Can it be good to be wrong?

Friends,

I am getting pretty good at being wrong. I want to tell you about one such experience.

When my wife was elected, I came to volunteer in the effort to make the State of Michigan a “great place to do great work,” i.e., creating workplaces that are satisfying for employees and productive for our citizens. We asked lots of employees what they thought were key strategies, and frequently people said: Managers and supervisors need better feedback, so it would be great if we had a “360 measurement” tool to give them anonymous feedback on their leadership behaviors. I was glad to hear this. I thought they were totally right. So we went to work on creating a tool. But I quickly ran into a major difference with Nancy Foltz, the director of the “great work place” effort and with her team assigned to develop the tool. I wanted: quick and simple. They wanted: credible and enduring. I told them I wanted that, too. But they insisted we could not achieve a credible and enduring feedback system without seeking deep and wide input from our customers who would be using it. I wasn’t happy, but I acceded. I could see this: They were closer to the clients. They knew the culture better. They would have to live with the tool and with the customers. And besides, they were totally willing to do all the hard work their philosophical position required.

They tapped the departments - our customers - to build different constituent teams, who could think through issues like communications, statistical reliability, technology, and training. They involved all 18 departments - as different as the Department of Corrections is from History Arts and Libraries - and brought literally hundreds of people into an organized process to ensure the excellence of the tool and the training to implement it with 50,000 employees. Process charts listed hundreds of potential snags, and the constituent teams worked through every one of them.

The 360 was launched. Even with the incredible planning and buy-in, the system nearly crashed in one department - frustrating a handful of key people, including - yikes! - a cabinet secretary. We had to take it down for a 3-week hiatus to work out the bugs. The technology team met, “patched” the system, we crossed our fingers, and it rolled! And rolled. Now, the vast majority of our 6,000-some state managers have received 360 feedback - an extraordinary, unprecedented asset and opportunity for them to learn to lead better.

Boy, am I glad I lost that initial argument and that Nancy and her team stood up to me. I probably could have “pulled rank,” insisted on speed, told them they were too bureaucratic, too process-oriented, etc. What a dis-service that would have been. Their sense of excellence and inclusiveness paid huge dividends. Both in terms of the product and in terms of the critical buy-in from departments, they solved a thousand problems that I would have created with an order to “Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead.”

One of the great joys of leading a good team is that you can be wrong sometimes. Really wrong. But they can be really right. And when you have developed a great team, you get spared - and more importantly, the people you lead get spared - the pain of seeing just how wrong you are. Being able to be wrong is one way to

Lead with your best self,

Dan