Your Company Needs A Chief Dissent Officer

http://www.fastcompany.com/3001956/why-your-company-needs-full-time-idea-killing-chief-dissent-officer

by ohmmmy • 14 years ago

75 46 14 years ago

Trying to think of specific examples of this - I guess Steve Jobs is the obvious/most prominent choice here (although he was already CEO). Any others?

regularfry2• 14 years ago

Disney's whole creativity strategy was built around this sort of idea, except they didn't have a Chief Dissent Officer. They made the role of "Critic" an integral part of the creative team.

longarm• 14 years ago

Ahh yes, he killed the infamous stylus suggestion for the iPad

enraged_camel• 14 years ago

That's just one example. Remember that when he returned to Apple, he killed most of the product lines.

qq66• 14 years ago

He also killed Apple's wireless mouse development because he claimed that "nobody wants a wireless mouse." That's why Apple was one of the last to release a wireless mouse.

He was right most of the time, but not all of the time.

danso2• 14 years ago

Um...by definition, the CEO, who sets the company's initiatives (including initiatives to kill other initiatives) and holds the "buck", so to speak, cannot be the chief dissenter, in the same way that the Emperor cannot be the leader of the Rebel Alliance. When Steve Jobs was CEO, the chief dissenter would've been someone who pointed out that the iPhone4 antennae issue should not be glossed over.

starpilot• 14 years ago

I wonder how much consensus Guido van Rossum had when deciding to break backwards compatibility in Python 3. And Mark Shuttleworth when he made Ubuntu this vastly smoothed-over distro, far more than any predecessor.

ispep• 14 years ago

Isn't all management's job to not allow bad ideas out the door?

How would this person's role differ from all other managements (maybe outside marketing)?

regularfry2• 14 years ago

It's management's job to set up an environment where bad ideas get killed. It's not their job necessarily to kill bad ideas themselves.

dsr_• 14 years ago

Congress could use this.

rthomas6• 14 years ago

Ron Paul seems to try to fill the role often.

derleth• 14 years ago

Ron Paul would be more effective if he wasn't an ideologue.

Of course, he's really trying to be an effective fundraiser, not an effective lawmaker.

hermannj314• 14 years ago

What is the estimated probability that we have good vs bad ideas? What is the probability that we think ideas are good vs think they are bad? How often do we misclassify a good idea as bad or a bad idea good? What is the benefit vs. cost of misclassifications(false positive, false negative) and the value of true positives/true negatives? How much does the chief dissent officer want to get paid? What would those probabilities look like with a CDO in place?

I'm glad FastCompany has done the calculations and knows definitely, that regardless of any of the answers to any of those questions, your industry, size, or strategic plans - your company needs a chief dissent officer.

mbellotti• 14 years ago

I think they have the right idea but for the wrong reasons. Having a person whose sole job is to play devil's advocate on every idea can help minimize the risks of group think. Often truly bad ideas are not a mystery, plenty of people on the ground level of a company think they are bad ideas but also know that speaking out will hurt them politically within the company. There is nothing a company can do to prevent this feeling, it's a natural part of human behavior. Having someone who does nothing but question and criticize might give these voices a safe channel from which to express their perspective, preventing bad ideas from moving forward in good companies.

smacktoward• 14 years ago

I would argue it wouldn't help that much, because the rest of the group would quickly start ignoring the designated devil's advocate's feedback. "Oh, don't mind him, he's just saying that because it's his job."

Not that they wouldn't sit there and politely listen, of course (especially if he's a C-level exec), but unless he had some actual authority over the people he's advising they're not likely to think about what they hear.

jerf• 14 years ago

While I applaud your backhanded complimenting of the article by your assertion that it could and should be the focus of at least two PhD dissertations and possibly a 300+ page book, I would suggest at the same time that perhaps you might be setting the bar a bit high here.

I mean, take as an example your own message, in which you simply fling a few trite accusations at the author without, yourself, doing any work to substantiate or expand on them. Perhaps you would consider extending the privilege you so freely used to others.

robot• 14 years ago

its the job of the founders and management

jaynate• 14 years ago

+1 and management should create a culture where enthusiastic individuals have a safe environment to voice and test their ideas. Management across the board also has to know and drive the business strategy which should involve killing ideas at times.

I can't imagine a large company with one person, the "CDO" all-knowing enough to govern all ideas within the company. Even the best entrepreneurs bet on bad ideas and disregard great ideas at times. Everyone should scrutinize ideas and collaborate on the decent ones to make them better.

