Who's in the Room?
Why are they there? And who's missing?
One of the most thought-provoking management books I’ve read was written in 2012, but its central message stayed with me. Bob Frisch’s Who’s in the Room? surfaced questions about who’s there, who isn’t, and what should be the operating rules for those who made the cut.
What I found particularly helpful was how cautions to avoid parochialism and think on behalf of the larger organization can have the inadvertent effect of squelching some sorely needed departmental advocacy. If the Human Resources/Personnel people aren’t going to raise the concerns of that particular department, who is?
The necessity to discover and explore a multitude of interests and potential problems will, if neglected, eventually arise at a less-than-ideal time. I saw that dramatically illustrated one time when a large office building conducted an emergency evacuation drill.
Despite prior planning sessions, it quickly became apparent that no one had thought to get the local fire department’s suggestions. As a result, standard practices for evacuating wheelchair users were omitted because no one knew such things even existed.
The only good news was that the people who carried a disabled co-worker down nine flights of stairs didn’t drop him, nor did they suffer heart attacks at the conclusion of their noble efforts although they did collapse on the lawn.
At least that process involved specialized knowledge. What is more common in our conflict-adverse society is for meetings to be awash with speculation of how Group A or Group B will feel about a proposal without anyone from those groups being directly consulted.
We, uh, didn’t want to bother them.
A decision-making list of “What We’re Assuming to Be True” can be very helpful because any embarrassment which ultimately arises won’t come from overlooking the arcane but will instead come from missing the obvious. I used to recommend that people use Lieutenant Columbo as an inquisitive role model until it became obvious that many younger people didn’t know who he was.
A less-colorful substitute may be to request identification of “the most likely and obvious areas in which we might drop the ball.”
And then listen carefully.
And ask again a day later.