The Devil is in the Details

We all have our roles in life to play. Like everyone else, I have a few: wife, aunt, daughter, friend, colleague, volunteer leader, customer, business owner, Devil’s Advocate.

Devil’s Advocate? That’s not a role, you say.

Yes, it is, and in business, it is crucial that you have at least one Devil’s Advocate on your decision-making team who challenges the status quo on a regular basis. Without the Advocate, it is too easy to slide into groupthink, which sooner or later will produce results you did not expect, and certainly did not want.

The term groupthink was coined by Irving Janis in 1972 to describe the phenomenon where members of a group (e.g., a management team), makes decisions based solely on consensus, while purposely excluding any ideas, opinions, data or facts presented by anyone who does not agree with the group’s point of view. Teams mired in groupthink rationalize their decisions to fit the circumstances as they see them simply because they believe without question that their way of thinking is infallible.

The space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the sub-prime mortgage meltdown in 2008 are examples of groupthink. In both cases, decision-makers failed to ask probing questions, or consider answers which jeopardized their plans by exposing vulnerabilities, and as we've all witnessed, much to their everlasting regret. 

In groupthink there is no negotiation. It’s just blind adherence to the group’s goals and strategies; dissenters are not welcome or heard.

So what does all of this have to do with the Devil’s Advocate, you ask?

One characteristic of groupthink is the conscious disregard for dissenting views. To combat this propensity a good leader will not only encourage the questions posed by the Advocate, but also  willingly explore the possibilities raised as each question is posed or answered with an open mind. See the possibilities!

When you choose your Advocate(s), be sure that they are strong enough to absorb the push back generated as a result of those questions by the rest of the team. There are no rules that say the Advocate has to be the same person at each meeting for the same decision. Consider assigning different team members to play the role at different times. Imagine the conversation when someone has to strongly and adequately defend an opinion contrary to their own!

There are other ways to combat groupthink, such as ensuring decisions are made based on more than just group consensus, further clarifying the goal, discussing the problem to be solved in depth before solutions are explored, and assigning groups to research several solutions and report back to the group.

As my friend, Sue is so fond of saying, “the Devil is in the details,” and I truly enjoy digging into the details. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy the role of Devil’s Advocate so much.

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the nonprofit military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is also a published author on the topic of childfree living.