We recently were part of a client meeting with a proposed new team structure approach – including “discussion” on how the team felt about the change. The change wasn’t drastic – but the change was something that would have an impact on a variety of team members and their workloads.
The leader asked for feedback on the new approach and received complete silence at first. Eventually a couple of team members chimed in and noted that they generally supported the idea, with only one asking a clarifying question. At that point, the leader moved on and stated that he was glad that everyone on the team was in agreement.
But was everyone really in agreement? I’m not so sure.
Scenarios like this are frequent in business. We all want to move fast, and most leaders want to at least create the appearance that decisions for the team are being made with input from the team. However, sometimes our goal of moving fast means that we use a meeting to make a decision, but we don’t ensure that everyone in the room has had the opportunity to provide input. In such cases, significant setbacks can crop up during implementation because team members didn’t feel comfortable objecting in front of the group, and/or opposing ideas weren’t surfaced or discussed in detail before moving ahead.
So how can we ensure the pace of decision-making keeps up with the speed of business agility? And how do we make sure that everyone’s voice is heard before coming to a final decision?
A New Approach to the Show of Hands
One simple idea is to take 15-20 minutes to truly get a pulse check for an idea and assess whether or not it will pose any challenges. The leader in this situation needs to set the stage to say that they want everyone’s initial reaction to the idea or decision by voting one of five ways. Everyone can simply raise their hand with an appropriate number of fingers shown to reflect their vote as follows:
- All five fingers = “Love the Idea”
- Four fingers (thumb hidden) = “Like the Idea”
- Three fingers (index finger and thumb hidden) = “I Can Live With the Idea”
- Two fingers (middle/index fingers and thumb hidden) = “Leery of the Idea”
- One finger (pinkie finger only shown) = “Loathe the Idea”
Reasons Why This Approach Is Useful
#1 – It puts everyone’s opinion on the table at the same time.
By taking an initial pulse and having everyone vote at the same time, it will give those voices that might not be heard a chance to weigh in — especially if they tend to succumb to louder and more passionate voices with different opinions. The forced vote shows the leader a broad spectrum of voices at the same time — and where there might be differences.
Pro Tip: Differences can be a great thing in this setting! Drilling into why someone is “Leery of an Idea” for example, can be invaluable to uncovering an impact from the idea that may not have been obvious. It can also provide insight for subtle changes that could be made to the original idea that might alleviate, or at least lessen, that person’s concerns.
#2 – It shows right away if the idea has strong opposition.
Sometimes only one or two people might like an idea — but if their voices are strong, they might pass the idea through without pushback. This simple voting method provides the leader with a scenario like the following: Out of 11 people voting, 3 people give the idea a “2” rating and 5 people give the idea a “3” rating. That’s not a strong endorsement!
Pro Tip: This quick pulse check enables the leader to drill into the challenges with the idea, and can be a great opportunity for the team to course correct together to come up with a stronger idea that would garner more support.
#3 – It forces the naysayers to speak up and clarify why they aren’t on board.
Sometimes, people are hesitant to bring up conflicting opinions when talking about an idea. And sometimes people just want to avoid the thoughts of the people who tend not to like any ideas. This simple voting method addresses both concerns.
Pro Tip: For those people that don’t like an idea, the leader should be firm that it is not enough just to say they don’t like it. They need to say why they don’t like it. That gives the leader an opportunity to probe with those naysayers to see what would make them like the idea better (i.e. how it can be changed).
With good, safe discussion and probing, this conflict discussion can be very constructive — and reduces potentially destructive conflict from people that could occur if they are not given the opportunity to talk about their opposition with a more traditional method of discussion.
So the next time you have a new idea or decision you need to make with a group, try this ranked voting method. It will no doubt uncover quick feedback and can lead to more discussion to see if you are heading down the right decision path.