The Janus Oasis - episode 1 - Kathryn Zukof - Embracing The Devil’s Advocate
[00:00:00] Nola Simon: Okay. Perfect. Sounds great. So today on our first, very first episode of vaginas Oasis, I'm happy to welcome. Kathryn's you'd go. I she's an expert in change management and organizational design, and she's also the author of. The hard and soft sides of change, which is how I met her.
[00:00:18] Nola Simon: I read her book earlier this year and reviewed, did a review. We connected over LinkedIn and I've been fortunate enough to chat with her here and there. And she agreed to do my very first sex cast. So it's really cool to have Catherine here. Thank you so much, Catherine.
[00:00:35] Kathryn Zukof: Oh, I'm thrilled that we were able to connect a while ago. And I'm equally thrilled that we've been able to maintain the connection.
[00:00:45] Nola Simon: Yes. It's always helpful. Especially when the you just have a similarity in thought sometimes it's really fun to explore that. And so one of the things that I really wanted to ask you was about.
[00:00:56] Nola Simon: The red team that you talk about in chapter eight, would you like to [00:01:00] explain what the red team is and the change management process and how that can be used and how you've seen it used in hybrid remote work?
[00:01:09] Kathryn Zukof: Sure. Sure. Thank you. So the red team concept is a fascinating idea that I've been fortunate to experience in organizations and also to do some research about and to read about, and the idea of a red team.
[00:01:26] Kathryn Zukof: Is it's actually based on an idea that dates all the way back to I think it was the middle ages when the Catholic church was trying to decide to select Pope's. And they, or I'm sorry, not cope saints. And what they wanted to do was, there were a lot of people who were advocating for a certain individual to be designated a Saint.
[00:01:52] Kathryn Zukof: And so what the Catholic church did was it created the official role of the official position [00:02:00] of a devil's advocate and a devil's advocate was someone who basically would say not so fast. Let's look at all of the possible factors, why we may not want this individual to be considered a Saint let's look at the flaws of this particular individual.
[00:02:20] Kathryn Zukof: The idea then was adopted many centuries later. By organizations that we're basically trying to improve their decision-making and their their project execution. And so what they started doing was saying, what we're going to do is identify a group of individuals, a team, and we'll call this team, the red team.
[00:02:45] Kathryn Zukof: And what we will do is say that their sole purpose as a team, Is to tell us everything that's wrong with an idea that we're interested in pursuing everything that's wrong with a [00:03:00] project plan that we're about to put in place. The whole idea of having a separate team to do this. Is that you want to eliminate cognitive biases that people have a bias toward when they're working on something let's say, for example, if you're deciding to proceed to a hybrid work environment, the team that is, or the individuals that are putting together, the plan.
[00:03:26] Kathryn Zukof: Introduce a hybrid work environment may be they can start to fall in love with their own plan. They stop seeing the potential drawbacks, the mistakes the hidden assumptions or the mistaken assumptions in their plan. And if you ask people to review a plan and say, let's just look at tell here's our plan for introducing a hybrid environment.
[00:03:53] Kathryn Zukof: You let us know. Why do you think this will work? Why do you think it won't work? There are many. [00:04:00] Forces that could prevent someone from telling you what they see as in terms of what could potentially go wrong. People really try to be positive. They try to be very balanced. And so they try to say, Oh I can see how your idea would work and, X, Y, and Z way.
[00:04:20] Kathryn Zukof: And so they may not actually tell you what's on their minds in terms of why it's why it won't work. There's a lot of social pressure in, especially in the workplace to be positive about things. And I could go into a whole discussion about why that is electrical safety. So the idea of a red team is to say, we're going to assemble a team that exists purely for the purpose of telling us what's wrong with our plan.
[00:04:48] Kathryn Zukof: So again, with a hybrid, with a move to hybrid, you would assemble a group of individuals. And ask them to review your plans for moving to a [00:05:00] hybrid work environment and say, tell us what's wrong with this plan. Tell us why this isn't going to work. Tell us what w where you see the downside of this plan is.
[00:05:13] Kathryn Zukof: And the hope is that they will be very honest with you. The members of this team and that you will then have the opportunity to listen, hear what they have to say, and then potentially make corrections. If they find something that's a particularly valid,
[00:05:31] Nola Simon: right? That's almost like a
[00:05:32] Kathryn Zukof: preview.
