The Silent No

Sometimes, an organization develops an implicit expectation that everyone should be a “team player.” Be wary of this phrase, because more often than not, people start to use it as a cudgel. Being a team player comes to mean towing the line, not making waves, and not raising objections or concerns. As soon as that happens, the path to real commitment and accountability begins to close.

Cohesion and consensus in a group of leaders is a reasonable goal, but you have to get there through constructive disagreement. It’s a false construct that we have to choose one at the expense of the other. Sure, we don’t want to be a fractious group of rivals, undermining each other at every turn, but we also can’t afford to be a bunch of yes men in an echo chamber. And unless we allow ample time and space to disagree, our final “consensus” is likely to be a thin veneer that hides an ugly core of unspoken concerns and doubts.

The key to reaching a genuine consensus is to invite a variety of inputs into the market of ideas early in the process.  This requires a culture of psychological safety and trust, where there is no fear of condemnation or retaliation for not being a “team player.” 

Eventually, through open discussion and debate, the group can reach agreement on a course of action, but this requires trust as well. Each member of the group must trust in the collective wisdom of the group, and be willing to commit to its final decision. To extend that trust, their input needs to be heard, understood, respected and considered.

We don’t have to choose between constructive disagreement and cohesion—they work together. Each has its time and place in the process.

When only agreement is acceptable, you end up in an echo chamber, and you force people into a stance of passive resistance and unspoken dissent. If you can’t say no, there’s no real yes. If there’s no real yes, all you get is an unspoken no.