I am 100% in agreement with TheMajor’s and Mathisco’s comments on power, status, and enforcing cooperation.
I just wanted to comment on these lines:
Having leaders suppress their own opinions at the start of deliberations and explicitly express a desire to hear new information
Setting cultural norms that encourage critical thinking and productive disagreement
Implementing this requires a greater degree of trust in the honesty and intentions of management, fellow employees, and future outcomes of things like promotion and hiring/firing decisions than I have ever experienced anywhere I’ve worked, or anywhere most people I know have worked. Even if your boss really does believe this would be a better way to make decisions, doing something different opens up everyone involved to being first in line for scapegoating when something goes wrong, and last in line for promotion if they’re seen as a threat to the jobs of the higher-ups. In most meetings I’ve been in, everyone with any savvy at all knows this, and will only express their own opinions if they’re already very secure in their status within a meeting (or if they’re relative outsiders or newcomers able to frame opinion or criticism as a question).
I am 100% in agreement with TheMajor’s and Mathisco’s comments on power, status, and enforcing cooperation.
I just wanted to comment on these lines:
Implementing this requires a greater degree of trust in the honesty and intentions of management, fellow employees, and future outcomes of things like promotion and hiring/firing decisions than I have ever experienced anywhere I’ve worked, or anywhere most people I know have worked. Even if your boss really does believe this would be a better way to make decisions, doing something different opens up everyone involved to being first in line for scapegoating when something goes wrong, and last in line for promotion if they’re seen as a threat to the jobs of the higher-ups. In most meetings I’ve been in, everyone with any savvy at all knows this, and will only express their own opinions if they’re already very secure in their status within a meeting (or if they’re relative outsiders or newcomers able to frame opinion or criticism as a question).