A multiple-choice workplace can help you break out of the clutches of conformity.
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Our choices can be severely impaired by echo chambers, and to make matters worse, these are not easy to recognize. You are exposed to viewpoints that neatly match your existing beliefs, and dissent is often filtered or dismissed.
To make more informed decisions, we must find the means and methods to break out of these thought traps. But do we have the people and systems to facilitate the hidden options we need? Try building a multiple-choice workplace to increase everyone’s access to diverse perspectives and possible solutions rather than a single dominant viewpoint.
There is Seldom Only One Right Answer
The idea of a multiple-choice workplace is fairly straightforward. Instead of always giving me the answers that I want, every employee is able to speak their mind freely and honestly. They are not limited in their available responses and can instead advance solutions that may not have been considered otherwise. The goal is to facilitate multiple perspectives, followed by comparative analysis and more options for better outcomes.
At my organization, we hold what we call oxygen sessions: nonjudgmental spaces where people can bring fresh thoughts and ideas into the room and give one another room to breathe. Sometimes these exchanges become debates, and that is okay. At a minimum, they create space where people can share their thinking on a topic and feel liberated in doing so.
The logic behind these sessions is to provide a positive means to push back against the allure of echo chambers. We do our best to recognize the potential negative effects of peer pressure, group identity, selective facts, and agenda-driven information loops that make it harder to discern fact from sentiment.
At the end of the day, these sessions can help you break out of the clutches of conformity where one perspective reigns, and it is reinforced institutionally. This is not an exercise in promoting the volume of choices but rather one that promotes meaningful choices-the ones that might challenge conventional thinking. If you allow for oxygen, then people can breathe.
Multiple Benefits
Whether your bottom line is profit, purpose, or both, a multiple-choice workplace can strengthen your mission and improve your results.
Successful private-sector investors have a healthy paranoia about opportunity costs and what they don’t know. Before investing, they examine options and avoid locking into just one idea or approach. They want companies to be hungry in finding ways to deliver shareholder value, and this typically means avoiding decisions based on incomplete assumptions. The best enterprises adapt and are willing to expand choices in seeking answers, and that goes right to the bottom line.
Mission-based organizations also benefit from elevating multiple choices. This requires a pursuit of impact that supersedes customs or any program or process. Avoid confusing methods with mission because, from time to time, you will need to ask, “Is this still the best path forward?” And how you respond to this question tells you all you need to know about your organization’s culture. Is it open or closed to alternatives? Embrace the benefits of expanded options!
Widen Your Scope
Anyone who has led an organization knows how difficult it can be to get people to offer anything other than the answer they think you want to hear. While that affirmation may be reassuring, it can trap you in an echo chamber that deprives you and your organization of the oxygen you need.
Expand your perspective. Talk to people who aren’t afraid to speak their mind. Take in some differing viewpoints. Once you do, you will learn what you need to know so you can make the right decision, not the one they think you should make.
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