Your Company Needs A Chief Dissent Officer
fastcompany.com
fastcompany.com
>> Klein’s proposal, which he calls the “premortem,” is simple: When the organization has almost come to an important decision but hasn’t committed itself, it should gather a group of people knowledgeable about the decision to listen to a brief speech: “Imagine that we are a year into the future. We implemented the plan as it now exists. The outcome has been a disaster. Please take 5 to 10 minutes to write a brief history of that disaster.” As a team converges on a decision, public doubts about the wisdom of the planned move are gradually suppressed and eventually come to be treated as evidence of flawed loyalty. The suppression of doubt contributes to overconfidence in a group where only supporters of the decision have a voice. The main virtue of the premortem is that it legitimizes doubts. Furthermore, it encourages even supporters of the decision to search for possible threats not considered earlier. The premortem isn’t a panacea and doesn’t provide complete protection against nasty surprises, but it goes some way toward reducing the damage of plans that are subject to the biases of uncritical optimism.
Then we get this - they should be praised, encouraged. I'm not so sure. Paralysis by Analysis used to be a popular phrase. Sure some kind of brainstorming of negatives is good. But we have to assume we'll overcome obstacles and not be crushed by them.
Back in the day I wanted to rewrite an OS to use a new memory model the i286 supported. I surveyed the code and presented the action list. Project never got off the ground - too much work.
Another senior Engineer took a different tack - he just started coding in his office. In 6 months he had recruited others to his effort, gotten funding, and completed the project. All because he didn't show people the obstacles, instead he promoted the advantages.
I think optimism is the reason we do anything.
There's a big difference between not letting knowledge of obstacles deter us and assuming we'll overcome them. The former is very important, for just the reasons you state. The latter effectively ensures that we will not overcome said obstacles, because we won't have effective plans to do so.
We have to assume we'll overcome obstacles, or we may as well all go home.
The second step would be analysis. It's pointless to identify obstacles just so you can assume that you'll overcome them all. Not all obstacles are created equal. You need to take the time to look at the more major ones in detail, so you can create a strategy, and then assess that strategy. The end result is more accurate assumptions.
Of course your best-laid plans may go to waste, and your best-made predictions may prove inaccurate. But to quote Dwight Eisenhower: "Plans are worthless. Planning is essential."
And the IT world is rife with unfinished, unsuccessful projects and people building themselves into corners. Your anecdote worked for your employer, but there are plenty of stories about "just started coding" leading to "big tangle of unmaintainable insecure slow messy code full o' bugs".
Just started coding - it was a mechanical process to vet every pointer usage for the new address space limitations. That example could be done that way.
Despite everything I knew in theory about the virtue of being able to change one's mind, including having written a major blog post Sequence about it, my ability to do so in practice took a substantial leap after the Center for Applied Rationality came together, I spent a lot of time coworking with some of the people, and my monkey brain got to see that other people actually were implementing that thing I'd written about where people were allowed to change their minds, and they were getting high-fives and not being punished for it.
A job title with "culture" in it doth not a culture make.
I do think having someone who is culturally allowed to put on the breaks and/or seek clarification about potential bad ideas is also worthwhile, for a couple of reasons I can see right off the bat:
1. It may reduce the 'bystander effect'[1].
2. It may reduce the negative emotional impact of naysaying a popular idea from inside the group that delivers it (subconscious social pressure impact).
The role could of course be abused and become yet another abusive fiefdom, but I think that just makes choosing the right person for the role more important.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect#Taking_respon...
By creating the positions, you are sending a message to your employees that dissent is OK, or that thinking about culture is important. Further, you have an executive level person whose job it is to look for and remove barriers to dissent within your company, or to institute programs to make sure your employees are thinking about culture.
I'm glad FastCompany has done the calculations and knows definitely, that regardless of any of the answers to any of those questions, your industry, size, or strategic plans - your company needs a chief dissent officer.
Not that they wouldn't sit there and politely listen, of course (especially if he's a C-level exec), but unless he had some actual authority over the people he's advising they're not likely to think about what they hear.
I mean, take as an example your own message, in which you simply fling a few trite accusations at the author without, yourself, doing any work to substantiate or expand on them. Perhaps you would consider extending the privilege you so freely used to others.
I've voluntarily taken on this role in the past when I've joined a company or project where nobody else was shooting down bad ideas or playing devil's advocate. After a while it feels like you're always on defense while others are bringing ideas to the table.
But of course those are minor issues when the alternative is every crazy idea making it past the filter, and someone's got to do it.
In spite of the above, I think there's value to someone who opposes new ideas/projects, but only in a very directed and specific way: to stay focused.
I've seen many startups get really distracted with side projects and non important stuff, this is incredibly dangerous to the company, so having some sort of system to minimize distractions could be something very valuable.
He was right most of the time, but not all of the time.
Give people choice about what they work on. And who they work with. Bad ideas will have a more difficult time.
Yes, some people will pick fashionable projects and people to work with. And they will learn from these experiences.
And you can gradually increase choice as people gain knowledge. Let people fail small and you get smarter people making better choices later.
You just better have thick skin if you take on this role. People don't like having their projects questioned and even if you understand the project you just don't understand.
As it stands, most boards are simply the representation of investor interests, quite divorced from company and management interests, which just makes the problem of getting help when things are not going well even worse. Without a functional inside team providing constructive criticism or a functional outside team providing advice and constructive feedback, then it's difficult for companies of any size to get any realistic feedback at all.
It takes a powerful, charismatic CEO who both the board and employees respect in order for critical and dissenting views to be delivered without someone's head getting cut off. (basically, Steve Jobs and a scant few others).
How would this person's role differ from all other managements (maybe outside marketing)?
I can't imagine a large company with one person, the "CDO" all-knowing enough to govern all ideas within the company. Even the best entrepreneurs bet on bad ideas and disregard great ideas at times. Everyone should scrutinize ideas and collaborate on the decent ones to make them better.
We should aim to create a sustainable engine of innovation fueled by great people up and down the ranks rather than a role.
Of course, he's really trying to be an effective fundraiser, not an effective lawmaker.