in need of some short-term help with a project he’s undertaking and that possibly this might produce something new to stimulate Abraham as well as exposure to working with another leader.    As the different inputs arrive on the table a range of possible alternatives emerge that Jo previously didn’t have access to.

And Mary’s role in this as the catalytic leader was to set the framework and the tone to enable that team to do its best work in solving problems together and in realising the best from the assets it had and then staying out of the way.  And in fact in weeks when Mary wasn’t chairing the meeting because she was taking some well earned leave the tone of the meeting worked almost exactly the same way, a tribute to Mary’s empowerment of the team when another leader might have wanted to make this magical ability to fix problems and dispense sage advice, to be seen as the smartest person in the room, their unwelcome and unhelpful priority.

You can try this immediately.  It needn’t take a lot of time.  After all Gordon’s meetings went on an entire morning and no-one came out feeling richer or more empowered through the process.  Create the time to think, remain empathetic and grounded in the scenario, add value to the body of knowledge and thought.   Be the critical friend you’ll appreciate when it’s your turn for help.