Mike makes a great point about 100% agreement within our teams. When we start seeing an increase of 100% agreement on our point of view, it is time for us to do two things:
1. Stop sharing our point of view until every one on the team has shared their opinions, without in any way giving away where we are leaning towards. That way the teams can share their honest opinions rather than toe the line that we lean towards. This is critical to avoid group think and encourage diversity of thought.
2. Identify and give the role of a contrarian to someone (even 2 or 3 without them knowing who else has been invited) ahead of time and let people take turns being the contrarians. The success of this strategy lies when people are unable to make if someone is being contrarian just for the sake of being one or if they are sharing their genuine opinion.
3. Start looking to hire people who bring with them unique points of view from those on the team. Even if we don’t have the headcount to hire new people, we can always invite people from other departments (or consultants, if we have the budgets) to join important discussions and bringing their unique point of view to the discussion.
In conclusion, it has been established pretty strongly that teams with cognitive diversity are better at driving innovation and at adapting to change or disruption.
While it does take some good facilitation skills from us leaders, to manage the inevitable conflicts, it does lead to better performance as a team. So, it becomes our responsibility to ensure that we don’t end up with a team where we have 100% alignment for everything we discuss.
