Gauri Chhabra
Ira Singhal, who emerged first in the Civil Services Examination is one of the first physically challenged woman to top the Civil services examination in the general category. She suffers from Scoliosis, a spine related disorder, which disrupts arm movements. She becomes an epitome of the grit and determination needed to overcome the dire circumstances.
Very often we come across teachers in schools predicting like sooth sayers- “You could not learn even 5 questions? You will never succeed in life. This won’t work”. Thus, students are labelled as failures,slowlearners or euphemistically speaking- differently abled.
Life weaves a story from the college to the corporate. The negative soothsayers in the school are replaced by devil’s advocates in the office. At our work place,we may have a person who is always thinking of “How things won’t work”?
Does your company have a senior person who is legendary for saying, “No, it will never work.” If yes, he is the soothsayer we are talking about.
Characteristics of a soothsayer:
Every company has a soothsayer or a devil’s advocate. He can be in the form of your boss who wants to walk away with your credit or just a negative person who eyes all innovation as evil. Typically, he has been with the company for a long span of time. He knows more about industry norms, the company’s intellectual property, your IT capabilities, what legal will and will NOT go for, interoffice politics, and the CEO’s family than anyone in the building.And, unfortunately for you, good old soothsayer can effortlessly-and with absolutely no malice intended-recite four to six reasons why your idea won’t fly. He’ll tick down a veto list that may include chemical theory, legal compliance, union issues, patent law, a research and two similar ideas that failed in the past.
He often hangs his hat in R&D, but sometimes he’s in IT, legal or operations. Everyone loves him. He’s charming, always willing to provide a bit of historical perspective, remembers everyone’s birthday, and is willing to lend a hand-as long as your initiative doesn’t put the status quo at risk.And at times, everyone also hates him because at a brainstorming session he is, unwittingly, at his worst. If you want innovation, he is your proverbial skunk at the proverbial church picnic.
He will sit with his arms folded and jaw clenched and wince at just about every idea. He’ll often say things like “I am trying to be really open minded here, but let me be the devil’s advocate” and eventually the air will leave the room as he explains in detail why the idea in question won’t work.
His heart might be pure. He isn’t objecting for the sake of objecting. In his mind, “somebody has to save the company from these crazy Idea Monkeys,” and that somebody is him. Odds are, he is the most feared and revered person in the organization. He doesn’t know it, but he is often singlehandedly keeping your company from moving forward.
Winning over the soothsayer:
Learn to manage-not fall victim to-this type of person. So how do you contend with this well-meaning soothsayer in a way that leverages his wealth of knowledge without demotivating your team? Here are some techniques to win over a soothsayer:
Stop denying that you have problem.
A while back, my firm was asked by a retailer to come up with new things it could offer that would be consistent with the brand yet boost margins. During the kickoff meeting, it became apparent that there was a high-ranking soothsayer on the leadership team, but the CEO assured us she could control him and that we should not modify our process in any way to accommodate him.
Fatal mistake. At seemingly every turn, he found a reason why things did not work. Despite nudges, begging, sucking up and private conversations, nobody could keep him from “helping” things stay off track. It was brutal. Ideas were dismissed before they got enough attention to make them viable. Don’t think rank alone will quell the righteous might of him. If you have a soothsayer working with you, the first step is to acknowledge he is there and is not going away.
Play by the devil’s rules:
To be successful, an innovative idea must meet the criteria of company leadership. If you have a soothsayer, he qualifies as company leadership. In fact, his voice may be more powerful than the CEO’s since oftentimes the CEO will check in with him on all major initiatives.Make sure you go and get an extensive list of criteria from him. What qualifies as a good idea? What technical challenges must we overcome? What operational hurdles are deal breakers?
The more rules the merrier. Allowing him to set some-and agree to almost all-success criteria enables you to neutralize him. You can show him that you are creating and eliminating ideas based on his wishes. He can take credit for the ideas since his criteria are helping to shape them. If he likes setting rules, let him.
Bring in expert advice:
Your challenge is that he knows more than you. But his challenge is that he is “in the jar.” The way he thinks about new ideas is constrained by the corporate container he finds himself working within. And unfortunately, his own expertise is keeping him and everyone else from realizing the possibilities all around him. You must fight fire with fire. As part of your innovation process, bring in outside experts-people he will recognize as peers-from parallel industries.
What’s a parallel industry? One that does the same thing you do but is in no way competitive. For example, hospitals often look to the hospitality industry for expertise.
You might expect him to be offended or feel challenged by the import of outside expertise; my experience has been that these outside experts, and what they have to offer, are liberating for him. He doesn’t feel threatened because these experts aren’t directly in his field, and he loves learning about anything that could come to bear on “his” company.
Move from ‘can’t to can’:
Moving from ‘cannot to can’ involves giving the devil’s advocate an opportunity to work alone with the outside experts. For one thing, this appeals to his ego. And for another, if there are only peers in the room, communication tends to be easier and more candid. These outside experts can help him by challenging his prejudices. During a recent project, we had a devil’s advocate constantly uttering the four-letter word “can’t” regarding a wish an innovation team had. They wanted to allow consumers to be able to build their own online solutions, using company-provided resources. The soothsayer was convinced it was an impossible IT and legal challenge. It was only when a former IT executive from a large investment firm showed him how he had met a similar challenge five years earlier that he got on board.
So, when it comes from a third party, an idea may appeal to the soothsayer.
The next time someone says,” Let me play devil’s advocate,” tell them, “No thanks, but I would like your participation in studying the idea.” And should you be tempted to play devil’s advocate or the soothsayer and rip away at a fresh idea, stop…right here…
You have to challenge the soothsayer, not be him…
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