We should aim to create a sustainable engine of innovation fueled by great people up and down the ranks rather than a role.

rexreed3• 14 years ago

and/or the role of the board of directors or advisors. I'd prefer advisors who provided third-party, objective feedback and dissent if necessary rather than passive observers who are only interested in the positive outcomes of the company.

danso2• 14 years ago

When I first saw the OP title, I immediately thought Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow" in which he describes the "pre-mortem" process, in which doubt and dissent are rewarded, rather than seen as joy-kills: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-24/bias-blindness-and-...

>> Klein’s proposal, which he calls the “premortem,” is simple: When the organization has almost come to an important decision but hasn’t committed itself, it should gather a group of people knowledgeable about the decision to listen to a brief speech: “Imagine that we are a year into the future. We implemented the plan as it now exists. The outcome has been a disaster. Please take 5 to 10 minutes to write a brief history of that disaster.” As a team converges on a decision, public doubts about the wisdom of the planned move are gradually suppressed and eventually come to be treated as evidence of flawed loyalty. The suppression of doubt contributes to overconfidence in a group where only supporters of the decision have a voice. The main virtue of the premortem is that it legitimizes doubts. Furthermore, it encourages even supporters of the decision to search for possible threats not considered earlier. The premortem isn’t a panacea and doesn’t provide complete protection against nasty surprises, but it goes some way toward reducing the damage of plans that are subject to the biases of uncritical optimism.

harryf• 14 years ago

As they say: no one welcomes the doom monger predicting disaster and every loves the hero that cleans up the mess when disaster happens. Human condition

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

I like Klein's proposal. Too often dissent is seen as 'trouble making' and put into a different category from leadership. I always wonder what is really going on if someone putting forward an idea is made more nervous by people asking questions rather than enjoying the opportunity to explain more.

barce• 14 years ago

Lots of things going on. Usually, if it's a small startup not enough time was spent thinking about the idea. In large companies, it's usually the result of an entrenched position where many benefit from that position and feel threatened if questioned.

JoeAltmaier3• 14 years ago

Somebody posted here recently about the a55-hole that should be fired, the senior guy who is negative and disagrees with everyone, the wet blanket.

Then we get this - they should be praised, encouraged. I'm not so sure. Paralysis by Analysis used to be a popular phrase. Sure some kind of brainstorming of negatives is good. But we have to assume we'll overcome obstacles and not be crushed by them.

Back in the day I wanted to rewrite an OS to use a new memory model the i286 supported. I surveyed the code and presented the action list. Project never got off the ground - too much work.

Another senior Engineer took a different tack - he just started coding in his office. In 6 months he had recruited others to his effort, gotten funding, and completed the project. All because he didn't show people the obstacles, instead he promoted the advantages.

I think optimism is the reason we do anything.

amalcon• 14 years ago

But we have to assume we'll overcome obstacles and not be crushed by them.

There's a big difference between not letting knowledge of obstacles deter us and assuming we'll overcome them. The former is very important, for just the reasons you state. The latter effectively ensures that we will not overcome said obstacles, because we won't have effective plans to do so.

jodrellblank• 14 years ago

Relying on a company with enough slack to have senior engineers who can dedicate 6 months to a whim project and spare people to recruit in, seems not ideal.

And the IT world is rife with unfinished, unsuccessful projects and people building themselves into corners. Your anecdote worked for your employer, but there are plenty of stories about "just started coding" leading to "big tangle of unmaintainable insecure slow messy code full o' bugs".

munyukim• 14 years ago

The idea of killing bad ideas might save a company from wasted resources and effort, but one would need to exercise caution or end up discouraging innovation. One would need to communicate effectively and subtly about the reasons why an idea is not good enough.

mef• 14 years ago

While this role is most definitely necessary, I've found it's no fun to be that person, even when others value the dissent.

I've voluntarily taken on this role in the past when I've joined a company or project where nobody else was shooting down bad ideas or playing devil's advocate. After a while it feels like you're always on defense while others are bringing ideas to the table.

But of course those are minor issues when the alternative is every crazy idea making it past the filter, and someone's got to do it.

briandoll• 14 years ago

The fatal flaw both in a "chief culture officer" and a "chief dissent officer" is the assumption that this is one person's job, who sits on high, vs. being _everyone's_ job.

A job title with "culture" in it doth not a culture make.

stock_toaster• 14 years ago

There is of course merit in everyone doing critical thinking, certainly. I don't think one obviates the other.

