Create a Climate of Truth

The hardest thing about strategic planning seems to be finding the direction that a company should take.  In Good to Great Collins suggests creating a climate of truth throughout the organization so that voices can be heard and facts can be confronted.  If you’ve gathered the right people and allow them to be heard, the right decisions for the organization will become self-evident.  Collins says that creating a climate of truth can be achieved through these practices:

1)    Lead with questions, not answers.  It seems that the greatest leaders didn’t walk in trying to solve problems.  Rather they gathered bright minds together and posed questions that would lead the organization to a sound decision.

2)    Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion.  Along a similar line as the statement above, encourage discourse among members of the organization in order to bring about a positive change rather than making top down decisions and expecting people to “buy-in.”

3)    Conduct autopsies, without blame.  This is the cornerstone of “confronting the brutal facts.”  In order to find out what works and what doesn’t work, a company must scrutinize and examine every move it makes.  If it works, seek to understand why it worked and what can be learned from this.  If it doesn’t work, don’t place blame, rather seek to understand and learn from these mistakes.  This process of conducting autopsies will go a long way towards creating a winning strategic plan.

Creating a climate of truth can be easier said than done.  You can allow people the freedom to voice their opinions, but will they?  If people voice their opinions, how do you prevent conflicting opinions from becoming outright arguments?  Our assessments can help in this process and provide answers to these questions.

Using Assessments to Create a Climate of Truth
Using (and understanding the theories behind) an assessment like DISC and Meyers-Briggs can aid in creating a climate of truth and provide a more cohesive environment where expression and opinion are welcomed.  In assessing a team with behavior based assessments, team members will start to understand themselves and the other members of their team in a way they never have before.  In terms of the behaviors, each team member will see their own communication style and the strengths and weakness that their style has in communicating with the styles of other team members.  In terms of motivators, members will see what drives their passion as well as the passion of their fellow team members and how that may affect the way in which they relate to one another.  The understanding and awareness of these factors alone will improve the team dynamic by leaps and bounds, yielding a true climate of truth.