A lot of bosses, when they have meetings, try to drive for consensus. That’s the wrong idea.
You don’t want to drive consensus. You want to encourage dissent. How can you do that?
We used to pass out black and red cards. You can use dissent cards or a regular deck of cards.
Do this: The next time you have a meeting, plant a dissenter. Ask someone to challenge an assumption or disagree with the group ahead of time. That way you know that you’ll encourage some level of dissent.
Once one person starts to disagree with the group and people see that it’s safe, more people will join in. That’s what you want.
For more information on Dissent Cards –