I do think having someone who is culturally allowed to put on the breaks and/or seek clarification about potential bad ideas is also worthwhile, for a couple of reasons I can see right off the bat:

1. It may reduce the 'bystander effect'[1].

2. It may reduce the negative emotional impact of naysaying a popular idea from inside the group that delivers it (subconscious social pressure impact).

The role could of course be abused and become yet another abusive fiefdom, but I think that just makes choosing the right person for the role more important.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect#Taking_respon...

goodcanadian• 14 years ago

Personally, I would not create positions with those titles, but:

By creating the positions, you are sending a message to your employees that dissent is OK, or that thinking about culture is important. Further, you have an executive level person whose job it is to look for and remove barriers to dissent within your company, or to institute programs to make sure your employees are thinking about culture.

Alex3917• 14 years ago

I've thought about offering devil's advocate consulting services for a while. Not sure how popular this sort of thing would actually be though, because in general people don't like being told they're wrong even if it benefits them.

jff• 14 years ago

CDO: The guy getting all the worst performance reviews, because when he successfully turns the company away from a bad decision there's no real proof of it. Yeah, maybe he just saved $20 million from being dumped in a rathole, but we'll never know.

Zimahl• 14 years ago

As someone who was a non-appointed CDO at a company (only because no one else had the backbone to say no) my performance reviews were fine. However, it's a thankless job because it needs to be done and the higher-ups expect someone to do it.

You just better have thick skin if you take on this role. People don't like having their projects questioned and even if you understand the project you just don't understand.

projectileboy• 14 years ago

Interesting and possibly very dangerous idea. The devil's in the details - namely, who is the CDO, and what do they have the power to do? Steve Jobs as the CDO could make a powerful company; Carly Fiorina as CDO will drive you off a cliff.

dredmorbius• 14 years ago

Everything old is new again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate#Origin

stretchwithme• 14 years ago

Out in the larger world, when we come across a bad idea, we avoid getting involved.

Give people choice about what they work on. And who they work with. Bad ideas will have a more difficult time.

Yes, some people will pick fashionable projects and people to work with. And they will learn from these experiences.

And you can gradually increase choice as people gain knowledge. Let people fail small and you get smarter people making better choices later.

Eliezer• 14 years ago

The Center for Applied Rationality's in-practice corporate culture, by virtue of literally every person in the building being an explicit rationalist, has an even more powerful and valuable property - people know they won't be punished for changing their minds or admitting they were wrong. Plus you can say "Value of information!" to justify trying-at-least-once something that most people think won't work, since nobody's going to stick to it due to the sunk cost fallacy afterward.

Despite everything I knew in theory about the virtue of being able to change one's mind, including having written a major blog post Sequence about it, my ability to do so in practice took a substantial leap after the Center for Applied Rationality came together, I spent a lot of time coworking with some of the people, and my monkey brain got to see that other people actually were implementing that thing I'd written about where people were allowed to change their minds, and they were getting high-fives and not being punished for it.

nico• 14 years ago

Since you cannot predict the future, supporting or contradicting ideas/projects blindly is very dangerous.

In spite of the above, I think there's value to someone who opposes new ideas/projects, but only in a very directed and specific way: to stay focused.

I've seen many startups get really distracted with side projects and non important stuff, this is incredibly dangerous to the company, so having some sort of system to minimize distractions could be something very valuable.

rexreed3• 14 years ago

In a functional company / organization, isn't this supposed to be the role of a constructive/ functional board of directors or board of advisors, assuming that they meet with regularity or are involved in more of the decision-vetting process?

johnrgrace• 14 years ago

Having been the guy creating the powerpoints to spoonfeed to the board for a fortune 500 company, I'm going to say in the large public companies the C level people try and keep the board as far away from constructive input. Being the guy who has pointed out that something may be deeply flawed let me tell you this is not a good way to advance your career.

rexreed3• 14 years ago

Of course, that is how the majority (if not practically all) of boards work. I'm just suggesting that it SHOULD be the role of a board to provide constructive feedback to management, especially when things are not going well.

As it stands, most boards are simply the representation of investor interests, quite divorced from company and management interests, which just makes the problem of getting help when things are not going well even worse. Without a functional inside team providing constructive criticism or a functional outside team providing advice and constructive feedback, then it's difficult for companies of any size to get any realistic feedback at all.

It takes a powerful, charismatic CEO who both the board and employees respect in order for critical and dissenting views to be delivered without someone's head getting cut off. (basically, Steve Jobs and a scant few others).

Your Company Needs A Chief Dissent Officer

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