Two weeks ago, a diverse management team was having deep conversations on different parameters of the change that they intended to drive in one part of the organisation. They needed to rethink their strategy given the COVID-19 context.
I had introduced different Lean Change Canvases to them during our meetings in the previous month. They liked that Change Canvases would serve as placeholders for their conversations designed to align people towards a common purpose.
They decided that they would capture all ingredients from their conversation within the Strategic Change Canvas. So, I facilitated with that intent.
As the conversations progressed and we moved to discussing ‘What people, departments and processes need to change to realise the Change vision?’, I started to observe how different biases – The Halo effect, the Confirmation bias, the Bandwagon effect to mention a few for no (yes there were more) – clouded their decision making.
Few of my observations:
- A Senior Manager, influential and assertive, got complete consensus for his ideas.
- Another 2 Senior Managers always leaned towards what one particular CXO was saying.
- One other Manager kept shooting down most others viewpoints especially the contradicting ones.
- A quiet manager was going along with the direction of the mass agreement.
- 2 newly hired managers who challenged the status quo with their diverse viewpoints were either being shot down or silenced by the more vocal voices in the room.
Awareness is the 1st step to everything. I found the right opportunity to pause the discussions and highlight my observations on the various biases I observed that clouded them. I was expecting tumbleweed or pin-drop silence. Well, I got a bit of both – first the silence and then tumbleweed.
How I got from chaos in this meeting to the point where people actually listened is a story for another time. In a nutshell Forcefield analysis at work in the context of biases and a safe environment created for all to be vulnerable.
Once they were ready they created a Management Team agreement as norms for the day to allow them to co-create this meaningful change strategy.
Some of the norms they came up with:
- They need to leave designations out the door
- Acknowledge – yes, we all have these (and even more) biases
- Everyone’s opinion is meaningful and matters.
- We need to ALL think differently if we need to bring about this meaningful change and alignment.
As next steps to move the meeting forward and in a way to de-bias themselves
- The 2 newly hired managers were appointed as Devil’s advocates. They would bring contradictory perspectives out. That would allow the rest of the Management team to view everything through different lenses.
- To control the Halo effect and the Bandwagon effect, they brought in the approach of Decision by Consensus using something similar to Planning Poker / Delegation Poker. This would avoid influencing people and all opinions to be listened to.
- If our facilitator observed any new biases, she should Time-out the discussion, show us the mirror so we could then find a way to address it meaningfully – just as we have now for those that got spotted.
It was a fabulous discussion with the Change Canvas capturing the outcomes with serious meaningful alignment.
Key insights, learning and actions shared
- Biases affect us – positively and negatively
- We need to acknowledge our bias and work on our biases.
- It helped a lot to have someone show us the mirror from time to time to help navigate biases in the right way
- We need to build our own toolkit to recognise and address our biases to positively affect outcomes of decision making
- Having people challenge each others viewpoints constructively.
- We need to invest in ourselves and bring our whole selves to work.
- Have a focused workshop on de-biasing specific biases that we are now aware of. (More on this once I have run a workshop in the coming week with the Management team)
We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are. – Anais Nin