Yesterday’s news about President Biden’s decision to step down from the presidential campaign is a case study in business pivots. For anyone who thinks they are too far down a particular path to stop, pause, or reset–think again.
After all, if someone can halt or redirect a Presidential campaign with four months until election day, you can probably afford to burn another month or two on your go-to-market for your product launch.
A really underrated aspect of business and leadership is having someone close who can tell you no. The higher you climb up the corporate or influence ladder, the scarier it becomes for someone to muster up the courage, look you in the eye, and say, point-blank, “This is a bad idea.” The same rules apply for CEOs as they do for Presidents, though admittedly, one has quite a bit higher stakes.
Here are a few things I've observed about how good leaders gather (and take action on) real feedback.
(Image source: DALL-E)
It's Quiet Up Top
In my fractional work, I get many opportunities to practice leadership skills myself and observe leaders I admire from the “middle” part of an organization or structure. I’ve also worked in many full-time roles at various levels in small to mid-sized organizations. One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s noisy at the bottom and very, very quiet at the top.
I’m talking pin-drop, “Where did everyone go?” quiet. There is no sound.
I can't tell you how incredibly unnerving it is to know there’s music playing but feel like someone turned the volume all the way down to zero. As a leaders, you know the gossip is still happening, in Slack chats and small group coffee dates, but you suddenly can’t see any of it. You know people are still talking with each other, but they suddenly aren’t talking with you.
I think this results from three common assumptions:
That as a leader, you’re very, very busy and can’t be bothered.
That you must have thought of everything already and have it under control without other feedback.
That you probably hear a lot of feedback from everyone else, so you don’t need any more.
However, if these assumptions prevail too deeply in any organization, whoever sits at the top will create an absolute silo of information, which is the opposite of a collaborative work environment.
Creating a Feedback-Friendly Environment:
I've noticed that the best leaders set up corporate protocols to feed this so-called feedback vacuum. This is where things like skip-level meetings, intentional 1-1s, and office hours come in handy. Not to mention setting up discussion-style forums in all-hands meetings, demonstrating that they value feedback in transparent, large channel Slack discussions, etc.
But it’s not enough to simply set up some infrastructure to gather feedback. You also need to create an environment where people around you trust that it’s okay to say no.
This is much easier said than done, particularly in fast-moving worlds of politics, accelerationist technologies, and dynamic product launches and pivots. When things are moving a mile a minute, when you can’t even fathom the idea of stopping to catch a breath and retest assumptions, it feels like tempo is the only thing on your side. But often, that’s the exact time to take a break.
The Power of a "No" Person
If you’re a leader or manager of any kind, you probably know what it feels like to be in a rocket-launch mindset. You also probably know that for anyone on your team, when things are moving that quickly, it’s easier for them to just say yes to you, to not stir up trouble or break the flow of momentum. And that’s when you need the no person most of all.
You might get annoyed by the person who asks pointed questions to prompt a discussion at the eleventh hour of a product launch plan (or, sure, a Presidential campaign). And you might want to throttle the person who raises a hand to invite you to slow down. The one who says, “Hey, maybe it’s been enough.” Or, “You know, let's just stop it here.”
If they’re good, they’ll know to be gentle with you. They’ll give your shoulder a pat, hear what you’re saying, acknowledge your effort, and then invite you to consider that–just this once–maybe you don’t need to see it all the way through to the end.
If you’ve got one of those people on your team, you should hang onto them for a very long time. Because we’re all seeing the result of the collective exhale of relief that happens when you give your team a chance to catch a reset.
