Hopefully, the title got your attention and can’t wait to find out why anyone would possibly want to empower their organization to push back. After all, isn’t the whole point to get everyone working together, moving in the same direction, striving to meet the organization’s goals? Well, yes, but the journey to get there requires that the organization be fully empowered and actually encouraged to push back. And by this I am not just referring to some lip service about how your organization wants people to feel free to give feedback on the intranet, or to their manager. I am talking about building a culture where teams thrive on creating positive, constructive tension as they work to solve problems, find new opportunities, and create objectives and goals that are achievable and profitable.

Defining “Push Back”
First, I want to define what I don’t mean by “push back.” I am not talking about anarchy in the workplace. I am not talking about employees just being disagreeable, disrespectful, or stubborn, or challenging any and every decision or any and every idea. I am also not talking about knowingly inviting people to whine and complain. I am also not suggesting that anyone disregard that there are people in leadership positions that have the final say in decisions. The kind of “push back” that I am writing about would include:

  • asking questions
  • probing and challenging ideas presented to test their veracity or better understand the intuition or logic behind ideas
  • offering alternative ideas and debating the value or one vs. the other
  • thinking critically about the long-term consequences or possible side-effects of decisions
  • or other forms of creating dialog that explores ideas or decisions

Desiring Push Back
Is this kind of push back something you want? Perhaps a better question is, “Does inviting push back help create better ideas or make better decisions, and also strengthen your team as a working unit?” Desiring push back and inviting team members to do so creates many positives. You likely end up with better ideas. You give voice to those on your team. You reinforce that team members are equally valued as contributors. You hear different perspectives on issues. You are forced to challenge your own thinking, and thus, challenge assumptions, bias, and possibly unknown misconceptions that may have influenced the ideas. Do these sound like positive, worthy outcomes?

Invite Push Back
Would many employees express a fear of speaking up today to share their opinion or to offer, to express concern with an idea presented, or to offer a new idea? If so, you definitely will need to spend time “inviting” push back and also will need to spend time mentoring other leaders to do the same. What are some tips that allow you to invite feedback?

  • Start meetings with an open invitation for all to participate and challenge ideas.
  • Ask questions that are open ended and give people the opportunity to explore ideas – questions like, “What are some of the positive outcomes of this approach/solution and some of the possible unintended consequences you may see as a result of such actions?,” or “Do you have ideas that could improve on this?.” or “Are there possible faults in the logic behind this thinking and what might they be?”
  • You can also purposefully lead discussions that walk people through your thinking, forcing you to perhaps describe steps that were more intuitive to you, but not as obvious to the group. This gives them a chance to catch up on the thinking and examine the logic with you.
  • You can schedule meetings for the sole purpose of discussing processes, solutions, or thinking that team members believe need to be reexamined or changed and ask them to be prepared to present their topic and reasoning for discussion by the group.

Most importantly, let people know that you want and value their input. Your team certainly needs to recognize that you are the leader; however, you can make conscious efforts to ensure that they believe that everyone is equal in the value of their contribution of ideas and everyone has the right to question, probe, and shape great thinking by pushing back.

Push Back that Creates Constructive Tension
The goal of encouraging and inviting push back is to create real constructive tension when collaborating on ideas. This is quite opposite from the type of tension that one normally thinks about relating to disagreements or those coercive types of “this is the way it’s going to be” meetings. Constructive tension is a positive result of sharing ideas, challenging the thinking behind those ideas, exploring positive and negative outcomes, systemic thinking about the larger picture and the short-term needs, and the wonderful mix of thinking styles and perspectives of those collaborating. This constructive tension works like the power of a stone used to sharpen a blade, rough at times, abrasive in terms of the clashing of views, but sharpening the end product by virtue of the process.

Without this process, an organization must rely on the ability of a few generally to have intuitive prowess to generate great ideas, or unfortunately run the risk of the more common business outcome – good ideas that could have been great, ideas or decisions made that have blind-spots due to the lack of challenge, or ideas that are primarily hunches that fall short due to the lack of critical thinking. Every business has a few people that come and go that can singularly make a big difference with their insights, experience, and vision. However, all businesses have the potential of consistently generating better ideas through the power of push back, generating true critical thinking.