“When we get together, it’s just a hurricane of random opinions.”

“When we get together, it’s just a hurricane of random opinions.”

Darrell Velegol, PhD

2023oct03

SITUATION: One client had a meeting for moving a product into their launching phase. There were about 10 people in the room, with lots of opinions about how to proceed.

PROBLEM: Lots of opinions and loud voices produce noise, not results.

ROOT CAUSE: The opinions each had inherent assumptions that not everyone agreed with.

IMPACT: This high margin product was projected to have revenue of $50 MM/y. So every week that went by cost $1 MM in opportunity costs.

COACHING TIP: Reframe disagreements as questions and hypotheses. Questions are not as threatening, and hypotheses can be tested with data.

STRUGGLES BEFORE: Before we started, this client had years of little innovation throughput on this product line.

VICTORY AFTER: By reframing differences as questions and hypotheses, we moved to actionable testing and calmer voices, especially since some team members were surprised by the data! In the end, the product launched in a few months, and the several team members were lauded by leadership for outstanding work.