Speaking up! Perspectives on conscious objectivity, critique, values and the spirit of radical transparency

“Son, this is America.. You need to speak up!”

- Lou Ferretti, Chicken Lou, 1999

On a cold winter morning in 1999, as a recent international graduate student at Northeastern University, I stopped by at the Chicken Lou, a small establishment next to the Snell Engineering Center at Northeastern University hoping to grab a quick snack of spicy fries. Lou Ferretti, who started the establishment 30 years ago would stand at the entrance taking orders from students. A man of big heart, he was loud, warm and would be there greeting students and ensuring they got expedited service customized to their liking. When my turn came, I asked softly, “Spicy fries with ketchup on top”.

“What?” Lou asked. I repeated, “Spicy fries with ketchup on top”, this time a bit louder. Lou repeated my order loud to the cooks behind the desk and turned towards me and said, “Son, this is America.. You need to speak up!”. Though that wasn’t the intent of what Lou meant, those words have stuck with me for more than two decades.

Universities provide a fascinating environment to foster critical thinking. In 1999, as a graduate student, I was exposed to a whole new world of relationships. Peer relationships, interactions with professors, the ability to question and respect for innovative thinking, intellectual curiosity and hard work were areas that I started seeing in a new light. Growing up in India, the classroom experience I was exposed to was different. Most of the instruction was lecture style where professors would lecture and leave. There was very little interaction between professors and students. Being a grad student in the US was a completely different experience! I could actually speak my mind? I can question my professor’s conclusions? I can write or do something out of the ordinary and my professors would encourage it? It was mind-boggling but helped me develop my philosophies on what makes teaching and learning effective. Growing up in India, I was accustomed to a culture that required respect for hierarchy, protocol and anyone in the position of power. Elders, parents, teachers, bosses all were respected and were never questioned and you would be expected to follow instructions if it came from someone of authority or power. America is a place you can and need to be assertive. You have been bestowed the freedom of speech! Living in the United States for the past two decades, I have cultivated a philosophy of radical transparency and speaking my mind.

Being able to openly communicate required a conscious rewiring of my perspectives. You need to be consciously objective, open to critique, be comfortable speaking up for your values and develop a culture that fosters the spirit of radical transparency. I have resisted applying a political correctness filter which has gotten into trouble at times for calling a spade a spade. As an educator, CEO, and consultant, I have held positions involving teaching, mentoring and advocacy and my philosophy has always been giving advice thinking what’s best for the receiver, be it a student, employee or client. These principles have guided me in my career and my journey at QuantUniversity.

So how can we develop these attributes?

Conscious Objectivity:

In the world, you are judged on outcomes. Businesses fail if they don’t perform, customers move to better products if they don’t see the value, and you lose trust when you under-deliver on your promises. In this data-driven world, you can only hide behind false narratives only so far. Being objective enables you to lead with rational decisions and to accept success and failure without creating a false narrative. At times, you have to communicate the hard decisions and speak the truth. For example, when your students or employees don’t deliver quality work, you are faced with a dilemma on how to provide critical feedback. When emotions are involved, it could become personal and you lose perspective on why you are doing what you set out to do. My approach to avoid this it is better to set expectations upfront. For example, recently, I was mentoring a student team of five who were expected to work on a project sponsored by a client. There were questions early in the project on how to divide the work. Whether to structure it so that each member would have a specific role or to divide and conquer the project effort. I wanted to ensure that the team divided the work fairly but also wanted the team to deliver to their commitments. Considering the project was approximately 10 weeks and the student team had five members and each student would be investing approximately 10 hours per week, I set up expectations that the project would be assessed on the work effort that was approximately 500 hours. I set up the evaluation criteria from the perspective of a client who was hiring a consultant team that had committed to 500 hours of work. Midway through the project, one of the project team didn’t deliver quality deliverables and during the evaluation, I questioned if this was a paid project, would a client be happy to pay for 250 hours worth of work for the deliverables presented. While there was some disgruntlement, no one could make a case that the evaluation was unfair.

Being open to critique:

I had the privilege of attending a conference organized by the Louis Bachelier institute in Paris a few years ago. The French institutions engage in a healthy spirited discussion when it comes to research and scientific thought. The format of the conference impressed me. In the paper presentation session, graduate students first present their work. A reviewer would come to the stage and provide feedback to the student presenter. In addition to the work and arguments presented, the reviewer would also provide feedback on things the student should do to improve and enhance their work. Some of the feedback was also critical when the student presenter had ignored relevant work or approaches. Following that, the student presenter would come back to the stage to acknowledge the feedback and provide a rebuttal for feedback that the student disagreed. It was fascinating to see the healthy back and forth, all in the spirit of furthering research.

