An early employee of a Seattle start-up that began as the first online bookstore and ended up selling, well, everything, told me about a practice the leadership team had back in the day, one still used by many tech companies.
When preparing for media interviews, she said, they would do “Rude FAQs.”
She said, “When you were getting ready to do media or be in an investment situation, you would meet with someone in PR who would ask you the hardest questions.”
Getting grilled by a team member was hugely helpful: “You want to know when to stop talking, when to answer with a different answer.”
A current college president said he and his staff do a version of this based on “after-incident reports” created in the wake of disasters. Instead of a debrief, they anticipate all the things that could go wrong before they actually take action. And then are better prepared going forward.
To practice responding to questions when you’re not entirely sure you’ll do a good job is like answering the doorbell in your tattiest pajamas. It’s embarrassing and requires a lot of confidence that you won’t be judged.
In fact, it’s like showing someone an early draft of a manuscript because you know you can’t see your own mistakes—we all need editing all the time. As a recovering publisher, I have never understood why so many people let the first person to read their work be an editor who is in a position to reject it. Such a common mistake.
On the flip side, most leaders say they need their staff to be honest with them and push back. They encourage brutal honesty, they say. They seek to create an atmosphere of trust and openness. I believe that is their sincere intent. These are, after all, people who are confident enough to hear criticism and who are invested in doing the best job.
What they may be missing is something I’ve heard from team members who work for charismatic, smartest-person-in-the-room-but-still-annoyingly-humble leaders: it’s hard to criticize someone you admire and whose opinions you value so much you can’t help but think they’re usually right.
It’s not that their staff isn’t being honest with them. It’s just that the brightest lights can be blinding to look at. Everyone seeks approval, even when they’re not sucking up. They just want to play football for the coach.
Often, these shining stars say the person they trust most to tell them when they’re wrong is the person who asks them to pick up their socks, clean the makeup off the bathroom sink, or to please, for the love of god, put the toilet seat down.