[00:05:33] Kathryn Zukof: It's a preview. It's what's your I'm David Garvin from Harvard talks about learning before doing learning while doing and learning after doing this is learning before doing it's really saying before you take an action. Gather a group of people and ask them to specifically because it's their job, tell you why this isn't going to work so that you can [00:06:00] listen, you can learn from them and then you can improve that decision or those that plan before you even put it into place.
[00:06:09] Nola Simon: Yep. And the benefits are, it really is engaging, especially for those people. If they've got a safe space to express the concerns. But they're also acting with generosity as well, too, because they're hopefully improving the plan so that the other coworkers. I going to have to be forced to work with a plan that isn't necessarily in everyone's best interest, right?
[00:06:30] Nola Simon: Yes.
[00:06:31] Kathryn Zukof: Yes. And every plan has some components that could be improved. Every plan has some components that where it's just not going to work. And so the idea is to pull together a group of people who add of their. They're true, generous commitment to the organization, their love for the organization and for their coworkers really want to say, let us help you make this plan better.
[00:06:58] Kathryn Zukof: It's also, [00:07:00] yes it's, people often just naturally walk around with ideas in their heads about why something is going to work, but also why it isn't going to work and what the red team concept does. Is it says we're since it's that those ideas are naturally going to occur anyway, where people are going to have some ideas about why something isn't going to work, we're going to provide a platform and a structure and a process for those ideas to be.
[00:07:28] Nola Simon: It's really amplifying the employee voice in a way beneficial player and the employees. And that's one thing that I think a lot of people miss in the change management process. People who are willing to speak up and tell you what their concerns are and where you think, where do they think there might be blind spots.
[00:07:46] Nola Simon: I really actually the best advocates you could ever have, because if you can listen to them and tweak that plan, they're going to be your best advocate.
[00:07:55] Kathryn Zukof: Yes. Yes. People. I'm very frustrated with organizations that really [00:08:00] focus on resistance. And especially when they focus on resistance as a negative, because in my experience most people, including myself at times have concerns about a change that's about to be introduced, not because they disliked change.
[00:08:20] Kathryn Zukof: People change all the times. People embrace, changes all the time, but because they have very legitimate concerns about the action. Actually working. And this is a process to ensure that those very valid concerns are surfaced and heard so that the organization can act upon them.
[00:08:41] Kathryn Zukof: Sometimes during a red team meeting a a team will present concerns that the That the leaders who are enacting the change have already thought about, and it's just a risk that they know that for whatever reason the [00:09:00] organization needs to take that's okay. It's fine to take an informed risk.
[00:09:05] Kathryn Zukof: The idea of a red team is to say, we just want to make sure that we're. Moving forward with our eyes with as much information as we can to make a smart decision.
[00:09:15] Nola Simon: And that actually adds to transparency too, because people might express those concerns and management can totally say, we understand that, but this is why we're making the decision at hand.
[00:09:24] Nola Simon: This is what we're planning. If this happens, it's just an additional layer of transparency that can be added. And it just improves that conversation. And.
[00:09:33] Kathryn Zukof: Yeah. Employees don't want to feel like they're being sold to, they want to feel that the organization has considered the positives and also the negatives associated with some plan because every plan has the pros and the cons.
[00:09:50] Kathryn Zukof: And so it's it does create more trust. And more transparency. When leaders speak from a voice of, [00:10:00] there are, this is going to happen and we think this is a benefit, but there are also our consent, some concerns about this and some downside. And we understand that. And we're doing what we can to minimize the impact of that downside, but there may be times where we can't compete completely mitigate.
[00:10:18] Nola Simon: Right exactly. Now, for smaller organizations, if you don't necessarily have the staff power to have an entire team, is there an ideal size for med team?
[00:10:28] Kathryn Zukof: I have seen red teams. As small as three members, as large as 20 some odd members I've seen. And I have heard about organizations that may hold multiple red team meetings on the same topic because they want to make sure that they're getting many different voices.
