Candor and the Ability to Speak Up

What? 

In Keith Ferrazzi’s Leading Without Authority rule four, he talks about how we can create more meaningful, deeper collaborating relationships when working in groups. The practices he goes over in rule four are different ways that groups can achieve the idea of co-elevating co-creation, but I believe for that to happen you must be honest with yourself and make candor compulsory. When working in a group it is important, to be honest, and truthful so the group can avoid groupthink and be able to achieve the best results possible and create true, honest cohesion amongst the group. It is important to ask your group, in the beginning, do you all trust each other and if you will be willing to share the most critical and boldest ideas with the group (Ferrazzi, 2020).

So What? 

It is important for teams to be honest with each other as it can affect the results of the project and can affect future collaboration if members are not vocal or honest when sharing information or the lack of. Ferrazzi labels one main barrier to candor is that team members openly speak their opinions in a work setting, also known as psychological safety(Ferrazzi, 2020). He continues by saying that employees must feel safe and secure in their role to be able to risk speaking out when input is needed. When Google studied how teams operate they found one factor that all high-performing groups had was psychological safety and the more likely those team members were willing to take on new roles and partner with new people. Those people who do feel safe enough to speak their opinions and share information are more likely to be more innovative, less likely to make mistakes, and offer constructive feedback in a group setting. For employees to be able to feel like they are able to speak out, upper management must incorporate a culture of open information sharing regardless of position to create more ideas. According to a Harvard Business Review article in 2009, they state that it is important that executives learn building trust takes time and consistency, and the reward is an unimpeded flow of intelligence (O’Toole, Bennis, 2009) They continue by saying that it needs to be built within the organizational structure of the company to be able to speak out and share information by creating norms such as open-door policies and internal blogs within the company.

Now What?

This is an important skill to learn in my career because when you are more honest and open in sharing information you can succeed personally and help the group succeed. In consulting, you are always working with someone in a group for a client and it is important that they are getting the right data so that they can make executive decisions with the correct information that you gave them. I believe I can improve on this aspect of collaboration and improve my psychological safety. I tend to be a person in group projects that lets others take charge and follow the instructions, but learning to be able to share information in a group can be beneficial for my career and can improve my skillset. Being able to explore and speak bold/critical ideas can improve my critical thinking and problem-solving skills while making me get out of my comfort zone. As I learn to speak with candor I will able to comfortably challenge ideas which can improve my future performance and be able to build self-confidence in group settings.

A culture of candor. Harvard Business Review. (2014, August 1). Retrieved October 4, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2009/06/a-culture-of-candor 

Ferrazzi, Keith, and Weyrich, Noel. (2020). Currency. Leading without Authority: How the New Power of Co-Elevation Can Break down Silos, Transform Teams, and Reinvent Collaboration.