The Elephant in the Org
The "Elephant in the Org" podcast is a daring dive into the unspoken challenges and opportunities in organizational development, particularly in the realm of employee experience. Hosted by the team at The Fearless PX, we tackle the "elephants" in the room—those taboo or ignored topics—that are critical for creating psychologically safe and highly effective workplaces.
The Elephant in the Org
Disruption with a Cause - The Leadership Skill of Harnessing Dissent
In this episode of The Elephant in the Org, Danny, Marion, and Cacha take on a leadership game-changer: how to transform dissent from a workplace disruption into a strategic driver of progress. The hosts explore why embracing rebels and fostering a culture of constructive dissent is critical for organizations to innovate, adapt, and thrive. Spoiler: it all starts with empowering middle managers.
- Why dissent matters: Avoiding stagnation and fostering innovation hinges on inviting diverse perspectives.
- Middle managers as changemakers: How training them early in psychological safety and facilitation skills creates a pipeline of inclusive leaders.
- Lessons from Gallipoli: What leadership in the trenches teaches us about empowering those on the front lines.
- Insights from Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets: How probabilistic thinking encourages smarter decision-making and healthier debates.
- Toxic cultures and short-term thinking: Why silencing dissent is a recipe for failure—and how to flip the narrative to prioritize long-term success.
The conversation also highlights the real-world challenges of creating a culture of dissent and why middle managers hold the key to breaking echo chambers and driving organizational innovation.
- Into All Problem Solving, A Little Dissent Must Fall – McKinsey
- Gallipoli (1981) – A gripping exploration of leadership and front-line decision-making during WWI.
- Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke – A guide to decision-making under uncertainty.
- Industry – HBO’s intense look at the pressures of toxic, high-stakes workplaces.
Connect with Us:
- Follow The Fearless PX on Linkedin at The Fearless PX
- Reach out to Marion, Cacha, and Danny at elephant@thefearlesspx.com
- You can find all episodes of The Elephant in the Org here.
We encourage you to subscribe and leave a review if you found this episode enlightening!
From April 2024, all new episodes of The Elephant In the Org will be posted bi-weekly.
Music Credits:
Opening and closing theme by The Toros.
Production Credits:
Produced by The Fearless PX, Edited by Marion Anderson.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the hosts and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations’ official policy or position.
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Danny Gluch: Welcome back to the elephant in the org, everyone. I'm Danny Glutch, and I'm joined, as always, by my co-hosts Cacha Dora
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Cacha Dora: Hello!
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Danny Gluch: And Marion Anderson.
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Marion: Hello, and Happy New Year!
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Danny Gluch: Oh, yes, so fun! It's been an amazing 2025 so far, really exciting. Did you hear about that thing?
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Marion: Oh, that thing!
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Danny Gluch: I couldn't believe that ludicrous display could not believe it.
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Marion: I can tell you one thing that will happen in the future. Because technically, we are recording this in 2024.
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Cacha Dora: Hi. Nicole.
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Marion: And Anderson Cooper will be drunk on TV, on hug money, slash New Year's Eve. I can. That is my prediction.
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Danny Gluch: Oh, absolutely!
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Cacha Dora: Oh, I love them! I love them so much.
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Marion: Me, too, my favorite.
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Danny Gluch: And I will be asleep by night.
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Marion: Yeah, good chance. I will be as well.
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Danny Gluch: I love being old.
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Danny Gluch: All right. Well, today's elephant in the org has nothing to do with the New Year. But we really wanted to start people off with something that we've all heard so much of. Hey? Don't rock the boat, or this is how we've always always done it here, and the elephant in the org is, is that good? Or is dissent actually, something that's really really needed in organizations.
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Marion: Do you mean dissent as in? I don't agree. What if we did this.
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Danny Gluch: I'm yeah. I think the style of dissent really matters how it's brought up the space that's made for it, absolutely because descent can be really toxic where.
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Cacha Dora: Interesting stuff.
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Danny Gluch: People who are, you know? Contrarians? Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: Curmudgeons in the workplace.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, I loved how you phrased it, Marion.
