Once, during my early days as a strategy consultant, we got into a big argument with a client. 

My project manager, let’s call him Tom, had just shared a proposal with Mary, the client, about an important offsite meeting our team planned to facilitate with the client’s senior leadership team (SLT) on the change work we were doing. Mary pushed back on the plan, insisting that this offsite should also include a number of middle managers from the client organization. A back-and-forth ensued between Mary and Tom. Tom was trying to impress on Mary the importance of allowing the senior leaders private space at the retreat so they could speak freely with each other about the changes being worked on without having the middle managers in the room, while Mary was insisting that the middle managers were going to be critical for this. 

The conversation was at a stalemate. Suddenly, Javier, a senior director from our consulting team, jumped in, and to everyone’s surprise said, “Tom, I think Mary is right.”

Really? That surprised me and Tom a lot! Just before the meeting, we had all been in a huddle with Javier, and he had approved the proposal Tom was going to present to Mary. Javier knew how important it was for the senior leaders to meet in private — so what was he thinking?

Javier turned to Mary and said, “Mary, you’re saying that it is critical for the middle managers’ voices and ideas to be heard, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s important that we give them enough time to have an open discussion and talk about their issues?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Thank you for sharing that. What if we organize a pre-meeting with the middle managers, so they can discuss their ideas freely? What do you think?”

“It’s a good idea,” she agreed. “It will give them the time to discuss this.”

“In that case, we could consolidate their inputs and take these to the senior leaders at the offsite. Would that work?”

“Yes. That would work well.”

Then he laid out the final card: 

“And if we’re taking their input to the senior leaders, do we need to include them in the main meeting? Or would it be enough to have given them this space, and to take their inputs to the senior leaders?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

The situation was turned around, beautifully, to the satisfaction of all. 

Do you see what happened here? 

In that moment, Javier was able to see the truth in what both parties were saying and fuse them to come up with an even better outcome while making both parties feel understood, heard, and validated. 

In these highly dynamic times, no single leader, expert, or C-suite has all the answers. It is hard to tell which ideas and practices need to be put aside, or which fresh insights could lead to a breakthrough. That’s why it is critical to build organizations where we can continually harness the collective intelligence across people, and across teams. To see not just the truth, but the whole truth. At Mentora, we call this a Culture of Wisdom.

What is a behavior or mindset you wish for your team and organization to practice, to create a Culture of Wisdom? How can you model this quality for others, so they get inspired and invested in it?