Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

by Patty McCord

IN BRIEF ▶ Intense, open debate over business decisions is thrilling for teams, and they will respond to the opportunity to engage in it by offering the very best of their analytical powers. ▶ Set terms of debate explicitly. People should formulate strong views and be prepared to back them up, and their arguments should be based primarily on facts, not conjecture. ▶ Instruct people to ask one another for explanations of their views and of the problems being debated, rather than making assumptions about these things. ▶ Be selfless in debating. That means being genuinely prepared to lose your case and openly admitting when you have. ▶ Actually orchestrate debates. You can have people formally present cases, maybe even have them get up onstage. Try having people argue the opposing side, poking holes in their own position. Formal debates, for which people prepare, often lead to breakthrough realizations. ▶ Beware of data masquerading as fact; data is only as good as the conclusions it allows you to draw from it. People will be drawn to data that supports their biases. Hold your data up to rigorous scientific standards. ▶ Debates among smaller groups are often best because everyone feels freer to contribute—and it’s more noticeable if they don’t. Smaller groups also aren’t as prone to groupthink as large groups are.