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Marion: Well, I mean, if if I was being true Scots, I would have said it a lot more colorfully.
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Marion: a lot more color. But yeah, it's yeah, I I mean.
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Marion: it's essential, right? It really is, but
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Marion: is a Utopia is probably many.
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Danny Gluch: I think it's something that that going into the New Year organizations can can start to like, look to wait. This is essential. How can we start making space for it? How can we find a way to incorporate into this, this into our team? So it's not just a 1 off that it gets tolerated on occasion, but something that that really takes center stage in our strategy and decision making processes.
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Cacha Dora: Well, and I think that when we and I think Marian brought up a really great way of asking about dissent in that in that way, because otherwise, like we just get to work in echo Chambers. There's no, you're not going to be able to innovate. If people don't disagree, you're not going to be able to discover new ideas or new ways of doing things, or expose potential safety risks to whatever right your organization, your client, whatever it is like your field that you're in. There's a lot of reasons why
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Cacha Dora: there should be some level of obligation to question things. And you know, obviously, that being able to question and doing so safely draws us right into psychological safety and all the things that we talk about very actively on our podcast but I I think that
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Cacha Dora: asking like, How does this help us instead of like.
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Cacha Dora: I am trying to tell you you're wrong.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: Is, is like that tone really does change the receptiveness, I of of someone disagreeing, or of someone giving an opposing opinion.
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Cacha Dora: or even just a differing one, where it's like slightly the same, but, like, you know, tweaked.
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Marion: I think that so there's a great article that I think. We'll put in the show notes. It's it's a Mckinsey article.
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Marion: and it talks about the importance of dissent. In organizations, and it kicks off the article talking about
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Marion: diversity and well inclusion. But really diversity diversity of thought right. And we've talked a lot about that, you know, and and how essential that is. You can't have lots of Mini. Me's running about. Otherwise, you know, you're never going to innovate. You're never going to
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Marion: you know, be able to move things forward. And it talks about how you know a lot of really challenging organizational problems have been tackled and overcome in the last few years.
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Marion: essentially, through diversity of thought. Right? And I think
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Marion: there's so many things going on here all at once. You know we've got the notion of Dei
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Marion: in an uproar right now. I don't even know how to describe that it's just
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Marion: I don't know. It's blown up, I guess. And then you know, our. Our
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Marion: political socioeconomic environment is also in a really
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Marion: strange place right now is we about to change administrations is about, you know, there's so many things going on. So I
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Marion: I it. It's really complex, like it seems like such a. It seems like such a easy term, right like it is the ability to be able to to share, you know, feedback and and to not agree with with the status quo, and to put forward a different viewpoint. Like all of that, it seems really
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Marion: we'll be.
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Danny Gluch: And there's always going to be. Yeah, there's always going to be Dissenters. No one. There's no group where everyone agrees. The problem is getting those people's voices heard in a way that's actually substantive rather than silenced, or just sort of procedural. Okay, thank you. Now, let's ignore that person and move on.
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Cacha Dora: On paper. But it's the human factor that completely changes how it actually happens.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Marion: Hmm!
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Marion: But where I was going with that was that.
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Marion: you know. I think that everything that's happening around us in the external environment right now is ultimately impacting
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Marion: psychological safety right?
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Marion: And therefore, I think, is impacting comfortability around dissent.
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Marion: And I see it all the time. Right? Where
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Marion: there's a collective shared thought around something within, maybe a subgroup.
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Marion: But there's a lack of psychological safety.
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Marion: I guess, with the next tier of.
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Danny Gluch: Oh, going upwards.
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Marion: Of the organization. And so those who are having those those ideas and thoughts and solutions don't have the psychological safety to take that above, and when they have.
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Marion: they've just hit a brick wall. And so
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Marion: you see what I'm saying right.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, it's there. There's a couple of issues there. One, I think, is a structural where? Because that going to the next layer, right? You. We've we've all been on our team having those conversations that's like, Hey, this is the new direction we need. This is this is a problem. And we might talk about it for months.
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Marion: Hmm.
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Danny Gluch: And then we get like a 30 min meeting, and we really need to knock the socks off and get all of that communicated really, really, effectively. It's just the the time and space for it just isn't enough that this is you introducing the problem and the solution at the same time just isn't enough.
