Who you gonna call?

tackling tough decisions by seeking feedback

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If you’re of a certain age, there can be only one answer to the question in the title. This note suggests that leaders should think about the question, even if thoughts of the paranormal haven’t crossed their mind.

Sami managed the Maghreb for a multinational company. He was dealing with under-performance by a direct report. Sami’s time in Europe cautioned him to document the process with the subordinate scrupulously, especially since the subordinate had been a contender for Sami’s job. Further complicating the situation, the subordinate was close to Sami’s current boss and had helped her when she was in Sami’s position.

Sami’s boss had seemingly left all decisions to him. “You’re the boss,” she told Sami. “You make the decision that’s right.” Sami now had to decide whether he should fire his recalcitrant subordinate.

Sami confronted several thoughts. Had he been biased in his assessment, especially given his subordinate was a contender for his position? Would a more capable leader have been able to persuade him to be more productive?

Then, Sami’s boss had said it was his decision, but did she mean it? What if she resented Sami’s decision to fire someone she liked and supported? What would that do to Sami’s career? Did he care? Should he? His children’s college fees had been set aside and he and his wife could easily live on his savings, couldn’t they?

In the last few years, when Sami had to make difficult decisions like whether to return home to his current position, he reached out for feedback to a group of friends. He decided to reach out on this occasion too. The feedback varied. One person said, not firing the subordinate would be a sign of weakness. Another suggested that he side-line the subordinate and encourage them to leave, that way avoiding his boss’ wrath.

Sami wasn’t convinced until one person said to him, “Sami, I know you have always been very loyal to your company.” This was true, Sami felt the company had taken a chance on him when he was a raw, 21-year-old graduate in Algeria, and helped him grow to be a reputed global executive. “What,” his interlocutor asked him, “is right for the company?”

What happened next to Sami, has happened to all of us at one time or the other – he felt the fog lift from his confusion, and he could think clearly again. The comment had reminded him where his values lay and that, in turn, made his decision clear for him.

All leaders benefit from people they can call when facing difficult decisions. However, if you’re like most people I meet, you may disagree. “Oh, they can’t know my context,” you might think, or “it’s complicated and it will take too much time for me to explain it.” You may even think, “it’s very confidential, you know; I can’t tell just anyone what is happening.”

The reasons you attribute to your reluctance are not important and probably inaccurate. Try not to dwell on them. If you must, focus on how not asking others for feedback, helps you. Maybe it helps you avoid hearing something you suspect but don’t want to hear. Or maybe it helps you postpone the inevitable. Don’t do anything with your speculation – just file it away.

Once you suspend your objections to seeking feedback for difficult decisions (don’t abandon them, if you don’t want to), we can work on how to structure a process to maximize the value you receive from the feedback. For this, we have a lot of evidence – from theory and practice.

No “skin in your game”

You will, naturally, question the value of feedback from people you see as biased. Unfortunately, many people you encounter will seem biased because they may gain or lose from your decisions. Take Sami’s case. Who did he encounter daily? Members of his team, some of whom wanted the responsibilities of their recalcitrant colleague; and others who wanted to get Sami into trouble.

Even Sami’s wife was biased towards courses of action that reduced his workload so he could spend more time at home. So, Sami depended on a different kind of group for feedback.

He first encountered this group in an executive program where group members came to know one another well. Since they came from different companies, they were not invested in each other’s decisions and so spoke openly with each other. They were so captivated by the value of the feedback they received, that they continued consulting one another, long after the program ended.

informed respondents

Feedback gains in value when it comes from people who are at least somewhat informed about the decision you are making. They don’t need to be experts (there are some circumstances in which experts can even be harmful), but they must have informed insights on the choice at hand.

Sami’s group consisted of people with similar levels of seniority. So, they had all had dealt with difficult performance issues. None of them was an “expert” on performance issues but they could all share how they thought they would respond, if they had to make the decision that lay before Sami.

independent opinions

Subjects in experiments tend to give answers they “guess” the experimenters want, just to be nice. Similarly, friends tend to be “nice” and offer their friends the answers they think they want. However, the value of feedback lies in its independence – between different respondents and the feedback-seeker. Hence Sami and his friends had to work hard at offering independent opinions – resisting being nice – when asked for feedback.

They protected independence in several ways. They reminded each other to be honest – “nice is the enemy of helpful”, became a refrain. Second, they sent each other feedback in writing, first, before one-on-one conversations. Also, they did not give feedback in the presence of others in case their feedback became biased by what they heard. All members believed that they received independent, truthful feedback from other group members.

a reasonable degree of diversity`

The “wisdom of the crowd” refers to the discovery that a group of independent, informed people (a crowd), can form superior judgments to individuals, even when the individuals are experts in their fields. Key conditions to maximizing the wisdom from crowds include those discussed earlier – independence, being informed – supplemented with a reasonable degree of diversity.

My colleague, Anil Gaba describes “reasonable degree of diversity” like this: “Imagine you have several windows through which you can look to develop a picture of a landscape. If all the windows look in the same direction, they don’t add much value to one another. However, if they offer different views of the landscape, this allows us to build a much more rich and detailed view. That’s the value of diversity in perspective, it broadens our understanding of the terrain we face.

In the environment in which Sami found his “crowd”, diversity was baked into the process. Participants came from diverse companies, industries, and countries, all of which fostered diversity in perspectives. However, many contexts have lower levels of diversity but can aspire to some reasonable levels.

People I meet in Japanese organizations where there is lower diversity in gender or educational background, can predict the feedback their colleagues will give them. When encouraged to do so, they find that feedback from people of different educational backgrounds alone, can enrich their insights into difficult decisions.

in short

This note makes a simple case to leaders – it’s lonely out there, but it doesn’t need to be. All leaders benefit from people who can give them feedback on difficult decisions. The value of the feedback they receive grows if their respondents are unbiased, independent, informed, and reasonably diverse.

Sami found his group in an Executive Education program. So, am I making the case that all leaders should attend Executive programs? Well, I am making an allied but different case.

Many leaders do attend executive programs. However, I believe their approach to such programs under-leverages their value. Some claim they go to programs to learn something that will help them solve real problems quickly. Others claim they go to “network”. This note suggests that they will get at least as much value from finding a group of independent, informed, and diverse people with no skin in their game.