[00:10:50] Kathryn Zukof: You can just basically designate one person as your devil's advocate. And there is a benefit to having a separate [00:11:00] conversation with that person, as opposed to embedding them in the team that's really focused on go, let's proceed. However Adam Grant has written a book recently I think it's think again, and he really goes into that whole devil's advocate idea and he's he, so think again, before you do something, check in with people who may tell you.
[00:11:23] Kathryn Zukof: This may not be there. There may be a better way to do this, or this may not be the right thing to do at this time. Just hear me out. And if you're a very small organization, just asking someone to play the role of devil's advocate and saying let's look, I I know you have some very positive ideas about the.
[00:11:44] Kathryn Zukof: For the next half hour, please just tell me everything that you think could be a trap that we're about to fall into. And when you invite people to do that, they won't feel that social pressure to be positive. You're basically saying your [00:12:00] job right now is to tell me what's wrong. And some people can really Excel it.
[00:12:07] Nola Simon: Some people are gifted at that. Yes.
[00:12:08] Kathryn Zukof: Yes they are. Yes they are. And they may be people you want to consider putting on your red team or designating as your devil's advocate.
[00:12:17] Nola Simon: Okay. Yeah, exactly. And that's not necessarily a skill. A lot of people perceive to be a positive sometimes. So giving them a role to play that really embraces their strength and their personality in their minds.
[00:12:29] Nola Simon: It's amazing how that could actually be embraced and actually flipped into a positive. And then maybe you flip their narrative. And it works into a coaching session for them too, because maybe that's something they can add into their career path, right?
[00:12:43] Kathryn Zukof: Yes. In the organizations that I think have are the most mature in terms of their use of red teams, they certainly include on their red teams, individuals who have some.
[00:12:56] Kathryn Zukof: Technical expertise in the idea or the or [00:13:00] expertise in the idea that is being reviewed. So for example, with a return to a hybrid work environment or implementing a hybrid work environment, you may end up needing an it person to participate someone from HR, someone from an operation, somebody from in a supervisory capacity you may want to include people with those perspectives.
[00:13:23] Kathryn Zukof: But you definitely. You typically know in an organization who those real critical thinkers are, who are the people who can always basically think of things in a different way and think of the potential risks. And so those are good individuals to include. And then your naysayers, the people who basically are telling you this isn't going to work or you're, they're telling their coworkers, this isn't going to work.
[00:13:52] Kathryn Zukof: Provide them include them on your red team. That would be terrific as well. The interesting thing about [00:14:00] red teams is in, as I said, mature organizations is that they try not to. Tap into the same individuals, time and time again. Really for there, for the development, first of all, they want to develop that critical thinking skill and that ability to voice concerns among their entire employee population.
[00:14:23] Kathryn Zukof: So they like to rotate. Who they include on a red team, because that can be a developmental experience, but they also want to ensure that those individuals who are always seeing the kind of the downside of an idea are put into or asked to play an advocacy role some of the time as well, because that will help them develop the flip side of those red team skills.
[00:14:50] Nola Simon: Yeah. It's almost like mental agility. Can you see both sides of an argument, even though you may not have that share that opinion? Can flip [00:15:00] and actually argue for the contrary side. I think they teach that actually in debate club at school
[00:15:06] Kathryn Zukof: to do that well said. Yeah.
[00:15:09] Nola Simon: Interesting thing that you said about the diversity on a red team it's also important, I think, to bring in people who are parents or, they may have experienced discrimination at work for whatever reason, they there's a lot of.
[00:15:21] Nola Simon: Evidence that says that people of color parents mothers, women in general are experiencing more trouble with the pandemic and have benefited from more from home. And so to bring in those perspectives and ask them to identify, what works, but on the flip side to also bring in like people who aren't parents.
[00:15:37] Kathryn Zukof: Absolutely.
[00:15:41] Nola Simon: A lot of different interests then I think you get really
[00:15:44] Kathryn Zukof: well-rounded. Absolutely. I could not agree more and for a red team or really any time an organization is creating a team, but certainly for a red team after you have assembled and [00:16:00] your list of potential team members. I always recommend taking a step back and saying, does this team really represent the diversity that we have on?
[00:16:11] Kathryn Zukof: So in so many different ways, whether it's age diversity or diversity in terms of race or in terms of parenting status or tenure with the organization there's so many different ways in which you could construe diversity. Does your team really reflect the diversity of your organization?