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Danny Gluch: And that happens so often because leaders are busy. And oh, hey, this is an important meeting to you. Great. Yeah, I'll definitely make time, and then they don't give it any thought, and then they come in and hear this this dissenting opinion.
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Danny Gluch: and like there's 0 chance they process it. It took your team months to really like churn through it. And and you're giving this leader 30 min.
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Marion: Maybe an hour.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, it's just it's rough, like I don't. I don't blame things getting squashed like that.
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Marion: Yeah, it it happens all the time.
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Marion: And I see it all the time. I think we've all fallen foul of that all you know
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Marion: times in our career?
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Marion: So what's the solution? There, the solution is is that you know
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Marion: those on the top have to be part of the solution and part of the momentum to take these things forward. And as we know, and
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Marion: less progressive organizations, there's still
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Marion: a lack of that. Really, there's Stella, them and us. There's Stella. You go do your thing, and I'll
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Marion: I'll run the business, you know.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah. The hierarchical standbys are things that people default to as an act of comfort as opposed to.
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Cacha Dora: You know, the Mckinsey article really talk talks a little bit about while people welcome dissent.
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Cacha Dora: actually not capable of handling it. And that concept, I mean, like we've like. How many times in our careers. If we've like, yeah, I'm really open to feedback. And the minute you give someone feedback that's going to help, that's given in a very genuine way. That's not aggressive.
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Cacha Dora: They can't handle right. They can dish, but they can't take, or they can't improve, because they can't hear it, because they are hearing. I'm bad as opposed to do it this way, and it will help you and it help everyone else so much more. And
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Cacha Dora: you know that self defense mechanism comes through in the workplace because everyone brings their own
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Cacha Dora: baggage, their own feelings, their own emotions. No one in the workplace, unless you're an AI. Feature is not a robot. So like you're gonna have those human features. And that defensiveness, I think, is something that
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Cacha Dora: you know.
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Cacha Dora: If you want to be collaborative
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Cacha Dora: at some point. There has to be a knowledge of how people respond to things. And you're not always going to get that
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Cacha Dora: gift of knowing that of being able to
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Cacha Dora: also take when someone is defensive and being able to take a step back or being able to create that culture. Because when you're creating a culture around something. It's not a 1 shot. It doesn't happen because you had one conversation, one conversation does not build a culture that can sustain
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Cacha Dora: the scent in a in a healthy way.
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Danny Gluch: Well, I think part of, and the article does a fantastic job. Everyone should read this. It was really actually pretty inspiring
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Danny Gluch: of taking the leader's perspective of it's not the job of the people below to bring dissent to the leaders in that 1 h meeting.
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Danny Gluch: It's the job of the leader to actively be seeking it out, giving space for it, inspiring, descend because getting projects done at their best, like, you really need to mix the pot a little bit and be like, hey? What about this guy's idea? Did we really take that seriously and like, that's a lot of what what this sort of leadership looks like as opposed to a very directive like, I've got this vision. This is what we're doing, kind of a leadership style.
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Danny Gluch: And I think that can really help as the leader, encouraging it as opposed to like trying to navigate all of these. Like, you know, high Eq. Really effective communication moments of of trying to convince our leader that we're our dissenting opinion is correct.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: Oh, that's also one of the most
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Cacha Dora: effective ways to build psychological safety in a team is to see your your manager, or you know your department head wherever this and this leader would be coming from right within the organization.
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Cacha Dora: if someone's offering the opportunity for varying opinions, you can build psychological safety within that unit a lot easier.
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Cacha Dora: Once you can show that it actually is safe to take the risk to say, I think this.
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Cacha Dora: There's a lot of ifs in that sentence, I'm aware. But what a great way to be able to build something around psychological safety and potentially do create a cultural norm in that unit.
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Marion: Yeah, I mean, I I had this conversation
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Marion: recently. I feel like I have this conversation all the time. But the phrase that I sort of said to this other person was
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Marion: for people to feel psychologically safe with.
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Marion: Insert your action here right whatever it might be.
