In our last Rescue Mission Directors meeting we had a discussion on the importance of encouraging the open communication of problems and challenges within our organization.
It seems so obvious on the surface, but so often managers and teams work hard to cover up problems so that they are not seen by upper management. Unfortunately this only makes the problem worse and guarantees an ugly infection. While addressing the problem at point of contact isn’t usually terminal, by the time hidden problem comes to light, sometimes it’s grown into a much bigger problem.
Not only is it important to have an environment of open communication about challenges, but it’s also healthy to encourage open dissent. Peter Drucker said that “non-profit organizations need a healthy atmosphere for dissent if they wish to foster innovation and committment.”
Why is it important that people can disagree?
1. The smartest people often think counter-cultural. If you believe that every one being in agreement is the highest value of your management team, then you will unknowingly force out the strongest strategists and creatives.
2. All the big, important problems are complex. When you have difficult challenges, and who doesn’t these days, then you need everyone thinking creatively and you can’t have that without dissent and disagreement.
3. You’re not always right, in fact you’re often wrong. By encouraging others to disagree with you (don’t punish dissent, don’t bite their heads off and don’t shut them out) then you you cover yourself and allow others to catch your mistakes privately, when they are in the incubation stage. If you dont’ encourage debate and dissent internally you won’t get the bad news that you were wrong until it goes public. The public doesn’t have a vested interest in protecting your feelings, so they’ll surely tell you.
