INTHEBLACK July 2022 - Magazine - Page 54
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H
STORY NICOLA HEATH
DEVIL’S
ADVOCATE
FOR GOOD
WITH THE RIGHT APPROACH AND SKILL SET, A
DEVIL’S ADVOCATE CAN IMPROVE DECISION-MAKING
AND ORGANISATIONAL OUTCOMES.
54 ITB July 2022
istory shows that “groupthink” kills innovation
and can lead to poor decisions and undesirable
outcomes.
A tragic example is the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger
explosion, a disaster later attributed to a failure of
decision-making caused by groupthink.
As the Challenger disaster shows, even teams
comprised of the most talented individuals can fall
victim to this particular organisational sin.
Among the reasons why are “an over-reliance on
hierarchy, an instinct to prevent dissent, and a desire
to preserve harmony,” according to an article by Torben
Emmerling and Duncan Rooders in Harvard Business
Review.
Teams that have diverse members with differing
perspectives, experiences and styles have long been
deployed to keep groupthink at bay.
However, diversity doesn’t achieve anything if a
team’s members don’t feel comfortable to speak out
honestly.
Enter the devil’s advocate – someone whose specific
role is to offer an alternate view in a discussion. The
theory is that airing opposing points of view can help
a team identify critical information, plug gaps and
prepare for all eventualities.
In the past, the devil’s advocate – advocatus diaboli
in Latin – was an office appointed within the Catholic
Church to oppose a person’s beatification or
canonisation to reveal character flaws or unfavourable
deeds that may disqualify them from sainthood.
It’s a role that is often misunderstood. An effective
devil’s advocate does not provoke argument for
argument’s sake.
“Where a devil’s advocate is not helpful is where
someone isn’t being upfront about [their position], and
they’re just throwing in a few bombs because they want
to cause problems,” says leadership expert Margie
Ireland, author of The Happy Healthy Leader. “When
there’s no real point to it, that’s where it’s not helpful.”
MANAGING HEALTHY CONFLICT
“A well-functioning team is able to challenge ideas,
challenge new thinking, knowing that their idea might
not be accepted, but that it’s okay to raise it,” says
Ireland.
In any discussion involving conflicting viewpoints, it’s
important to emphasise that “to disagree with someone
is not the same as to dislike them,” says Bethan Winn, a