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Marion: you know they have to. And and especially, this is really necessary in an environment that maybe
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Marion: hasn't always had that as part of its values or culture, and is trying to make that organizational change.
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Marion: They need to take their cues from Mom and Pop. Right? They need Mom and dad at the top of the organization to show and say, it's okay.
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Marion: because if they don't see that and they don't get those queues.
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Marion: they won't do it. You can preach psychological safety all day long. But it's an absolute waste of time if it's not being you know, role modeled by those at the very top of the organization, because everybody needs mum and Dad's approval before they will start to display the behaviors that are associated, and I think that's where it's tough. Because
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Marion: you know, I think again, I think a lot of people kind of talk the talk.
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Marion: but either don't know how to or are scared to walk the walk.
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Marion: In the event that the upset shareholders, board members, whatever right.
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Danny Gluch: It's it's it's really a difficult problem for leaders, because, on one hand, you want to have this like
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Danny Gluch: very monolithic, like strong demeanor of this is the direction we're going, and I truly believe in it. 100. This is the right thing we are doing. I am the captain of this ship.
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Danny Gluch: But that does not encourage dissent. Very well. There was a book I read. This must have been 2 or 3 years ago, thinking in bets by Annie Duke. She was a experimental psychologist, turned professional poker player, turned business, consultant.
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Cacha Dora: Love that journey.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, anyways, she she has this this idea of, you know, and I'm big on on how language changes sort of the vibes and the feels and the and the openness, and
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Danny Gluch: by softening our language of you know, this is the direction we're headed, and this is the right decision, saying.
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Danny Gluch: hey, this is the direction we're headed.
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Danny Gluch: It's it's not perfect.
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Danny Gluch: It's, you know, we think that we've got like an 85% chance of this being the actual best one. But there's room there. But just by saying that this is like an 85% chance, a 70% chance. There's there's room there for for people to say, Oh, well, what if we think about this? Can we ratchet that? You know 70% to 75%?
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Danny Gluch: And I mean, that's really how decisions are made. Like oftentimes it's like this is like 52, 48 sort of decision. And you choose one. But once it's chosen. It's it, like all of a sudden, gets packaged as if it was clearly 100%. The only option we could do.
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Danny Gluch: And once it gets into that space where it becomes clear it was the only option. There's no room for dissent. There's no room to say. Oh, I don't think this is the right one. This was actually a lot closer to a coin flip to this other decision. And I think if we start to have from the top
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Danny Gluch: you know where we can still be. This is the direction we're going. Because you know what 70% was our best odds.
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Danny Gluch: I really do think that there becomes room for dissent room. For those conversations of this wasn't a perfect decision. There is no perfect decision. We're trying to do the best process because the best process over the long run is going to give them the best results.
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Danny Gluch: And I think that's that's at least something that leaders can can try to start doing as far as the language they use and how they present the decisions they make to encourage the the space. For.
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Danny Gluch: you know, psychologically safe Dissenters.
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Marion: The article talks about the Australian Military during World War, one which resonated because I actually watched the film Gallipoli for the 1st time over. It's such a good movie. Oh, my! Gosh.
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Danny Gluch: Tearjerker.
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Marion: Oh, God! I was sobbing at the end, sobbing. But it it resonated because it talks about an Australian
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Marion: general major, whatever I can't quite remember who
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Marion: was very progressive in their thoughts, and invited the wider
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Marion: unit like what's the right word? I don't know battalion, whatever but to to provide ideas and to make suggestions, and to be, you know, feel comfortable, to say, I don't think that'll work. We could try this
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Marion: because when you're in war
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Marion: there's no higher risk, right? There's no
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Marion: risk situation. And so I think that that leadership
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Marion: really speaks volumes about, you know, helping
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Marion: again, there's no perfect solution here, but the more brain power behind, and I behind, creating solutions.
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Marion: the higher the chances of success, especially when those ideas are being taken literally from those on the front lines, right? And anyone who's watched Gallipoli or any of those World War, one movies will see that the trenches were brutal.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: It's why we still use the in the trenches.
