We make poor decisions under pressure, especially if we’re making them on our own.
The solution is to be able to call on a braintrust.
I’ve been skimming through Ed Catmull’s “Creativity Inc.”, a memoir about the culture at Pixar.
In the movie business directors and producers commonly get feedback in the form of extensive written notes.
At Pixar they did things differently, pulling experienced people into a room to give feedback on the product they were working on.
With candour.
Many organisations operate in a command and control mindset, where orders are given and expected to be followed – a way of operating that comes from military metaphors of structure.
This discourages feedback.
But if you get a group of smart, opinionated people to give you fearless feedback on where things are, you’ll learn more and make the product better.
But you have to get the right culture in place, one that permits openness and honesty rather than penalizing it.
This doesn’t come naturally and Catmull talks about ideally having a facilitator – someone that can help a group stay on track and talk through these issues in a constructive manner.
It’s not the easiest thing to do as anyone who has sat through a bad meeting will remember.
So, if you’re struggling with getting your teams aligned, maybe it’s time to look at how you can have better conversations.
A good place to start is by reading about problem structuring methods or PSMs.
Let me know if you have any other good resources or examples.
Handcrafted insight 