Create a Culture of Candor

Most of us are wary of opening up, even to close friends, never mind to colleagues in a classroom or business meeting. People often keep opinions to themselves, fearful of having them rejected.

Yet being up front and straightforward – in other words, being candid – has such huge positive impact that it’s a nearly universal high-return practice in successful organizations.

Indeed, in our work with more than 50 large companies over the past five years, we identified “observable candor” as the behavior that best predicts high-performing teams. But asking people to be candid in the absence of a supportive organizational culture is a challenge.

Here’s how to go about institutionalizing that support for candor.

TWO SIDES OF CANDOR

There are two key leverage points in creating a culture of open communications and candor: meetings and individual interactions. The good news is that adopting one or two keystone practices can make candor a habit in both.

The payback is clear.

Management teams that structure meetings around candid collaborative problem‐solving make better decisions, move with greater agility, and give executives access to a wider range of information, a better understanding of the issues and a broader set of possible solutions.

Individuals who seek and act on candid feedback from those most crucial to their own personal success find that is both a valuable tool for self-improvement and a path, through greater trust and intimacy, to deepened relationships and, ultimately, deep mentorship.

But getting candor embedded into both your personal and organizational reflexes via repetition is critical. Only a habit of true relational collaboration ensures your organization won’t fall back into a more insular process when the chips are down.

A seminal study in safety makes the value of habitual collaboration clear. Post-moon-landing NASA researchers studied now to improve air flight safety. In one study, cockpit crews made up of a pilot, copilot, and navigator participated in flight simulations in which a potential crash situation occurred. The study found that pilots who acted swiftly and decisively based on gut feelings were much more likely to crash the plane than pilots who turned to other crew members for their reading of the situation before deciding how to respond.

In a look at underlying causes, the researchers found that the condition necessary for crew members to speak up and wasn’t whether the pilot asked for others' opinions during the crash simulations, but whether the crew had a history of open exchanges with the pilot. Crewmembers voiced their opinions to pilots who had habitually solicited their input. In other words, without a culture of open candor established, pilots found themselves on their own when they most needed the help.

BEST MEETING PRACTICES

Ferrazzi Greenlight believes strongly that forthrightness should not just be encouraged but required. The following techniques make it easier for coworkers at all levels to interact more directly in meetings and group interactions:

1. Break meetings into smaller groups. When five or more people meet, those with confidence and commanding voices will dominate. Even strong speakers may find it hard to take risks in front of a larger audience. One solution is to break a big meeting up into groups of two or three to brainstorm for a few minutes, and then have a spokesperson from each group report back to the entire team. Smaller groups promote higher degrees of risk taking and increase the odds that more voices will be heard.
2. Otherwise institutionalize a flattening of your hierarchy. Encourage the free flow of information at all times, not just in meetings. Among the available mechanism are forums, having senior staff approach individuals for input, and establishing a “make a difference” award that allows any employee to give someone else an award for speaking up and making a difference.
3. Designate a “Yoda.” We all remember the wise Jedi Master from Star Wars. In our research, we asked for volunteers or picked one or two people in the room to be the official advocates of candor. A Yoda’s job is to notice and speak up when something is being left unsaid. (The Yoda may also call out anyone whose criticism is unconstructive or disrespectful.) If the Yoda has not spoken up for a period of time, the leader should interrupt the meeting and ask her if the group is missing anything.

BEST PRACTICES FOR CANDID INDIVIDUAL FEEDBACK

We often fear giving others candid individual feedback, preferring to tiptoe around uncomfortable truths even though that candor, delivered with generous intent and received gracefully, would help drive personal and organizational improvement as well as deeper and more valuable relationships. The most valuable relationships are those in which we give each other permission to be candid and honest.

In fact, almost the only way to understand how others perceive you, your work, or your performance, is to ask them and provide real permission to be honest with you.

Leaders can coach the most rewarding approach to candor in meetings by encouraging “caring criticism.” Negative feedback can hurt, but not when it’s offered and understood as a gift aimed at helping the recipient improve performance or avoid mistakes. In order to deliver and receive it that way, encourage your team to use phrases like “I might suggest” and “Think about this.”

College students, on their own or encouraged by their undergraduate consuls, should sit down with someone for whom they “perform,” which includes coaches, professors, deans, officers in a student organization, or employers. Students asking for such mentorship need to emphasize that they will not be offended by criticism and are truly seeking to better understand their weaknesses as well as their strengths.

Business leaders and undergraduate consults alike should make it a requirement that their “teams” regularly ask those who are most critical to their success for private feedback. The steps are:

1. Give clear permission. The person from whom you’re soliciting feedback must know for certain that he or she can feel safe being candid with you.
2. Watch your emotions. Try not to be defensive or upset when presented with unexpected feedback. Really listen to what you’re hearing and seek to understand it. This is an opportunity to learn how you look through a different set of eyes.
3. Be generous and strive for greater connectedness. Asking for someone’s candid appraisal is flattering. Tell the person providing feedback why you respect his or her opinion and insights. Requesting candid feedback can accelerate intimacy in a relationship and often results in a reciprocal request.
4. Say thank you. No matter how you feel about the candid feedback you receive, remember to say thank you, restate the feedback given and promise to take it into consideration along with other data points you’re gathering. Follow up at a later date and describe how you’ve used the feedback constructively.
5. Make it a habit. Requesting candid feedback is a great way to stay in touch with your environment. It is a skill that few have the courage to practice, but it’s a crucial practice to master if you hope to take advantage of real and valuable mentors in your life.

True collaboration is impossible when people don’t trust one another to speak with candor. Solving problems requires that team members be unafraid to ask questions or propose wrong answers. Risk management is another area that relies almost completely on people’s admitting their mistakes. It takes work to create a candid environment supported by respectful, honest relationships, but it’s a challenge every leader should embrace.?

Reposted from The Magazine of Sigma Chi slated for the summer issue.