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Cacha Dora: In the trenches. Shell shock, like so many of our actual language pieces come from it. But, Marion, I think you're so right and like. And and the article also quotes our Buddy, Simon Sneck, we we adore
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Cacha Dora: Buddy Simon, but like talking about how leaders like the goal of the leader is to create an environment that you can have ideas happen right? These great ideas. You need to create the environment for it, and that that general Marion. He set a tone to create an environment to make that happen right like. And we talked so many times in previous episodes about leaders don't mean managers. You don't need to be a manager to be a leader, and you don't need to be a leader to be a manager.
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Cacha Dora: I mean, it would be very helpful if you were but
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Cacha Dora: You don't need to have a certain title to lead people right? You need to be able to create the environment. And I think that that's such a key takeaway in the article that they bring up in very different ways as they break out. How leaders can help create an environment that promotes healthy descent. Like I love the phrase, was it like contributory? I might say that word wrong? I'm sorry. Contributory descent, and like being able to have it, be not immediately that word, not combative.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, right?
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Danny Gluch: And one of my favorites.
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Cacha Dora: A competition, either. Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, absolutely. And the article was so great in in stating that it's it's about the collective right?
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Danny Gluch: It's not
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Danny Gluch: coming together. And it really shows the the really really high demand of Eq. By these leaders. These are not the leaders necessarily with the best ideas either, and my favorite part was their idea of the leaders role of choreographing the debate
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Danny Gluch: between the the, you know, common opinion and the dissenting opinions, and it really brought me back to to teaching philosophy and being like, Oh, you guys want to talk about this hot topic today. Let's go. I'm just here to to see what you guys think and help, you know, navigate this very difficult discussion.
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Danny Gluch: And I think
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Danny Gluch: if more leaders were really skilled facilitators rather than the smartest person in the room. I think it would really go very, very well, because those conversations need a dedicated person standing at the whiteboard
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Danny Gluch: who's facilitating and bringing out points and making sure everyone's understood, and that the emotions around the different topics and the giving and the receiving of ideas is done really well and just inspiring little piece of article.
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Cacha Dora: And being able, I think, like a hard part for managers, right is being able to. We've talked about how they get put in the middle a lot, but like being able to balance their own bias on the ideas with also potentially knowing maybe more than the people debating about what some of the organizational goals are whether or not they've been allowed to be communicated or not, or things that they know that just coming down the pipe.
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Cacha Dora: so they might try in that facilitation lens to try and direct the ideas towards what might be coming down the pipeline to help gear their team up for success. And I think.
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Cacha Dora: I I we talk about facilitation all the time from a context of Od and L and D,
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Cacha Dora: but that's like largely tied within the Hr. Space
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Cacha Dora: managers across industries don't have that skill. Set a lot of the time when it comes to true facilitation. Because I think people are taught to present.
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Danny Gluch: It's yeah. Presentation is a form of argumentation, right? You come in with, here's the the problem.
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Danny Gluch: you know. Then here's our solution for the problem. This is why you should take our recommendation like that. That's what it is. That's not a debate.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: There's a pitch, Marion, you're right. That is exactly it.
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Danny Gluch: Can't. Kasia.
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Cacha Dora: Feel very strongly about certain things, and sometimes it comes out very cleanly.
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Cacha Dora: But I think it. I think it's true, though I mean, like, I think, that the majority of managers and people who move up in their career, they do so through that pitch right through being able to present data in a way that
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Cacha Dora: lands with their audience. Right? You know your audience. But at some point, when you move up your managerial totem pole.
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Cacha Dora: you no longer are the one doing the work, and when.
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Danny Gluch: What's the solution? We we train upper leadership in facilitation skills. And then, when these problems come up, one of those leaders should be seeking out the the dissenting opinions, and then they just facilitate the conversation. Like I, I don't know. What do we do with this idea?
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Cacha Dora: Feel like it goes.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: What Marian said at the beginning, right? Like you need to collect like, not collect things like a pokemon, but like you need to get that diverse range of opinion. You can't have that echo Chamber of having everyone have the same idea. Those those different perspectives, different work experiences that inform people all of that like that diversity of thought.
