I've had the opportunity to be inside of a lot of organizations and was reminded of one in particular this evening as I watched Mike Pence.
Even if I haven't been introduced to people, I can usually tell quite quickly who is in charge. I was just starting what turned out to be a multi-year engagement with a Fortune 50 company when I was in a conference room with about 12 people. Very quickly I realized that person A was in charge. Everyone deferred to him. He spoke at the greatest length and with the most authority. Then out of the blue, this other guy took over the conversation. I thought the first guy might be offended, but he was deferential to this new guy. I thought I might be witnessing a subtle takeover. And then - about fifteen minutes later - this happened again. There were at least three people who were clearly the leader in that room and I was baffled. It wasn't until this happened one more time that I realized what was going on. This company makes multi-billion dollar investments that are incredibly risky. They are the definition of cutting edge technology. And depending on the topic of the moment, the expert in the room literally shifted from one person to the next. Exploring a new material? Joe is our guy and he leads this discussion. Talking about factory construction? Suddenly it's Akbar. And so on. The topic was way too complex for any one person to dominate. It was also too important for any one person to politely defer.
They weren't necessarily gentle with each other. They had a value they called "constructive confrontation." The point was not to be polite. The point was to genuinely respect different perspectives and opinions and get to something like the truth before investing millions in a new product or billions in a new facility.
Why mention that tonight? Well, Trump and Pence have been accused of not listening to experts. I think that's wrong. My impression after watching them talk over moderators and their opponents is that they are not used to listening to anyone. They're not interested in understanding different perspectives. They are not interested in anything like the truth. They simply expect to be heard and to dominate the conversation. And of course Trump does it rudely and Pence does it politely but it is the same outcome: we're not here to debate, to exchange and defend ideas. We're just here to tell you.
And in my 25 years of working within a wide variety of companies, this disinterest in hearing anyone else or conflicting opinions is probably the best predictor of failure. Watching Trump and Pence's complete lack of interest in anything but being heard explained to me so clearly why their policies have been so disastrous.
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