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Agitated Inquiry
Agitated inquiry is an essential part of innovation and change in any company, and it’s basically just the tension that comes with fighting for ideas and making sure your strategies are sound. Most companies experience this, and I would argue that the best leaders make sure they experience it, because if everybody on the team thinks the idea or the path forward is brilliant, it probably isn’t as good as you think it is.
Agitated inquiry is that stage where you have a hypothesis that you see something in the future, but you want to beat it up. You want to make sure that you’ve done both the positive and negative scenario planning and that you’ve invited your critics in. You’ve invited in people to say why this idea is bad or why this path is not going to work so that you’re prepared for it, and so that you’re able to adapt your path forward to be ready for it. It’s often in companies where change gets a bad name, and for good reason, because there’s a lot of fear and ego involved. It’s my team’s idea versus your team’s idea, or my expertise versus your expertise.
A good leader has to appreciate that they want different perspectives. In my case, I was always representing the market back. I was often always fighting against the technology and product teams, who their job was to come up with a great idea because the technology can and to take it to market. We’d often tussle over, we can do that, but should we do that? Do we know who the customer is? Do we know what problem we’re going to solve? Do we know if they’re going to pay for all those features? There would be huge debates, and also debates about incumbent technology, in our case, like solar energy versus gas-driven energy. You need to have those fights if you’re going to take any kind of position on the future.
Good leaders create the mechanisms where they have those disparate perspectives and people beat it up and interrogate the ideas, and then they decide and agree to move forward. What doesn’t work with agitated inquiry is if people agree in a meeting and then they leave, and they can change the vote and all that was for nothing. I think this is where companies often break down. There’s a lot of pretend conflict that isn’t really used to move the teams forward.
Invite your critics in
One of the things I learned about agitated inquiry and seeding tension as you’re getting a good idea together is that you have to invite the critics in. That is really hard. If a group likes the idea too much, we’re not pressing hard enough. Often the best thing you can do is invite somebody in who you know is really a good critical thinker. They always think of the question that hasn’t been asked. They’re good at beating up an idea. I would not recommend you do this at the brainstorming phase. I think when you’re brainstorming with a team you need expansive thinkers. You need that stage where there are no limits. But then, to make sure your idea is on a good path and that you’ve thought it through, invite in the critics. Have them beat it up.
The last thing about inviting a critic in is that sometimes there are people who are just negative. They’re really downers, and they don’t like anything. I’d be wary about inviting those people in for too long. It’s good to hear them out, but some people are just negative and you probably have to find a way to say, we can’t have your point of view at this point because we need to move forward. You need to make those judgement calls. I’ve worked with enough people to know that there are people who just aren’t going to jump on board and you need to move on without them.
Create ground rules
I do think when you’re bringing the critics in, you need to be very clear about creating those ground rules—being very clear about here’s our strategy, here’s what we’re trying to accomplish. We want a certain amount of negative input and “no’s” and the critical part of it, but we’re going to pull it back. We’re not going to derail it. We’re not going to let you take over the meeting. Things like: “No, and…”, or “Yes, and…”, or “No, but…”. These are very helpful. Also, ways of framing questions: “How might we…?” or “Why should we…?” I think you’re setting ground rules for the kinds of questions that can be asked.
The last ground rule that I firmly believe in is that when you agree on something in this situation, that has to stick. You can’t leave the room and somebody goes around and tries to lobby because they didn’t like the outcome. You’ve agreed. You’re the team leader, you take all the input, decision is made, and this is the way we’re going forward. Too often we allow that criticism to fester after the decision has been made.
Step outside the heat of the moment
There’s also a rule or a practice that I like in those conflict moments. Often it’s my idea versus your idea, the sales team versus marketing, and you get in that “there they go again” moment. You need to get out of that. I found that a really simple way is to give that conflict a crazy name. It’s not about either of you. Suddenly, it’s a moment to laugh. It’s a moment to have a bit of levity in a very tense situation. What it does is take you outside of the heat of that moment, and you’re putting it over there—”see, there’s that funny thing.” I find it’s a great way to bond people around a new perspective.