[00:16:32] Kathryn Zukof: Because, especially with something as important as a hybrid work environment you're making some decisions that could affect every employee in the organization. And so you want to make sure that you're really tapping into those many diverse voices. So thank you for raising that.
[00:16:49] Nola Simon: Yeah, no, I think it's a very important thing. Part of conversations where I can see that there's not diversity and it's actually awkward sometimes to bring that because, it's difficult to make sure that you're [00:17:00] representing it when you're actually not a member of that that, that group.
[00:17:03] Nola Simon: So you might be able to see it, but you're not a member of the group.
[00:17:06] Kathryn Zukof: I can imagine on a red team meeting on any topic, one of the questions you may ask. The red team to consider is. Who is not present in the room right now, who really, whose voice we need to hear. You may need to have a follow-up red team discussion with those individuals who they identify.
[00:17:28] Kathryn Zukof: Right?
[00:17:29] Nola Simon: Exactly. And it's not a one and done kind of thing. I like that you bring that up to you, it could be, you assemble the red team at different points in your plan, so even. And things may change like right at the moment the new various that are coming into you're making a plan now, but what else what's going to happen?
[00:17:43] Nola Simon: So you may have to start your red team again, once things tweak and you have to change.
[00:17:50] Kathryn Zukof: Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, back to my old buddy, David Garvin at Harvard, he talks about learning after doing as well. And so I really see the [00:18:00] red team coupling very nicely with the whole idea of the after action review or action review idea where after you take an action, you're getting people together to really discuss.
[00:18:11] Kathryn Zukof: What was our objective? What's working, what isn't working, why are we getting the results we're getting? And what do we do about it to ensure and have a very honest discussion at that point as well to decide, okay. We're post taking a few actions. What do we need to do? One of the some of the research that comes out of the whole, which organizations thrive during the pandemic and which struggled the most some research shows that the organizations that were able to learn, fail, take action, rapidly, fail from their results, and then learn from their failure and take another action very quickly.
[00:18:52] Kathryn Zukof: Did better. Those were the organizations that basically said we're not going to make a big decision and then say, [00:19:00] that's it. We've made a decision and we're going to, that's the decision that we're going to have in place for the whole. Duration of whatever is, whatever is to come. They basically said, we're going to try this out.
[00:19:12] Kathryn Zukof: And then we're going to check in and listen to the people who are affected and then make and then tweak our decision. Basically make a better decision and it may mean throwing out what we had decided previously. So there needs to be learning across the entire space.
[00:19:29] Nola Simon: And I think it's really important to have that ability to, to as Adam Grant says to think again and say, is it really working and to be able to change your mind where that it really impeding your authority to.
[00:19:41] Nola Simon: So how do you approach that from a humble servant leadership type of attitude, to make sure that the plans that you're making are really working in serving all the different stakeholders.
[00:19:53] Kathryn Zukof: Yep. Absolutely.
[00:19:55] Nola Simon: Perfect. I love the whole red team concept is the part of my, of [00:20:00] your books. That really just made me sit up and go.
[00:20:01] Nola Simon: Oh, cool. I didn't actually know anything about the whole Roman Catholic church aspect of same time.
[00:20:06] Kathryn Zukof: I have to say that I have been on red teams before. They're used a lot in the military, as you can imagine. Before they engage in a maneuver. They do a red team on ideas.
[00:20:19] Kathryn Zukof: They're used a lot in organizations that are considering mergers and acquisitions, where they're basically, and that's where I was first introduced to the idea many years ago when I was working for an organization that was growing through acquisitions. And when you're working on an acquisition team you really fall in love with your project and you just feel like go.
[00:20:42] Kathryn Zukof: And there needs to be a team that is saying, this is really bad, and here's why this isn't going to work. And it's hard to do both. And so the idea of saying. Create a separate group. That's focused [00:21:00] just on saying why this is the wrong idea can be very helpful. And then I've seen the idea applied to organizations and embracing and implementing lots of other changes.
[00:21:13] Nola Simon: Yes. It was a really more something that like an organization that has embraced change management and who really has a mature change management process that you see that somewhere.
[00:21:21] Kathryn Zukof: Anyone. Okay. You don't have to have a mature change management practice in your organization. Anyone can say, I think we need to get some other voices.
