Differing Opinions on a Management Team

A good thing came out of my "no conflict, no interest" post.

It inspired a post from Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path, on the desirability of conflicting opinions on a management team.

Matt says:

A management team that finds itself 100% in agreement, 100% of the time, is in trouble.  A management team that can have disagreements and use that tension productively to drive decisions is much better off. Building such a team requires the CEO to seek out executives who view the world differently, who have the courage to speak their minds in the face of strong opposition, and who have the ability to see different points of view.

I am pleased to read this coming from one of our portfolio companies because I totally agree that groupthink is a terrible thing. Differing opinions are critical to the process of making good decisions.

One thing about being a board member instead of management team member at these companies is that we often don't get visibility into the differing opinions, just the end result. That's fine for most things, but sometimes it is important for the board to get some insight into the decision making process, including the differing opinions.

The temptation as a CEO is to have the debate internally but once a decision is made to present it as a unanimous decision that everyone is enthusiastically supporting. If it is an important decision and there is a lot of internal debate, I would suggest the CEO give the board a bit of color commentary on the process.

I think it gives the board a better idea of the people on the management team, the way they think, and their ability to come together to make a decision. The CEO has to be careful not to encourage another similar debate at the board level, but I still think the risk is worth it.  And every once in a while a debate at the board level about an important decision is a good thing anyway.

Comments

[Ruchit]

I do totally agree with you and Matt. I have seen atleast one company which headed towards the downfall as the middle level manager dont have courage to speak out their minds....the team broke apart.

[steve]

statements about good or bad management practices are as much about the specific language used (in those statements) as about any truths contained therein

to wit:

is fred referring to "groupthink" or is he instead down on "consensus"

likewise, does Matt really prefer a CEO who "seek[s] out executives who view the world differently, who have the courage to speak their minds in the face of strong opposition, and who have the ability to see different points of view" or will he actually end up with a CEO who has is not a "risk taker" and has little "vision", "leadership" and "charisma"?

i agree with those who say you don't bet on ideas, you bet on people. startups are by definition crazy; in my opinion anyway they need a little crazy headstrong-edness at the top. its obviously true that a bully only hears what he wants to hear, and that's bad for business. but its equally true that leadership is a lonely thing, and risk-takers do not end up handling debate well -- debate amd consensus building almost always results in less risk-taking, not more

[David Thomson]

A book that covers this pretty thoroughly is "Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation":

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743212126/qid=1115155539/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-4839657-0047019?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

What is particularly good about it is that it talks about the scenarios where you want to encourage innovation and those where you don't, and how to manage the process effectively. It doesn't take a either/or approach to innovation, but says that in some cases you want to encourage and sustain it, and in order to do so, you need to create and manage the circumstances that foster it.