In 1996, an attempt was made to climb Mt. Everest, led by 2 experienced mountaineers, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. Along with them were several guides and 8 paying clients. Many of the members actually reached the summit on May 10th. But on the descent they encountered grave danger. In fact, 5 of them including Rob Hall and Scott Fischer perished as they tried to descend the mountain during a storm.
That’s a tragedy, isn’t it, to be able to scale Mt. Everest and then perish on the way down. Many people have tried to analyze what happened and have come up with a whole lot of reasons as to why this tragedy occurred. One of the reasons was that the group ignored a critical decision rule that was created to protect them against the dangers of coming down after nightfall. Typically their final push to the summit began from a camp located at an altitude of about 26,000 feet. From that point they would climb through the night hoping to reach the summit by midday. Then they would scramble down back to camp hoping to reach the safety of their tents before sunset. This tight 18 hour schedule left very little room for error and if climbers fell behind during ascent, they would face an extremely perilous night-time descent. And yet this group was descending during the night and lost 5 people including the 2 highly talented leaders.
What happened? They broke one of the rules that they themselves had created; what they called the two o’clock rule. Scott Fischer himself had said, “When it becomes clear that a climber cannot reach the top by 2 o’clock in the afternoon, that individual should abandon his summit bid and head back to the safety of the camp.”
That was the rule that was set in place to make sure that nobody began the descent in the night. And yet, from reports that were put together by those who survived, none of the team reached the summit before 2, including the leaders. All of them reached after the 2 o’clock deadline, but none of them called off their descent. They went up and when they began the descent well past midnight, they were enveloped in a blizzard that claimed 5 lives.
The questions asked were; “Why did the climbers ignore the 2 o’clock rule? Why didn’t anybody say anything? Everybody must have been aware that it was well past two, but why didn’t someone say that they should stop?” But nobody did.
What they found out was that Rob Hall was an authoritarian leader and one of the statements he consistently made with the team was, “I will tolerate no dissension up there. My word will be absolute law, beyond appeal.”
And in that statement, everybody on the team kept quiet to the obvious peril that was there in making the climb after 2 and then coming back well past midnight. And 5 people lost their lives.
Reading that story I thought that on one hand, you need to be able to take authority and leadership. You need to be able to know what you are doing and communicate it to the men and women who follow you and need to know that you are a decision making leader. And yet at the same time, is there room in your leadership style for dissent?
Michael A. Roberto says, “Leadership is more than getting others to do your bidding. True leadership requires that you listen to others and understand (even if you don’t agree with them) those who criticize your ideas.”
Cyrus the Great said, “Diversity in counsel; unity in command.” In all the counsel before a decision is made, do you give the freedom for diverse opinions and perspectives? And yet are you able to have unity as you lead them forward, have consensus in decision-making?
Do you have room in your leadership style for people to tell you the truth? How often have you looked people straight in the eye and said, “Hey, give me a straight answer. I need to know the truth.”?
I was intrigued by what happened in India’s match against Ireland. I don’t know how many cricket fans I have on this call; if you are not a cricket fan, I beg your indulgence. There was a place in this match with Ireland where this rookie spinner, Dockrel, who wasn’t even born when Tendulkar played his first World Cup match, bowled a ball right into the stump. Tendulkar went for the sweep, missed it and it hit his back leg. The umpire had no hesitation in giving him out. Now you know that in this World Cup, we have UDRS (Umpire Decision Review System). So Tendulkar walked up to Virat Kohli at the other end and he said “What do you think? Should we appeal?” All the commentators were commenting on what a situation Virat Kohli had found himself in. he was 36 days old when Tendulkar made his debut. And now Tendulkar was asking him, “Tell me, should we ask for the review or not?” And every commentator was saying, “What a situation to find yourself in! What do you tell this great man? ‘I don’t know, I didn’t see it right. Why don’t you go ahead and ask for it?’ “. And then they would have lost one review.