[00:21:33] Kathryn Zukof: And let's really listen to our just ask a few individuals or an individual to play the role of devil's advocate. What is important and where, what the research does show is that organizations embrace the idea of a red team concept and really use it most effectively when they truly.
[00:21:57] Kathryn Zukof: Make it safe for [00:22:00] individuals to express the a a divergent opinion. And so you need to, if you're going to proceed with a red team, there are lots of rules. Of the road that you need to agree to. There cannot be any penalty for an individual saying, this is why I think it's not going to work.
[00:22:21] Kathryn Zukof: You've asked them to really take a risk. And because again, the natural. Positivity is really rewarded in organizations. And you, you need to really make it as rewarding for an individual to voice the negative. And that's a risk that you're asking them to take.
[00:22:41] Kathryn Zukof: And so there, there must not be any negative consequences that the individual suffers because of that. There also needs to be, a real agreement that what. What happens during the red team meeting stays in a red team meeting, that you want to make sure that the individuals [00:23:00] who you've asked to re get review your plans in advance before anyone else knows about them, that they're not going to leave that meeting and start spreading rumors.
[00:23:11] Kathryn Zukof: So that takes maturity on their part as well. Yeah, I think it's. Mature individuals or individuals who agree to abide by a certain set of rules. It doesn't, you don't necessarily need to have a mature change management practice.
[00:23:27] Nola Simon: Okay. That's good to know. Because a lot of different organizations were thrown into the pandemic, right?
[00:23:31] Nola Simon: And then they may not be, there's there at all kinds of different stages of development in terms of your organization. So it's good that it's achievable, even if you haven't necessarily. Embedded change within your processes, right?
[00:23:44] Kathryn Zukof: Can I just comment on that for a second? Because the, because I think of that a lot when it comes to the move to the hybrid work environment, because the changes that organizations needed to implement as we were [00:24:00] entering into the COVID pandemic situation, these were changes that organizations had to.
[00:24:06] Kathryn Zukof: Rapidly really rapidly. Literally, regulations were changing. Information was changing on the fly and, one day you thought you were going into the office and the next day you had to figure it out how. Satisfy the needs of your workforce and satisfy the needs of your customers from an a, in a completely different way.
[00:24:28] Kathryn Zukof: And that had to happen very rapidly. The move back. Does it need to happen in quite as rapid of fashion? Organizations do have the opportunity to really take a pause and think about what they're doing. There, there isn't a switch that needs to be flipped quite as rapidly. I'm not saying go slow about it, but organizations don't necessarily have the same.
[00:24:58] Kathryn Zukof: Intense time pressure [00:25:00] in making decisions about hybrid as they did for the decisions that they had to make to basically go to let's say a complete re remote environment at the beginning of the pandemic. So you do have, you may have time to pull people together to have that the kind of discussions now that you didn't have back at the, in the very early days of dependent.
[00:25:24] Nola Simon: So you can add in a time for really thinking of the intention of really what you want to achieve with the hybrid and how you want to define the office and use it in a different way than you may have before the pandemic. And it need to be done in
[00:25:37] Kathryn Zukof: three days.
[00:25:40] Nola Simon: Yeah, no, that's excellent. That's excellent.
[00:25:42] Nola Simon: I think we are coming up to time, so I wanted to thank you. It's been a wonderful discussion, very thoughtful, very really helpful, I think to a lot of people who haven't necessarily come across that, to that technique. So thank you, Catherine. I I wanted to use. Appreciate your time. We have some [00:26:00] technical issues.
[00:26:00] Nola Simon: The first time we tried to do this. Catherine is a wonderful technical expert there too. She even had a spare laptop to even try to get it going. So anyways, I wanted to say thank you. I appreciate it. And if you are looking to connect with Catherine, I will have her website in her book listed in the show notes and definitely check her out.
[00:26:19] Nola Simon: She's a wonderful resource for.
[00:26:22] Kathryn Zukof: As are you. So thanks so much for the opportunity and best wishes as we both navigate through this very interesting changing world.
[00:26:34] Nola Simon: Awesome. And now my dog is barking because the doorbell, so yay. It worked for Mo perfect time. All right. Thank you so much, Kathryn.