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Cacha Dora: I think teaching people how to gather. That
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Cacha Dora: would create a great thing. Yes, Marion.
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Marion: So let me, let's be clear here. Right? Let's be very clear.
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Marion: This needs to start
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Marion: with the middle manager. They need to learn these skills very early. Because think, I mean, we're all very experienced, you know, highly skilled facilitators, right? But how long did it take us to to really build that skill set because it's purely experiential. You can't learn to be a facilitator by reading a book or watching a a video, right? You have to do it, and you have to fail, and you have to succeed, and and you have to iterate.
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Marion: So I think that for that to become very much part of their their skill set their toolbox. Their DNA has to start early, so.
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Danny Gluch: Because the middle managers of today are the senior leaders of next decade.
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Marion: That's it. And by the time they get they go through that journey they're bringing that energy of facilitation with them as opposed to, I mean, yeah, there's a good start somewhere, right? So there's a clean up job of of starting at your C-suite for sure.
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Marion: But the the long game is to to.
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Marion: That in early and I think that
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Marion: when you think about your middle manager as a team leader, and they've got their team of maybe 9 or 10, or whatever it might be.
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Marion: If you start cultivating that, then
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Marion: you're on a path to success, because your your engagement scores are going to be high. Your retention is going to be high. Your productivity and innovation is going to be high because
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Marion: you're starting that skill set early.
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Marion: and I think that too many junior men we've talked about this so many times, but.
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Cacha Dora: There's a lot of truth to it, though, right like there's a reason we talk about it.
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Marion: Yeah, and and those kind of early career managers.
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Marion: we are underserved. And so how do they learn? They learn by observing others, and they select role models and some make good choices and some make very bad choices. So yeah, I think that there's real
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Marion: the real kind of key to long term. Success here is
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Marion: build that in very, very early in the development journey make it part of the culture.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, yeah. And I think it really does come into
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Cacha Dora: like, even just what someone's leadership style is right like. And as they start developing what that is, and like. Managers aren't going through school and learning that there is servant leadership, and that there's inclusive leadership, and that there's like all these different like leadership models. Right? They're not gonna learn those things. But they are, gonna be informed Marion, to exactly to your point from their own experiences. What were their good managers like? What were their bad managers like? How do I
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Cacha Dora: replicate that for other people for a team?
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Cacha Dora: And are they being informed
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Cacha Dora: by how they felt. Are they being informed by their results? And you know, I think
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Cacha Dora: some people balance both. Some people lean heavy into the one side or the other.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah. You know, when I was working on the show notes with Charlie, one of the things I really wanted to have in here was, how do we retain Dissenters?
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Danny Gluch: And what what you 2 were just talking about? I think, answers it. If if they're engaged, they're going to be so inspired and wanting to stay because they actually finally get listened to.
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Danny Gluch: And they they would get rewarded, and they would. They would be the ones who find themselves getting promoted
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Danny Gluch: right? And they you would be moving this this group of Hey, you go from being the Dissenter to learning how to facilitate those conversations, and then, being a leader who does it even more on a bigger scale. I just
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Danny Gluch: I think that's more of a career pipeline than you know.
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Danny Gluch: Admin one to admin 2 to, you know, whatever specialist to manager.
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Marion: I think it also helps
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Marion: nip in the bud any of those autocratic
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Marion: tendencies creeping in. You know, I think that when you start early. And you, you kind of like.
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Marion: bring that energy. It just helps those those things. Stop creeping in and seeping in. And
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Marion: yeah, I there's there's significant value here, for sure.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: I think some of the funnest experiences I've had on teams.
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Marion: Honest.
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Cacha Dora: It's the fun.
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Marion: On it.
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Cacha Dora: Funnest funner, bestest.
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Danny Gluch: George Washington fought so that Kasha could say funnest.
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Cacha Dora: You know what? I'm not here as an English major, you guys, I'm here to have a good time.
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Cacha Dora: But some of the best times I've had were honestly in
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Cacha Dora: in a debate over a product of some sort, on producing something and being able to hear someone with a different opinion, and be able to say my opinion and not have it be
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Cacha Dora: toxic combative going after personal things to hurt people or anything like that. And at the end of the day everyone was like that was a really great conversation.