One commentator asked Kohli at the end of the match what he replied and he said, “I told him it was going to hit middle and leg. That’s what I thought.” For Tendulkar that was enough. He turned and walked away.
That’s an interesting aspect of Tendulkar, that he had enough room in spite of who he was, to be able to take an answer that was detrimental to him staying at the crease, not getting another 100, not making a big score and walk away, from somebody so young who was able to tell him straight.
What about you my friends? Is there room in your style for people to speak the truth to you?
Michael Roberto wrote the book ‘Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes for an Answer: the Leadership Challenge’. He says “How does one foster conflict and dissent to enhance decision quality while simultaneously building the consensus required to implement decisions effectively?” In short, how does one achieve diversity in counsel and unity in command?
That’s the big question. How do you make sure that in your gathering of information, there is enough information that doesn’t only come from people who tell you what you want to hear? And yet, after hearing dissentful defecting voices, how do you build the consensus required to implement the decision effectively; to have everybody come on board and back the decision over and above their dissenting voices.
He says, “This kind of decisions making involves 2 things: cognitive conflict and affective conflict. Leaders need to be able to discern what good cognitive conflict is and when it is crossing the line to affective conflict. Cognitive conflict stays in the realm of thoughts and ideas and perspectives and leaders accept them as they come. Affective conflict on the other hand, is viewed more as criticism, as personal, and when that happens, the lines get blurred and decision making becomes very difficult.”
I think as managers, as people who lead, you have these kinds of situations that you come up with everyday. What do you do when you need all the information that you can get to be able to make a good decision? How are you able to decipher between what is good cognitive conflict or task-oriented disagreement and affective conflict or individual-oriented disagreement arising from personal disaffection.
That’s the line, a blurred line, a difficult line that exists, but one that you need to understand very clearly to be able to be a good leader. “Diversity in counsel and yet unity in command” as Cyrus the Great would say.
All managers and leaders find it difficult to reconcile different divergent views. In an age where concerns are so important, how do we leave room for wise dissenting voices? In an age where consensus is so important, do you, my friends, leave room for wise dissenting voices?
That’s my question for you and for me this morning. I pray that God would give us wisdom as we walk that thin line.
That’s a tragedy, isn’t it, to be able to scale Mt. Everest and then perish on the way down. Many people have tried to analyze what happened and have come up with a whole lot of reasons as to why this tragedy occurred. One of the reasons was that the group ignored a critical decision rule that was created to protect them against the dangers of coming down after nightfall. Typically their final push to the summit began from a camp located at an altitude of about 26,000 feet. From that point they would climb through the night hoping to reach the summit by midday. Then they would scramble down back to camp hoping to reach the safety of their tents before sunset. This tight 18 hour schedule left very little room for error and if climbers fell behind during ascent, they would face an extremely perilous night-time descent. And yet this group was descending during the night and lost 5 people including the 2 highly talented leaders.
What happened? They broke one of the rules that they themselves had created; what they called the two o’clock rule. Scott Fischer himself had said, “When it becomes clear that a climber cannot reach the top by 2 o’clock in the afternoon, that individual should abandon his summit bid and head back to the safety of the camp.”
That was the rule that was set in place to make sure that nobody began the descent in the night. And yet, from reports that were put together by those who survived, none of the team reached the summit before 2, including the leaders. All of them reached after the 2 o’clock deadline, but none of them called off their descent. They went up and when they began the descent well past midnight, they were enveloped in a blizzard that claimed 5 lives.
The questions asked were; “Why did the climbers ignore the 2 o’clock rule? Why didn’t anybody say anything? Everybody must have been aware that it was well past two, but why didn’t someone say that they should stop?” But nobody did.
What they found out was that Rob Hall was an authoritarian leader and one of the statements he consistently made with the team was, “I will tolerate no dissension up there. My word will be absolute law, beyond appeal.”
And in that statement, everybody on the team kept quiet to the obvious peril that was there in making the climb after 2 and then coming back well past midnight. And 5 people lost their lives.
