Page 40 - Crucial Conversations

22 CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS

increased time investment is more than offset by the quality of
the decision.
On the other hand, we've all seen what happens when the
shared pool is dangerously shallow. When people purposefully
withhold meaning from one another, individually smart people
can do collectively stupid things.
For example, a client of ours shared the following story.
A woman checked into the hospital to have a tonsillectomy,
and the surgical team erroneously removed a portion of her foot.
How could this tragedy happen? In fact, why is it that ninety­
eight thousand hospital deaths each year stem from human
error?! In part because many health-care professionals are afraid
to speak their minds. In this case, no less than seven people won­
dered why the surgeon was working on the foot, but said noth­
ing. Meaning didn't freely flow because people were afraid to
speak up.
Of course, hospitals don't have a monopoly on fear. In every
instance where bosses are smart, highly paid, confident, and out­
spoken (i.e., most of the world), people tend to hold back their
opinions rather than risk angering someone in a position of power.
On the other hand, when people feel comfortable speaking up
and meaning does flow freely, the shared pool can dramatically
increase a group's ability to make better decisions. Consider what
happened to Kevin's group. As everyone on the team began to
explain his or her opinion, people formed a more clear and com­
plete picture of the circumstances.
As they began to understand the whys and wherefores of dif­
ferent proposals, they built off one another. Eventually, as one
idea led to the next, and then to the next, they came up with an
alternative that no one had originally thought of and that all
wholeheartedly supported. As a result of the free flow of mean­
ing, the whole (final choice) was truly greater than the sum of the
original parts. In short: