Creating the Innovation Culture: Leveraging Visionaries, Dissenters and Other Useful Troublemakers

Chapter 10. Identifying Underground Dissent

It's not lways easy to know whether an organization or unitis getting along well or actually suppressing dissent. On thesurface, both look the same. This chapter gives themanager a test to determine whether there isunderground dissent in the workplace.

Is Silence Consent?

Have you ever been in a meeting where the boss says, "So does anybody disagree?" There is silence. Then he says, "Okay, silence is consent, you know," and proceeds to other business.

We know what happens. Three months later, he's pounding the table, "Why isn't this happening? We discussed it last quarter." People don't say anything, but he's ticked enough to keep pushing. "You, Andy, customers were supposed to get samples. What happened?"

Andy shifts in his chair and looks for support. But everyone's eyesare fixed firmly on the table, so he says, "Well, Brian, the samples—they were kind of tatty. And anyhow, I never thought customers wouldgo for them, even if they were free."

Brian shifts his laser focus to Andrea. "Tatty! How come they were tatty?"

Andrea clears her throat. "Brian...we couldn't get the silk blend the prototype was made of...we had to go with a polyester that stretched..."

"Enough! If there were problems, why didn't somebody speak up at the time? Now we've lost three months!"

Brian's right. If Andrea had pushed the production problems orAndy the customer reaction, a different decision might have been made or they would have gone ahead with a better understanding ...