Getting candid opinions from those who report directly to you can be difficult. After all, no one wants to upset the boss. But hearing messages from down the ranks is critical to your organisation’s success.
How can you encourage your team members to have honest conversations with you – and to speak up when it’s important?
Cultivating an open environment is tough because people are wired to be conservative, according to James Detert, a professor at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management who specialises in transparent communication in the workplace.
“We have a deep set of defence mechanisms that make us careful around people in authority positions,” he says. “That is why the information you’re getting from people multiple levels below you in the organisation is likely to be filtered.”
Getting an early handle on minor issues before they become big problems is the key, according to Joseph Grenny, the co-author of Crucial Conversations and the co-founder of VitalSmarts, a corporate training company.
“You can approximate the effectiveness of the team – or even an entire organisation – by measuring the average lag time between when problems are identified and when problems are brought out in the open,” he says. Here’s how to minimise the gap:
Zero in on
source of silence “Silence usually means people are holding back,” says Grenny. Whether people are clamming up in meetings or avoiding questions behind closed doors, it’s up to you to understand why. Are they worried that if they speak up about a problem, they will lose out on a bonus? Or do they think it’s futile since other suggestions haven’t been implemented?
Give people options
You may want everyone on your team to feel free to discuss issues publicly, but speaking up about problems in a group setting is uncomfortable for many people. Initiate more one-on-one, casual conversations so that your people have more ways to express their views. An open door policy is important, says Detert, but “stop waiting for people to come to you – go out and ask them yourself”.
Model candour
In every organisation, there are things you just don’t do – disagree with the big boss in public, for instance. But cultivating a climate of candour requires a “willingness to kill the sacred cows”, says Grenny. Are there certain topics that you don’t dare broach with your own manager? If so, you need to speak up – and make sure your team knows you have done so.
Create an ownership culture
When it comes to speaking up, some employees think: “Why bother? It’s not as though my perspective matters.”
This line of thinking, according to Detert, is dangerous “and is exactly why you need to create an ownership mentality in everybody on your team”.
Colleagues need to feel they have a stake in the success (or lack thereof) in the organisation and that speaking up, admitting mistakes, “and addressing concerns is a collective responsibility”.
Make it routine
You can get people in the habit of speaking up. In one-on-one meetings, set aside a few minutes at the end to ask if there are issues you should be aware of. Dedicate part of the agenda in your regular team meetings to air out problems. Before each meeting, appoint someone “to bring up any issues and concerns” and then “rotate that messenger role throughout the team” over the course of time, says Detert. – Harvard BusinessReview 2014
