Kathleen Edmond, Best Buy's Chief Ethics Officer

Stuart Albert of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management is a renowned expert on the affect that timing has on business decisions big and small. His article titled “The Timing of Dissent” struck me as being particularly relevant given the tragic story now unfolding at Penn State. To paraphrase, Stuart describes how we all bring three types of “lenses” to our decision making interactions within an organization:

• A “content” lens that focuses on the subject matter at hand
• An “economic-political” lens that focuses on who stands to gain or lose from a certain decision, and
• An “action or utility” lens that directs our attention to what must be done

 Stuart notes that a fourth dimension – the “temporal” lens – must also be considered. Timing, claims Stuart, is often the most critical factor in situations calling for a courageous dissenting opinion, such as that now coming to light at Penn State:

 “This article examines the difficult timing problem – namely, how to postpone a course of action that promises to lead to disaster. Someone – a board member, a worker on the line, an external stakeholder, an entire department, a manager – sees that something is going terribly wrong. But no one says anything. The situation continues to unfold. Somehow, no time seems right to object or speak up. After a while, it is simply too late. Usually in hindsight, after litigation leads to a billion-dollar recall or settlement, it becomes clear that, for example, engineering knew how to solve the problem with the ignition system before a line of defective automobiles was produced. What no one knew how to do was intervene effectively in an organizational process that had closed the window on dissent.”

 Stuart uses mythical role play scenarios to illustrate how the temporal lens can “define and locate windows of opportunity” in which to provide a dissenting point of view within an organization. He suggests specific techniques that can be used to regain control of a decision sequence that is all but closed. From buying more time for discussion and encouraging people to consider the long-term ramifications of the decision to re-framing the conversation in a way that will reduce the fear of speaking up, Stuart illustrates how disasters can be avoided by seizing the moment and introducing effective group dynamics to the decision making scenario. My questions for you:

 1)    Have you ever wanted to speak up or offer a dissenting opinion on a group decision but felt the window of opportunity had already closed? If so, what specifically was said or done by the group that made you feel dissent was no longer welcome?

 2)    Reflecting back on the situation from question #1, what might you have done differently to “reopen the window” to dissenting opinions?

 3)    Conversely, have you ever observed a situation in which an inconvenient dissenting opinion ultimately saved a group of decision makers from certain disaster? If so, how was that dissenting opinion presented and why was it effectively received?

 4)    Which of the four lenses described by Stuart (content, economic/political, action/utility, temporal/timing) do you think we usually focus on most when making group decisions and why is that so dangerous to the outcome of the decision?