Listening Outside the Box

All new presidential appointees and senior department executives, like new executives everywhere, spend their early days getting briefings from the staff, and much will be said about information management as a technology challenge. Little or nothing will be said, though, about making decisions in a world where the information itself is so often false. You might as well tune your guitar and hope that you will suddenly sound like Eric Clapton.

Based on a study of information disasters over the last thirty years, including the failure to anticipate 9/11, the mistaken invasion of Iraq, and the collapse of the financial system, here are four information management slides I would add:

1. Know What You Don’t Know
As an executive, respect uncertainty. Remember that organizations and individuals tend to remove ambiguity from the presentation. All information seems equally certain, even if some of it is doubtful, confusing, or both. Nobody wants to tell the new boss that they don’t know. In fact, clarity and consensus are often signs that the issue has not been sufficiently explored.

If you don’t hear doubt, ask for it. Understand the difference between information and ideas, and make sure you know which one you’re betting on. If it all seems too tidy, take one small piece of the report and go check it out yourself. In a world where everything we do is based on information, sometimes at two or three levels of abstraction, visit reality from time to time. For one thing, it is much more interesting.

2. Organize for Dissent
Make sure that multiple views are considered at each decision level. The worst information disasters have occurred in organizations (NASA, Hospitals, Boardrooms, the White House) that limited debate in the name of efficiency and teamwork. Dissenting voices were silenced. Opinions were channeled through gatekeepers who had their own agendas. The truth was lost.

More important, organize for dissent. Make sure your staff has the resources and the motivation to explore alternative ideas. Groups have a tendency to seek agreement, but the most productive R&D labs have in common a collegial organization that is noisy and hard to schedule but which encourages open discussion and gets breakthrough results.

Much credit is given to out-of-the-box thinking, but that is not as important as out-of-the-box listening. Anyone can come up with a crazy idea, but it requires courage and patience to listen to one. Take a deep breath and consider even the strangest message as if it came from a trusted friend.

3. The Truth/Action Paradox
A study of the biggest information disasters (Three Mile Island, Shuttle Challenger, Enron, War in Iraq) points to a common failing. Decisions were made as soon as an alternative fit the data and had a history of success. It is our nature to stop gathering information as soon as the course seems obvious. But keep digging until one choice is supported by independent sources. Continue until you are choosing among good alternatives, not just going with the first one that makes sense.

4. You Are Not the Decider
Even when you make the decision, it is inevitably based on information prepared by others. The argument may seem complete, consistent and compelling, but the choices available to you reflect the data gathering biases of your organization, their analytical strengths and weaknesses, and their own concepts and values. Good decisions will come not from you alone but from decision teams who work hard and trust each other. You may be the conductor, but all those other people in the room are the ones making the music. So teach them to do their job well and respect their skills or it’s all going to sound like your grammar school band.