Page 19 - CSA Speaker Bulletin September 2016 | CSA Celebrity Speakers
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BOARDROOM DIALOGUE
alternatives. Studies comparing the before the financial crisis he did so then assess how this might impact on
problem-solving abilities of groups only “quietly” because: “Deviating their decision-making.
in which dissenting views are voiced too far from consensus leaves one
against groups in which they are not, feeling potentially ostracized from the Who in your organization serves as
find that dissent tends to be a better group with the risk that one may be your Challenger in Chief? Interrogating
precondition for reaching the right terminated.” the choices you are considering
solution than consensus. making? Making you consider the
Is this the feeling the “clubby” uncontemplated, the unimaginable and
Yet how many leaders actively seek out environment in your boardroom is that which contradicts or refutes your
and encourage views alien and at odds inadvertently engendering? Or are you position?
to their own? actively signaling that you want to
hear views different and diverse and And also challenging you?
All too few. in opposition to your own? We need to
have the confidence to allow our own For we are not the robotic emotionless
President Lyndon Johnson notoriously ideas and positions to be challenged. decision-makers of economics text
discouraged dissent, with many books, bound to make the rationally
historians now believing that this Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman best choices. Instead we’re prone to
played a significant role in the decision of Google, has talked about how a whole host of thinking errors and
to escalate U.S. military operations he actively seeks out in meetings traps.
in Vietnam. Excessive group-think is people with a dissenting opinion.
now recognized to have underpinned Abraham Lincoln’s renowned “team Did you know that when we’re given
President Kennedy’s disastrous of rivals” was comprised of people information that is better than we
authorization of a CIA-backed whose intellect he respected and expected — e.g. that our chance of
landing at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. Former were confident enough to take issue being targeted for burglary is actually
employees of the now defunct Lehman with him when they disagreed with only 10% when we thought it was 20%
Brothers have talked about how his point of view. Stuart Roden, Co — we revise our beliefs accordingly.
voicing dissent there was considered Fund Manager of Lansdowne Partners’ Whereas if it’s worse — e.g. if we’re
a career-breaker. Yale economics flagship fund, one of the world’s told that rather than having a 10%
professor Robert Shiller explained that largest hedge funds, tells me he sees chance of developing cancer, we
when it came to warning about the one of his primary roles as being the actually have a 30% chance — we tend
bubbles he believed were developing person who challenges his staff to to ignore this new information? n
in the stock and housing markets just consider how they could be wrong, and
“Dissent, it turns out, has
a significant value.”
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