Candor and Commitment

When You Ask for It, You Get It: How Candor Leads to Commitment

As the story goes, a senior leader at a global beverage company had just concluded an extremely assertive and confident presentation on strategy. He calmly took a sip of water then asked his audience of marketing executives, “So, what have I said that you think is b.s.?”

Talk about candidly asking for feedback.

But that’s just the first step. Asking for candid feedback is only effective when you’ve fostered an environment that encourages – make that REWARDS – authentic communication of difficult or challenging opinions. And even assuming that you HAVE created such an environment, what do you do with all that feedback? Business is not a democracy. All votes don’t carry the same weight. The leader is the one who must eventually choose how the team or organization is going to move forward. 
Enter the equally important follow-up piece, gaining commitment: The leader listens, hears, then reconciles all the differing points of view to gain the full team’s commitment to the decision he or she must subsequently make.

It sounds tough to do-and it is. It involves trust, empathy and other skills. But it is also a decidedly worthwhile pursuit.

Our ongoing research shows that leaders who encourage candor and can show empathy toward different perspectives are significantly more likely to be identified as effective leaders by their followers, superiors and peers. In fact, the characteristics of trustworthiness and empathy are more predictive of a leader’s effectiveness than the clarity of their communication or their demonstration of responsibility.

We consistently see that leaders who elicit and subsequently reconcile dissenting views actually make better decisions and create deeper commitment in their teams. Their organizations move forward without the drag of quiet, unacknowledged resistance.

In today’s lean economy, those leaders who don’t pay attention to feedback and what’s going on within their teams are in danger of eroding their thin base of overworked and stretched employees. In addition, the disappearance of motivating tools such as stock options and other perks also places gaining commitment in sharp relief.

Why Actively Solicit Disagreement?

“I lead therefore I know” is a mental model whose time has past. We live in a complex world where business leaders need as much information as possible to make effective decisions. To spark the innovative solutions demanded by their customers, they must constantly troll for different perspectives and resist the temptation to sell people on their point of view or merely get compliance.

“It’s so myopic,” says Barbara Burlingame, Director of U.S. Sales Training and Development at Avon, “to be set on what I want to do.” Seeking out other opinions has not only changed her mind at times, it has given her employees a noticeably increased sense of ownership. She notes that for her, “Candor equals commitment.”

Leaders mustn’t assume that silence means agreement. Candor can bring many an undiscussable issue to the surface. The flipside? Unaddressed dissent doesn’t disappear. It gets stored like toxic waste in both the individual and the organization. Best case, it results in compliance and a low grumble of resistance that slows forward momentum. Worst case, in decreased productivity and increased attrition.

What Are Some Roadblocks to Candor?

Candor doesn’t just happen. “Candor occurs because you build a safe and trusting environment,” says Keith Cheveralls, Managing Director of Global Rate Markets for FleetBoston Financial. Building that environment takes time, consistently honest and open communications-and strong listening skills. “If you ask for an opinion, you’d better listen to it,” he warns.

At some companies, placing too much value on being polite and respectful can result in a culture of “niceness” where being “direct” has a negative connotation. One client, a director at a scholastic association, describes her organization’s culture as “collegial, but not really congenial.” They’re working on it, she says, and leadership initiatives under way have executives beginning to be more open and candid, with each other and employees.

Moving People from Dissent to Commitment

Through being candid themselves and creating a work environment where others are encouraged to be candid, smart leaders can actively surface the dissenting views and the information they need when making decisions.

But there’s always going to be pushback when it comes to gaining commitment, especially from the people whose way was not the way chosen. Ren Russie, Director of Hardware Engineering at Guidant, tries to de-personalize the differences by focusing on the facts. “I tell people, ‘This is the perception our customers have…’ and go from there,” he says.

People will commit if they feel they were heard and that their perspectives were considered.

When one of his teams came to him and very candidly complained that he didn’t fully appreciate the nature of the work they were doing, Cheveralls at FleetBoston Financial remembers being both impressed and stopped dead in his tracks. He made it his business to better understand their particular challenges and, as a result, gave them more control over local decisions, then watched their performance improve dramatically.

Trust Is the Foundation

Encouraging and honoring different perspectives is counter-cultural in business. Instead, leaders often focus on selling their own point of view and defending it fiercely from doubters and naysayers. Like the senior executive at the beverage company, leaders are assertive and display confidence about the strategies they initiate. That’s one part of the leadership puzzle.

Another part is encouraging-even inspiring-others to commit. Our research shows that leaders who are consistently open and honest, who invite and act on feedback and treat others empathetically, earn the trust and commitment of their followers.

And that’s no b.s.