Hiring Orson seemed like a no-brainer. He came highly recommended. Two of us had worked on projects with him.1 He knew our business, and his resume matched the job description to a tee. We were all delighted to find a quick solution to an urgent staffing problem. 

Three months later, Orson was out. His uncooperative behavior had driven everyone around him bonkers. Worse, he had embarrassed the team in front of a key client. How had we misjudged Orson’s fit so poorly?

Actually, we hadn’t. We discovered later that several of us had had reservations about Orson. The two people who had collaborated with him? Individually, they hadn’t enjoyed working with Orson. But they assumed the other one had and didn’t want to speak unkindly about someone they barely knew. With no dissenting views, a few early positive takes had started a runaway train that no one felt individually qualified to stop. So no one did.

Voicing dissent is difficult. It seems impossible with a tyrannical boss. Think Putin’s administration. But it doesn’t take a fear-based management style for dissent to stay submerged. We don’t like rocking boats and we don’t want to speak unkindly about someone’s behavior, work, or ideas. Nor do we want to slow down a process when we ourselves feel its urgency.

Even the best individual intentions can keep important dissent bottled up. It takes organizational norms and processes to reliably surface the contrary views required for good decision-making.

What kinds of processes might have helped us surface dissenting views on Orson?