Sallyann Della Casa :
This role can result in your organisation improving its chances of innovating, considering all sides of a problem and solution and making the right choice.
Ever heard of the devil’s advocate role? It generally means “a person who expresses a contentious opinion in order to provoke debate or test the strength of the opposing arguments.”
Many organisations, to foster creative thinking (which results in innovative doing) rotate the role of Devil’s Advocate before an important decision is made. Why?
This role can result in your organisation improving its chances of innovating, considering all sides of a problem and solution and making the right choice. In fact, many law firms have a long-running tradition of pre-trying cases or testing arguments with the equivalent of a devil’s advocate. In very important cases, law firms pay attorneys from a separate firm to develop and present a case against them. The method is especially effective in the legal world. A huge benefit of this process is that it helps everyone understand the weaknesses of their side of a case, often leading to avoiding the devastating costs of losing.
Also consider the research of Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibony who sought to answer whether business decisions were good or poor through the analysis of more than 1,000 real-world business decisions made over a five-year period. The research distinguished between a team’s process for making a decision and the analysis that informed the particular decision. What Lovallo and Sibony found was that “superb analysis is useless unless the decision process gives it a fair hearing.” Very scary, right, when you think about the investment going on in R&D for your next big innovation?
But look closer around you. Your organisation is probably fraught with the following, which holds back the potential for innovation to happen fluidly:
>Group think: This occurs when a group of people get together and start to think collectively with one mind. Nobody wants to “rock the boat” to maintain unity. As a result, there is no objective evaluating of situations, alternatives and options. Groupthink clogs individual thought, and innovation is the casualty. The end result is that your organisation fails to see or respond to market trends.
>Confirmation Bias: It is human tendency to search for, favour, and use information that confirms our pre-existing views on a certain topic. Confirmation bias is dangerous and leads to flawed decision-making. Just imagine the head of your department having an idea for the “next big thing” directs you to conduct market research to explore its feasibility. You then spend all your time conducting surveys, focus groups, and competitive analyses with this in mind. This is confirmation bias in action. First, the person directing you is using market research as a sham to confirm his preconceived beliefs. Data is not doing the talking since you are looking for info that supports the idea. Before you know it, the company is launching into the product development process, knowing this is what the manager wants. The questions crafted for research will likely be biased. Are you guilty of being a party to this?
False Consensus: This is our tendency to think other people are just like us and basically agree with us and see things our way. After all, how can anyone not think Trump winning the Presidency is not a disaster for the world? This is the False Consensus Effect and clearly we are terrible at predicting the behaviour of others. You can see how this can impact innovation and decision making about it in all the wrong ways.
So now that I have you seriously thinking about the “undercover” neurological factors that are stifling innovation in your organisations, can you see why the devil’s advocate role is key?
However, for the devil’s advocate to be effective, he or she must remember:
Questions should be razor sharp.
All perspectives should be considered.
Comparable scenarios that refute the original claim must be part of the process.
Hypothetical situations to clarify issues can be constructed
Alternative explanations or solutions to problems is allowed
To realise true innovation using the devil’s advocate role, the real devil is in the details.
(Sallyann Della Casa delivers 21st century skills through her edu-tech app, GLEAC)
