Organizational success is based on the ability of leaders to make the most advantageous choices they can at the time they are needed. Sometimes organizational leaders can't see all the possibilities so they could be skipping over major solutions and alternatives explanations with a little more depth of understanding. The devils advocate can provide alternative explanations and discover holes in logic others might not have been able to see [People often view and make decisions about things through a lens. Different lenses give you new insights. i.e. different angles. That is assuming we listen and consider the value of such alternatives. Organizations that are not open to new ideas and ways of doing things, for one reason or another, begin to decline as they are bested by those organizations that can take in new information and adapt to higher functioning states.]
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| One serves their organizations well when they can understand alternative perspectives to create leading strategies. Decisions are the artifacts of organizations. A quote on decisions and long term outcomes.... "We will be forever known by the tracks we leave". –Dakota |
Three examples that highlight the advantage of a devil's advocate.
Business Strategy: Let us say that you are going to launch XYZ product but then run into a few strategic optional choices. Invest more in a product that may have limited market appeal but could open the company up to new revenue streams and new customers in the long run. Because more dominant personalities often have high ability to influence groups, having more of such dominant opinion makers could limit the ability to see all of the options being presented.
No person can be expected to know everything, and even if they are demanding, they have the same limitations in thinking as others. Thus opening the conversation to devil advocate viewpoints can lead to shifts in strategy or tweaking of such strategies [i.e. buying a start up, analyzing the market in a different way, or finding multiple uses for the same product. One might even consider investing in an innovation cluster with other companies to co-develop different industries that rely on similar technologies versus going it alone. Usually there are many plausible and implausible options that are unseen, undiscussed, unvetted and not considered for strategic use. The devil's advocate can discover new strategic paths.]
Corruption: Corruption doesn't work well in places where there are open lines of communication, a commitment to higher order thinking, and a willingness see the alternatives. The devil's advocate can help decrease the long term impacts of corruption through stepping outside socialized group norms to see things in new ways. As with many times in history, we look back at misuse of power, greed, and ideological beliefs with a level of "how could we not see the signs at that time?" i.e. Enron. Without such people it is doubtful the more serious forms of corruption will be averted. The devils advocate usually doesn't last long in places where freedom of speech is not protected and there common forms of bullying and power over dynamics in the decision making tree.
Science: Scientists are just as prone to theoretical blindness in the same way as strategic decision makers and organizational leaders might make industry mistakes. Some of the best solutions and scientific discoveries have come through seeing things in ways that others couldn't. Thus, devil's advocates can save a lot of time and money by asking the questions that sometimes uncover hidden patterns. Science and innovation work along similar lines with one being more formal for complex. Thus entrepreneur's mindset and the inquisitive nature of scientific development follow the same paths.
Sometimes from a business standpoint it could well worth it to develop teams where counter feedback is welcome, mutual respect for differences, and there is an attempt to understand all the paths. One can actually build those characteristics into the team culture or they can pay an outsider to come in and smash the foregoing logic with alternative explanations and solutions. It makes no different whether they are right or not but that they were able to see new things and force a level of deeper strategic foresight.
Abstract from Closed-mindedness and insulation in groupthink: their effects and the devil’s advocacy as a preventive measure.
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