Reading that story I thought that on one hand, you need to be able to take authority and leadership. You need to be able to know what you are doing and communicate it to the men and women who follow you and need to know that you are a decision making leader. And yet at the same time, is there room in your leadership style for dissent?
Michael A. Roberto says, “Leadership is more than getting others to do your bidding. True leadership requires that you listen to others and understand (even if you don’t agree with them) those who criticize your ideas.”
Cyrus the Great said, “Diversity in counsel; unity in command.” In all the counsel before a decision is made, do you give the freedom for diverse opinions and perspectives? And yet are you able to have unity as you lead them forward, have consensus in decision-making?
Do you have room in your leadership style for people to tell you the truth? How often have you looked people straight in the eye and said, “Hey, give me a straight answer. I need to know the truth.”?
I was intrigued by what happened in India’s match against Ireland. I don’t know how many cricket fans I have on this call; if you are not a cricket fan, I beg your indulgence. There was a place in this match with Ireland where this rookie spinner, Dockrel, who wasn’t even born when Tendulkar played his first World Cup match, bowled a ball right into the stump. Tendulkar went for the sweep, missed it and it hit his back leg. The umpire had no hesitation in giving him out. Now you know that in this World Cup, we have UDRS (Umpire Decision Review System). So Tendulkar walked up to Virat Kohli at the other end and he said “What do you think? Should we appeal?” All the commentators were commenting on what a situation Virat Kohli had found himself in. he was 36 days old when Tendulkar made his debut. And now Tendulkar was asking him, “Tell me, should we ask for the review or not?” And every commentator was saying, “What a situation to find yourself in! What do you tell this great man? ‘I don’t know, I didn’t see it right. Why don’t you go ahead and ask for it?’ “. And then they would have lost one review.
One commentator asked Kohli at the end of the match what he replied and he said, “I told him it was going to hit middle and leg. That’s what I thought.” For Tendulkar that was enough. He turned and walked away.
That’s an interesting aspect of Tendulkar, that he had enough room in spite of who he was, to be able to take an answer that was detrimental to him staying at the crease, not getting another 100, not making a big score and walk away, from somebody so young who was able to tell him straight.
What about you my friends? Is there room in your style for people to speak the truth to you?
Michael Roberto wrote the book ‘Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes for an Answer: the Leadership Challenge’. He says “How does one foster conflict and dissent to enhance decision quality while simultaneously building the consensus required to implement decisions effectively?” In short, how does one achieve diversity in counsel and unity in command?
That’s the big question. How do you make sure that in your gathering of information, there is enough information that doesn’t only come from people who tell you what you want to hear? And yet, after hearing dissentful defecting voices, how do you build the consensus required to implement the decision effectively; to have everybody come on board and back the decision over and above their dissenting voices.
He says, “This kind of decisions making involves 2 things: cognitive conflict and affective conflict. Leaders need to be able to discern what good cognitive conflict is and when it is crossing the line to affective conflict. Cognitive conflict stays in the realm of thoughts and ideas and perspectives and leaders accept them as they come. Affective conflict on the other hand, is viewed more as criticism, as personal, and when that happens, the lines get blurred and decision making becomes very difficult.”
I think as managers, as people who lead, you have these kinds of situations that you come up with everyday. What do you do when you need all the information that you can get to be able to make a good decision? How are you able to decipher between what is good cognitive conflict or task-oriented disagreement and affective conflict or individual-oriented disagreement arising from personal disaffection.
That’s the line, a blurred line, a difficult line that exists, but one that you need to understand very clearly to be able to be a good leader. “Diversity in counsel and yet unity in command” as Cyrus the Great would say.
All managers and leaders find it difficult to reconcile different divergent views. In an age where concerns are so important, how do we leave room for wise dissenting voices? In an age where consensus is so important, do you, my friends, leave room for wise dissenting voices?
That’s my question for you and for me this morning. I pray that God would give us wisdom as we walk that thin line.
Thanks so much for the post about my work!
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