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Cacha Dora: And, like you learn as a professional, you learn as a team member. And those are really like, maybe not fun in the moment, potentially. But when you walk away you, it completely changes how you look at that conversation. And I think that's such a powerful thing on how dialogue
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Cacha Dora: in the moment, and afterward actually can change color because of the impact of the dialogue.
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Danny Gluch: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that that sort of makes me want to wrap up on this thought on this thought, because it's where I was hoping to end. Anyways. Kasha is
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Danny Gluch: the certain attitude that Mckinsey brought up multiple times in the article on how to Handle these kinds of Debates without it being about combativeness or winning or argumentative.
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Danny Gluch: They brought up play multiple times.
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Danny Gluch: And it made me think of our conversation with A/C. And a lot of the work I've done in the past, and a lot of the work, you know, when we were actually working together with you 2, and how playful our conversations were trying to get to a goal. And in the article. I think it called it something like the place, the graceful play of ideas. And it really is like these debates. If they get combative.
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Danny Gluch: it's actually taking the opposite right? There's a way to center dissent that can be bad for an organization. It can bring bad vibes. And it really takes high Eq.
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Danny Gluch: And this sense of play and togetherness to do it well, and I just wanted to get your thoughts as as people who, I think do this extraordinarily well. What are some of these attitudes or or dispositions that these leaders can help cultivate, so that bringing dissent to the front doesn't get toxic.
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Marion: So funny. I so I've been in bed for the last few days because I've had this like stinking cold and binge watching shows. And I finally caught up on season 3 of industry an Hbo show. I don't know if you've ever watched it, but it's about these investment bankers. They're like graduates in this really kind of old school investment bank
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Marion: and you know, the it's in, say, in London, and
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Marion: the toxicity is just so palpable. It's like seeping out. And they're all like smoking, like, you know, lumps and snorting coke every 2 min. And you know it's and you know, and it's high stress, high pressure environment. And towards the end of season 3. It's all going a bit tits up because they are the the bank is
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Marion: it's all very complicated, but basically they've overstretched on finance. And there is. It's about to be another Lehman brothers, right? And so you've got all of the senior execs around the table. Trying to come up with ideas.
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Marion: And you know it's
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Marion: one white woman at the table, one Asian partner at the table. Rest are all white men obviously right?
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Marion: there's very little diversity of thought around that table. But where some ideas were brought in the lack of trust
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Marion: that was collectively felt between individuals
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Marion: inhibited the bringing forward of those ideas. And actually.
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Marion: oh, you know one of the ideas that someone had came forward in the end, but they were reluctant to bring it forward sooner, because they didn't trust the people at the table, and also there was just so much like toxicity and bad actors, and it was just like you felt I felt dirty watching it like I had to go and have a shower after.
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Danny Gluch: Just filling that.
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Marion: And in the end the whole thing blew up right, and they ended up selling out to to Middle Eastern investors.
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Marion: But that really hit home to me that in that environment there's so much there's no trust. People are scheming to take others down because they want to position themselves higher, like. There's all of that going on.
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Danny Gluch: It's like a.
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Marion: And a nest of vipers right.
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Marion: And if you, if you, if if that is part of your module like, if that's part of the DNA of that organization.
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Marion: fine people choose. They want to be part of that, then. Great. But you know, ew, I'm not sure.
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Danny Gluch: Descent can can healthily show its face there. I really don't.
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Cacha Dora: Okay, I think it comes right down to. If you don't trust enough to even voice it. Then why, then there's your answer, Danny. You know what I mean like, and I think it, it really circles right back to the impact of psychological safety and being able to create trust and a going back to the environment, build as well the environment where you can safely
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Cacha Dora: dissent. Take the risk.
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Cacha Dora: And but if you doubt everyone's motives, if you doubt all of those things. Then you're not going to voice it, and you know you're going to either take your opinion elsewhere, or you're going to watch it burn.
