Knowing the Answer Can Be Very Costly – Part I

Image Source: Michael Caven, Creative Commons

Sometime, in my consulting practice, a company will ask me to fix a flaw that’s preventing a leader from succeeding. One example was a young manager, who was very smart but lacking in humility. His company liked him a lot and saw his potential to do very well, if it weren’t for his arrogance. He stumbled over it constantly in team meetings.

I talked with him about how to listen better and deliberate more effectively. In response he asked a very revealing question: “What am I supposed to do when I already know the answer?”

This particular manager worked in a technical unit, and highly technical people can often feel this way – that they already know the answer although I see it happen in every function and in particular with those who consider themselves the topical “expert.” Consequently, they don’t listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to respond and rebut. Even if the answer they “know” is correct, which happens occasionally, their lack of humility and listening abilities alienates the rest of the team.

More often, poor listeners don’t have the answer. If you don’t listen well, you can’t understand the culture of the organization you’re serving or the needs of your customers. That’s why we often see technical people offering technical solutions that those of us who aren’t technical can’t figure out – and then they get frustrated with us because we’re “idiots” (think Microsoft Vista).

One of the formulas I use when consulting is:

Effectiveness of decision = Quality of decision X Acceptance of decision

It doesn’t matter if your answer is technically correct or even elegant. If nobody understands, accepts and gets behind it, it’s not a good answer.

My reply to the manager’s question was that the answer lies in the truth, and you need to discover the truth through the team process. You need to accept the fact that there might be a different answer that’s just as viable. It may not be the most technically precise answer, but it’s still a much better answer because other people will understand it and accept it.

You can come in with a strong opinion – in fact, we want you to do that – but you also need a collaborative attitude. You need to be thinking, “With my strong opinion and other strong opinions, we’ll discover the answer through good deliberation.” That’s the humble and prudent approach, and it’s much more effective than thinking you already have the answer.

In Part 2, I’ll discuss what happens when the entire company already “knows” the answer.