Why Meetings Need a Constructive Devil’s Advocate

When one person takes on the role of testing assumptions and evaluating ideas in meetings, it leads to better-considered next steps and fewer follow-up discussions.

Reading Time: 9 min 

Topics

Permissions and PDF

Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images

Meetings are a staple of organizational life. They’re a place where important decisions are made, strategies discussed, and problems tackled. But too often, meetings don’t deliver the desired outcomes. Teams convene regularly — sometimes out of habit rather than necessity — but while agreements are often reached, the results frequently fall short. Why? Discussions are rushed, assumptions go unchecked, and risks aren’t fully explored. In the drive to achieve consensus, critical questions are left unasked. The result is agreement without the depth of analysis needed for long-term success. This points to the need for a more deliberate approach to structuring meetings.

To explore this idea, we collectively conducted two studies on how engagement and accountability influence decision-making within organizations. In the first study, published in the Journal of Management Studies, 243 employees across 67 organizations were surveyed. In the second study, interviews were conducted with 20 HR professionals from companies involved in the first study to delve deeper into how interpersonal dynamics influence meetings.

Through that research, we identified a simple yet powerful solution: introducing a critical reviewer. The critical reviewer is an individual tasked with challenging prevailing assumptions and ensuring that ideas are evaluated thoroughly. Rather than accepting what’s presented at face value, the critical reviewer encourages the team to consider alternatives, think through risks, and ask whether all relevant factors have been considered.

Our data showed that in teams with a critical reviewer, meeting effectiveness improved by 33% compared with meetings that didn’t include one. Further, decision quality improved by 23%, project delays were reduced by 36%, and participation increased by 28%. Organizations that adopted this role saw a 32% increase in the diversity of ideas discussed, and 29% of employees reported greater satisfaction with meeting outcomes due to more thoughtful discussions. In contrast, meetings without a critical reviewer were more likely to fall into groupthink, leading to rushed conclusions and missed risks, based on self-reported participant data collected over time as teams transitioned from meetings without the role to those with it. As a result, decisions made in those meetings often required follow-up meetings to revisit unresolved issues or make additional adjustments, such as revising project timelines, reallocating resources, or addressing overlooked risks, which delayed progress and reduced team morale.

Topics

Reprint #:

66341

More Like This

Add a comment

You must to post a comment.

First time here? Sign up for a free account: Comment on articles and get access to many more articles.