I thought about this today as I reflected on decision making related to areas of best practice. I know that in some groups I work with, people are afraid to share their ideas, disagreement, and decisions for fear of repercussions or due to a spirit of overriding competition rather than collaboration. The sorry part of that is that everyone loses out on those people's great ideas and efforts. If everyone had the chance to hear those individuals' amazing ideas, rationale, efforts, and results, everyone's practice profits.
Some, however, don't share because they recognize that too much share can be defeating and overwhelming. They may feel that everyone already knows what they know or that, if they share, people will think of them as know-it-alls. These are all valid conclusions, and when organizations make decisions about share, they have to consider these factors.
So what is good share? What should cultures do to encourage respectful disagreement, debate, and decision making in ways that support best practice?
First, it's essential that any culture think deeply about their overall mission and goals. Cultures that prioritize and make explicit their overarching mission foster better collaboration. Of course, there needs to be some play with this mission--too tight mission statements or objectives work against cultural cohesion rather than for it.
Next, I believe that cultures do better if they break down into teams. When there's a too tight hierarchy and too many people working in isolation rather than collaboration, there's less room for positive disagreement, debate, and decision making. In cultures that work with a team structure, then a lot of the rich discussion and decision making happens at the team level where due to numbers, time, and proximity there's a greater opportunity for relationship building, shared creativity, and good collaborative work.
Then, I think that a simple list of share protocols serves organizations well. Those protocols should be scaffolded in ways so that the most important information is not missed, but information of interest to some, detailed information, and less urgent information is moved to channels available to those interested and impacted, but not all. In a sense, a less urgent information is relegated to "read-if-you-want" channels. Protocols should also list advantageous share suggestions such as the following:
- no profanity
- respectful language
- generalize rather than individualize or personalize
- use names only with permission of those named
I'm sure there's more that could be added to that list.
I will continue to think on this subject, however, I know it's imperative for organizations that aim to do good work to welcome open and respectful disagreement, debate, and decision making. This matters when it comes to doing the best work possible. What would you add to this discussion?
