We're at the theatre... it's showtime!
It is the company’s cinema night, and everything has been organised down to the last detail. “Battleship Potemkin”, the famous Soviet silent film, is to be screened. Unfortunately, Italy’s football match is also being shown on television that very evening. The whole town is glued to the telly, the streets are deserted, and silence reigns supreme.
At the cinema entrance, people are searched and, whilst radios are confiscated, the ‘guests’ take their seats. The Megagalactic Director explains the film from the stage, praises it and points out that it is considered one of the most influential films in the history of cinema. Everyone seems to be listening attentively, whilst in reality they are straining their ears towards the outside, waiting for a cry of passion signalling an opponent’s goal, or a cry of joy signalling a goal for the national team.
The lights go down, the screening begins. People grow tired; many close their eyes, and a lucky few manage to fall asleep. Then, once the screening is over, everyone wakes up suddenly, widens their eyes without being seen, and applauds thunderously. Someone even asks for an encore.
…amidst this roar of applause… a small man stands up and, his chest swelling with courage, shouts his truth… …“The Battleship Potemkin is a bloody load of rubbish!” It’s the mutiny on the Bounty!
A change of scene!
We are in Milan, in the meeting room on the tenth floor. There are plants, antique wooden furniture, and soft, beautiful coloured carpets. The large windows overlook the city’s rooftops, and San Siro can be glimpsed in the distance. The chairs are made of soft beige leather with wooden legs, and the chandeliers are stylish. There is an aquarium with lots of colourful fish and bubbles rising slowly, at a relaxing pace.
This is the final meeting of a brief but intense process of defining the company’s strategy: where we want to go and why we want to do it. We are entering the feasibility assessment phase. We are considering the operational methods needed to implement the strategic scenarios.
This is the first time I’ve attended this meeting, and as an outsider, it’s easier for me to see that nobody is telling the boss what they really think.
They’re all like those people who watched *Battleship Potemkin* at the cinema without batting an eyelid, because that’s just the way it is, and that’s the way it has to be.
Everyone sitting at the table believes that everyone else thinks exactly the same as the boss. Everyone thinks they are the only one who thinks differently, so they decide to keep quiet… “I’m the only one seeing the situation from a different perspective, so I can’t be right. Surely someone else would have spoken up by now. Better to keep quiet.”
The boss observes and sees everyone nodding in agreement and smiling. He is convinced he is right... after all, if something were wrong, his team would have already told him... “I’ve asked everyone several times if they agreed, and they’ve always said yes... I even started shouting just to make myself feel better”.
…no one has the courage to tell the boss what they think because they know they’d be silenced immediately. They wouldn’t even manage to finish their sentence. The boss is often quick-tempered, has no patience to listen, and starts shouting.
A change of scene!
Fantozzi is kneeling on chickpeas; he has to serve his punishment, which involves watching and commenting on the film seven more times. The Megagalactic Director approaches him and whispers in his ear, “You and I don’t get on, and I can’t leave!”
Change of scene! The curtains are rising!!!
The presenter takes to the stage; he is standing and speaking into the microphone with a smile.
The Potemkin Paradox - The Cost of Silence
That silence in the meeting room is not neutral. It comes at a price.
A strategy approved unanimously but not truly embraced results in slow implementation, passive resistance and missed targets. People do the bare minimum because they don’t believe in what they’re doing, but they’ll never say so openly. The project moves forward, the reports show everything is green, and yet beneath the surface something is grinding to a halt. By the time the problem surfaces, it is already too late to change course without damage.
The paradox is that the boss who doesn’t listen isn’t doing so out of malice: he does it because no one has ever shown him how much each meeting where everyone nods costs him
The Potemkin Paradox - How to Break the Cycle
Coming in as an outsider changes everything.
When I sit down at that table, I have nothing to lose; I don’t have a career to protect within that company, and I’m not afraid of being silenced. I can say what those present are thinking but cannot bring themselves to say. Not because I am braver than they are, but because my position frees me from that dynamic.
The first practical step is not to convince the boss to listen. It is to create the conditions so that the real information reaches him in a structured way, without anyone having to put themselves on the line. One-to-one interviews before meetings, feedback collected anonymously, small-group working sessions where the hierarchy is temporarily suspended. An immediate cultural change is not needed: what is needed is a method that works around the problem whilst working to resolve it at its root.
The best boss I have ever worked with was the one who, before every important decision, made sure he had heard at least one dissenting voice. Not out of obligation, but because he understood that dissent is information, and the absence of dissent is almost always a warning sign.
Every strategy starts with a conversation... Let’s talk!
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