Disagree and Thrive

Years ago, I read a story that stuck with me for some reason. 

A shy young man approaches the front desk at a hotel and asks for some water. The clerk at the front desk gives him a bottle of water from the fridge. The young man returns soon and asks for more water. The clerk is surprised, says nothing, and gives him two bottles this time. In a few minutes, the guest returns with the same request. This time, the clerk could not contain his curiosity. He asks why the guest needs so much water. After some fidgeting and hesitation, the guest says, ‘my room is on fire!’

This story was surely made up by someone as a joke, but similar things do happen in real life in life-or-death situations. People don't speak up when they should. Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent book, ‘Outliers - the story of success’, gives us such a story. Gladwell uses the story in support of his core thesis, but I’m using it to make a different point. 

The story is about an air crash. The Columbian flight Avianca-052 crashed near the New York LaGuardia airport because it ran out of fuel while it was circling the airport, waiting for clearance to land. The aircraft had burnt more fuel than expected due to weather conditions and was running low. What’s more is the flight recordings reveal that the pilot was overworked and exhausted. The first officer attempted to tell the control tower that the fuel level was low. But he phrased it in such an unclear language, that the control tower missed the criticality of the situation. 

The flight box recordings revealed that everything contributed to the crash - the weather, the health and fitness of the pilot, and the cultural differences between the control tower and the crew. But the final, fatal failure was a series of communication failures on the first officer’s part. In the recordings, the first officer talks to his captain in deferential tones, revealing a ‘boss knows best’ mindset. When the control tower tells him to go another round before getting back in the queue to land, he weakly says fuel may be a concern, where a typical American crew member would have screamed, ‘Are you crazy? We will run out of fuel, crash and die!’. No control tower operator would have taken the risk of a crash after hearing such language. In this case, the control tower operator interpreted the statement as the fuel being on the lower side, but not alarmingly so.

Gladwell attributes this to a combination of cultural traits, power distance, and what he calls the use of ‘mitigating language’. To a Columbian first officer, the pilot and control tower operator represented authority. His disagreements with them were expressed in a muted manner due to the perceived need not to appear rebellious or insubordinate. Even in such a dire situation!

To avoid similar situations in the future, this episode is taught at flying schools, with explicit goals of promoting a sense of equality within the crew, and coaching the crew on how they might combat the innate tendencies to use mitigating language.

What does this mean for my workplace?

In a study on collective intelligence, Thomas Malone (MIT Sloan School of Management) explored the question: what makes a group intelligent? Can we measure the intelligence of a group as we measure an IQ of an individual? If so, can we deliberately architect a group so it is intelligent? 

Malone’s conclusions are somewhat surprising. The aggregate IQ of the participants did not seem to have a great bearing on the team’s effectiveness. One of the major factors that determine the group’s intelligence is the proportion of active participants in the group. Conversely, each passive, non-participating member of the group reduces the overall intelligence of the group. This was the case, regardless of whether the passive participants were deferential to the seniors in the team, or were just disengaged.

As an aside, as per Malone’s study, the other factors that determine collective intelligence are empathy and the proportion of women in the team. If you want to learn more, refer to this book for details of the study.

As I was reading these stories, my mind went to similar situations in my working life. In my early career as a software engineer, the hardest decisions were not technology related. Where I had trouble was in deciding when to ask for help, when to escalate, or even bring up the courage to ask, “Are you sure? This does not seem right!”. 

Granted my situations were nowhere as frightening as an aircraft running out of fuel. However, in many situations that I’ve observed as a manager and individual contributor, the effects of power distance, dysfunctional respect for authority and the use of mitigating language were just as striking. 

Having been in management in North-American organizations, I am also aware that managers assume similar individuality and power distance in different cultures. The U.S, the U.K, Canada and most ‘western’ countries have a culture of low power distance; i.e. people in power are generally not perceived as being distant or unapproachable by those in less powerful positions. Managers in such cultures may find it hard to recognize when respect for authority mutes someone’s reaction to a situation. They may need some help in recognizing such patterns.

Employees, especially younger ones need coaching on disagreeing with the management without coming across as stubborn. This balance is not easy for everyone to achieve. A reasonable compromise may be what Jeff Bezos calls ‘Disagree and commit’. If you don’t agree with the management, you should have the courage to speak up. However, if you were unable to convince the management, you wholeheartedly commit. You have had your say, now it is time to line up behind the leadership. Bezos considers this trait valuable, and even a prerequisite for an employee.

This is a powerful notion that could guide us when we create a team or build an organization. The key to thriving as a team is generating and managing dissenting opinions. Managers who are usually trained to look for perfect alignment will find the idea of productive dissents uncomfortable. This is a coaching opportunity as well.

Takeaways

• Cultural factors and power distance can cause people to not speak up; or ‘mitigate’ the language they use to make their points;

• Lack of confidence may discourage people from asking questions or speaking up in group settings. In these cases, the collective effectiveness of the team is reduced.

• When people with dissenting opinions don’t speak up, it is the individual’s loss as well as the group’s. 

We return to the last point later in a follow-up post on Mentorship.

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to disagree!

NOTE: This article was first published by the author on LinkedIn.

 

Picture credit: Unsplash