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Marion: Yeah, exactly. And it but here, that's that's the kicker. Right? If that idea had been brought forward sooner, it may have saved the company right so. But that person didn't feel safe. So like it. It it
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Marion: it's
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Marion: It's such a short sighted view where leaders don't cultivate
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Marion: one on one trust or support the wider development of psychological safety within their organization, because it's absolutely detrimental to the the health and the longevity of the company, to the balance sheet to the shareholders. Right? Not just the people. This isn't all, Fluff.
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Marion: And but there was real commercial
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Danny Gluch: You know, importance to this practicality to this, and I think this is where a lot of leaders are really short sighted.
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Marion: And don't understand that. Don't think it's important, and then just dismiss it, as you know. Hr. Fluff.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, I mean that short-sighted part, I think, is so spot on. And it reminds me of the infinite game by Simon Sinek.
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Danny Gluch: The. I don't think that you can have this healthy culture of dissent in a super short sighted organization if you're only worried about next quarter's. You know stock prices, and you might lay off a quarter of your people if the the numbers aren't exactly right, or if laying off a quarter of your people makes the numbers look just a little bit better for your shareholders.
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Danny Gluch: you're not going to get healthy consent, because everyone is now motivated in the very short term to try to look as good as possible, and those dissenting, playful conversations turn into. I need to win this, because if I don't show that I'm the best idea person I might get cut.
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Danny Gluch: or if I dissent too much, I'm you know, the sore thumb sticking out, and I might get cut and you end up with with nothing. So it can't be these shortsighted, you know, highly competitive environments. It's not set up well to do that, so you can't start here. You need to figure out that part 1st of taking a longer view.
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Danny Gluch: Not having this hyper competitive, you know. Man, eat man kind of culture.
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Danny Gluch: And and then maybe you can start doing this.
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Danny Gluch: But it's yeah.
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Danny Gluch: something to really, really strive for. I think, like you said, it has really high impactful results on an organization.
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Marion: Absolutely. You know, it's yeah.
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Marion: Wake up, people.
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Marion: Oh, wake up!
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Cacha Dora: I think it would have a very clear, direct impact on not just a a organization and a company's ability to innovate
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Cacha Dora: but also just to be able to kind of change what their profitability looks like with new ideas, right? Like, I think majority of businesses don't do the exact same thing day in, day out, year over year, quarter over quarter, because they will, the competition will eat them.
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Cacha Dora: So if you're going to have new ideas. You have to be able to have an environment where you can
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Cacha Dora: pull them together.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah. One of my all time great stories is the Michelin Guide, famous restaurant guidebook.
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Danny Gluch: It's the tire company. It's not just the same name. Someone walked into a room and said, Hey.
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Danny Gluch: what if we reviewed restaurants.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: And no one at that table said, I'm rubber your glue.
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Danny Gluch: And and right like that's you don't get there if you don't have an organization that's willing to to listen.
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Danny Gluch: And and I think it's cool. I would love to hear more stories and and email us stories. Send us stories on Linkedin. Everybody. If you can think of these stories of where an organization started with one thing.
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Danny Gluch: but because they allowed these kind of conversations of, you know, people walking in and say, Yeah, I know we do this. But what if we didn't.
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Marion: -
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Danny Gluch: You know I love those stories. They're some of my all time favorites, so please send them in. Share them with us. Any last thoughts, ladies.
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Marion: No, just let's let's create places where people can.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah.
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Marion: Date, id.
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Cacha Dora: Kind of place I want to be.
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Marion: Yeah, exactly. I think you know, in
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Marion: this year is going to be very interesting with talent, migration, and the the
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Marion: the the pool between employers and employees. I think this year is going to be really important. And I think that
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Marion: again, those
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Marion: organizations that that will retain talent that will come out on top are the ones that promote healthy culture, psychological safety.
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Marion: You know, comfortability around the same. This is not Fluff. This is real, you know big ticket wins. If you can get this right.
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Danny Gluch: The obligation of consent.
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Danny Gluch: As Mckinsey says, I love that it just gives such a moral weight to it, and I really do think it's that important.
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Marion: Date indeed.
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Danny Gluch: Well, thank you all for listening everyone. You can email us at elephant@thefearlesspx.com. You can also find us on Linkedin.
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Danny Gluch: We'll see you next time.
