The Hindu Business Line : Make space for insultants who ask tough questions

An ‘insultant’ is someone willing to ask the tough questions that cause a company to think critically about its fundamental assumptions, defines Keith R. McFarland in The Breakthrough Company (www.landmarkonthenet.com).

People defer to authority or rank because they assume that person, the person in authority, is likely to have more information or clearer perspective, says McFarland. The assumption, alas, is often incorrect. More worryingly, authority figures may, in fact, be wrong; if an organisation doesn’t have a strong insultant culture, errors are likely to be propagated throughout the company, cautions McFarland.

Not unusually, candour tends to flee authority, with the result that the CEO shouldn’t be surprised at receiving ‘filtered or packaged information that emphasises good news and camouflages the bad.’ That good news rises and bad news sinks like a rock is an insightful quote of Polaris Industries CEO Tom Tiller.

Insulants can be a company’s insurance against the common twin traps of myopia and inertia, advises McFarland, citing a research by MIT Sloan Business School. “Myopic executives tend to focus more on fighting fires and tackling projects close to home, and forget to watch for tectonic changes reshaping the industry. Similarly, executives suffering from inertia fail to take advantage of new opportunities, choosing instead to stand pat in familiar markets.”

Thiruvalluvar, the Tamil poet-saint who lived more than two millennia ago, offers a similar thought in when saying, ’Idipparai illada yemaara mannan keduppar ilanunkedum.’ Means, the careless king whom none reproves ruins himself sans harmful foes.

Bucking the system are the insultants, who are masters at getting their ideas heard, without insulting anyone! “They work quietly within existing systems to get the organisation to question its assumptions and change its thinking.”

To be effective, an insultant should be empathetic, assertive and persistent, says McFarland’s style guide. “The most powerful tool in the insultant’s arsenal is the question – and knowing how to ask the right question at the right time.”

Don’t fall in love with your own solution to a problem, he counsels wannabe insultants. Rather, work to make sure that the problem is discussed by as many people as is feasible. “An insultant’s job is to make sure an issue gets a thorough vetting, not to convince everyone to see the world his or her way.”

Breakthrough companies create an environment where insultants flourish, observes the author. His directives are: Celebrate productive failure, give people enough information to be good insultants, focus on defectors, and don’t lose your sense of humour.

“If your employees are afraid to fail, or are punished when they do, you can bet you aren’t breeding any insultants in your company,” says McFarland. “If people stop questioning the status quo, the company’s gears of learning will seize up.”

Running operations on a need-to-know basis can limit the growth of insultants, he warns. “If the only information people receive is that which relates to their functional silo, they’ll never develop a 360-degree understanding of what the business is trying to accomplish.”

Customers and employees who walk out the door can be a valuable source of insultant insight, finds McFarland. “These people are natural insultants. They have little reason not to tell you the truth. They may, in fact, tell you things you might have been reluctant to consider otherwise.”

Far from being a laughing matter, a culture of humour in companies can help ‘embrace new ideas and modes of thinking more readily than their more serious counterparts.’ Humour, says McFarland, can be a fuel to an insultant-friendly atmosphere, as team members, in general, tend to be less defensive and more productive.

“A good laugh sends a reassuring message: We’re on the same wavelength, we get along,” reads an apt quote in the book from Daniel Goleman’s ‘Primal Leadership.’

Hard truths that would be too risky to ignore.

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