Who Says No to You?

Last week the CEO of McDonald's posted himself tasting his own burger and called it 'product' in a video gone viral for all the wrong reasons. Three million people watched. His team didn't save him from himself. Would yours save you from you?

No one asks for sycophancy. But your team reads subtle signals you don't know you're sending to detect what you actually want. Do you want frictionlessness in a meeting, or honesty? Do you only say you want honesty?

The risk: the people around you become very good at building impressive ladders against the wrong walls because they think you like those walls.

The degree to which your team will challenge you and the form that challenge takes falls into three tiers.

Tier 1 is polite stress testing. Gentle. Questions like "have you considered this potential issue?" It melts fast.

Diagnostic: you can't remember the last time your team took you somewhere you didn't know to go, or didn't want to go. Go back through your last six months of decisions. Can you find any examples of big impacts to the business that can't be traced back to you and your ideas? Or are your finger prints over expressed?

Tier 2 is persistent polite stress testing. The team repeats their polite caution. They don't escalate. But they don't let it go as fast as Tier 1. This can be a good sign. They're testing whether they can trust you with something harder.

This is an unstable zone. The team won't stay here for long. They're either going to progress to Tier 3 with you or relapse to Tier 1 forever.

Here's what you do: Ask them to red-team the idea in earnest. "If you had to puncture this, how would you?" Or: "Imagine someone in your position who owes this organization and me nothing. What might they say that we haven't said yet?"

Your nonverbals will now determine what happens next. A subtle downward shift in your energy, attention or positivity means a relapse to Tier 1 for good. If your posture, presence and stance stay open or opens further? Then you get to move to Tier 3, and maybe stay there forever.

Tier 3 is unedited stress testing. The politeness artifice is gone — which doesn't mean it's impolite. It means substance is the governor. Big things are said sooner, more simply, in shorter form. They're not rude, disrespectful or aggressive. The author of the idea doesn't matter. The team are no longer regulating for status of the idea's author. They're just scrumming on strategy to try to win at the businesses goals.

Tier 3 means the team wants the organization to win more than they want to humour you in a meeting.

At Tier 3, the team can also hold tension, debate through it, and commit when the decision window closes. For Tier 3 teams, "commit" doesn't changing what they believe. It means they know deliberation has ended and execution has begun.

That distinction matters. Ask a team to commit to changing their views and you'll drop back to Tier 2, or all the way to Tier 1. Acknowledge the variety of differing view points, name what you heard, own the direction, and let their perspective stand. "I know we see this differently. I've heard a, b, and c. I ask that we go with b. I own this choice. Let's identify the first signal that will tell us whether it's working, borderline or not working."

Tier 3 is what you want. Although you may not like how it feels at the start. Lean in. It will be worth it.

The counter-argument most leaders reach for: "My team debates things. We're pretty open." Maybe. The test isn't whether debates happen. The test isn't whether something that looks like debate is happening.

The test is: in the last six months, did your team take you somewhere you didn't know to go? Did they change a decision you'd already made? Did they surface something you would have missed entirely?

If you can't name it, you have your answer.

The people around the McDonald's CEO apparently didn't save him from himself. Three million people watched the cringe. Are the people around you humouring you or going for it with you?

— C

Running this kind of analysis is harder alone. I work with groups of 7–12 CEOs, Founders and Owners who do it together. See my contact info if you're interested.