Some concrete updates I had around this idea, based on discussion on Facebook.
One really relevant factor is the criticism coming from a person in authority, and leaders should be extra careful of critizing ideas. By steering them towards other, less authorative figures that you think will give valid critiques, you can avoid this failure.
Another potential obvious pitfall here is people feeling like they were set up to fail by not having all the relevant information. The idea here is to make people feel like they have agency, obviously not to hide information.
Even if you do the above, people can feel patronized if it seems like you’re doing this as a tactic because you think they can’t take criticism. This can be true even if giving them criticism would indeed be harmful for the team dynamic. Thus, the emphasizing ways to increase agency over avoiding criticism is key here.
This combination of failure modes seems pretty dicey.
I think I’ve encountered something similar in relationships, where my naive thought was “they’re doing something wrong/harmful and I should help them avoid it” but I eventually realized “them having an internal locus of control and not feeling like I’m out to micromanage them is way more important than any given suboptimal thing they’re doing.”
Some concrete updates I had around this idea, based on discussion on Facebook.
One really relevant factor is the criticism coming from a person in authority, and leaders should be extra careful of critizing ideas. By steering them towards other, less authorative figures that you think will give valid critiques, you can avoid this failure.
Another potential obvious pitfall here is people feeling like they were set up to fail by not having all the relevant information. The idea here is to make people feel like they have agency, obviously not to hide information.
Even if you do the above, people can feel patronized if it seems like you’re doing this as a tactic because you think they can’t take criticism. This can be true even if giving them criticism would indeed be harmful for the team dynamic. Thus, the emphasizing ways to increase agency over avoiding criticism is key here.
This combination of failure modes seems pretty dicey.
I think I’ve encountered something similar in relationships, where my naive thought was “they’re doing something wrong/harmful and I should help them avoid it” but I eventually realized “them having an internal locus of control and not feeling like I’m out to micromanage them is way more important than any given suboptimal thing they’re doing.”