In our society, giving and getting an honest critique of your work is hard. You get honest critique from people who really care. Similarly, you give honest critique to people whom you trust enough for them to know you have their best interests in mind. At times, the receiver of critique is just looking for validation or to feel good. But if your conscience says that the receiver would have an opportunity to improve if they received honest advice, it is better, to be honest, and tell the truth even if the truth is bitter. I have had situations where relationships were on the line and people assumed I was not diplomatic enough to deliver the real news guised in a sugar pill. But for me, it would be a travesty, if an opportunity to learn is lost. Humans aren’t wired to receive critique easily. We have built systems and practices around us to highlight or amplify the good and mention the areas of improvement in passing. We need to create an environment upfront where providing and receiving honest critique is encouraged. Having an open mind to receive and provide critique requires conscious disengagement with your emotions and focus solely on the work and the critique. I always seek honest feedback from clients, employees, and students and advocate them to be open to providing and receiving a critique of our work and services. The focus should always be on achieving the best possible outcomes. An environment that encourages receiving and providing critique in a positive spirit provides an opportunity to improve those outcomes.

Speak up for your values:

You are a product of the values. You have been exposed to many value systems since childhood. Your current value system reflects the values you chose to adopt, nurture and call it your own. You need to be comfortable about speaking up when you are in situations where you have to choose between standing by your values or let them go. Everyone can think of a situation where they were forced to choose between their values or do things that were contrary to their value system. Recently, I had to work with someone whose value system was different from mine. Being someone who cherishes objectivity and encourages critique in the spirit of learning, I strongly believe feedback is an opportunity to learn. When I give feedback to students, I focus on the outcomes, work effort, and the learning students have had. I had a recent interaction with a colleague who had different views than mine on student feedback. I had given honest feedback on deliverables to students and some students felt the feedback they received was harsh. When I had a discussion regarding this with my colleague, he mentioned that it’s all about perception management. “Students need to feel they are learning and we need to keep them happy” he said and advocated on focusing more on what the students did well rather than highlighting areas of improvement. I begged to differ that students need to actually learn and the perspective should be preparing students for high-quality outcomes and have them take responsibility for their deliverables and commitments. We disagreed on things but it’s a choice you have on when to hold to your values and when to take the easy way out. In my situation, I could create an environment where students feel they are learning and give them high 9’s on a 10 which makes students feel good but would I be setting them up for success? When I was a student, I felt proud of my hard-earned ‘B’ grades than the easy A’s I got from my instructors who wanted to make the class feel good. My best students who have excelled in their careers are the ones who use feedback to improve their skills rather than get superficial advice that may help their self-esteem but doesn’t really help them grow. Let your values and principles guide you and speak up when you are presented with choices you don’t agree with!

A culture of Radical Transparency:

Being objective, open to critique and a strong believer of values requires you to have radical transparency. In our society, we are expected to carry our political correctness lens and being diplomatic is considered a must-have skill to excel in relationships and business. I have had many situations where people felt silence was better than providing honest feedback. When we were working on QuSandbox, we solicited feedback from various potential customers, friends, and mentors. When we reached out to customers with our beta product, friends we knew gave positive feedback for our products. But we knew they were our friends and they wanted us to feel good. Some customers who we were interested in working with, weren’t interested in our products and gave us radio silence. Some of our customers, advisors, and mentors who really believed in us cared to provide honest feedback. The key was the circle of stakeholders who really cared about our success was transparent and that made all the difference! It’s important to create and foster a culture of radical transparency to set you up for success. When I reach out to customers, especially with our beta product QuSandbox, we acknowledge and are transparent about the product’s strengths and weaknesses and where our key differentiators are. Being articulate and communicating it upfront helps move things faster and avoid blunders that could cost relationships and trust.

Whether it is in life or in business, having a principled approach to what you believe would help you achieve those goals. You need to be consciously objective, open to critique, be comfortable speaking up for your values and develop a culture that fosters the spirit of radical transparency. 

Being able to articulate your values and speak up to what you believe in will help you achieve the highest objective which only we humans cherish: 

Keeping your conscience clear!

Sri Krishnamurthy

QuantUniversity