Have you ever been in a situation at work that could be described as “a slow-moving train wreck”? You could see disaster coming as a result of some misguided decision, but didn’t feel like you had the opportunity to voice your concern or the authority to stop the decision from being implemented. Perhaps your co-workers saw the calamity coming too, and they also said nothing. And, when it was all over, and the damage was done, perhaps you said to yourself, “I knew this was going to be a disaster. Why didn’t anyone stop it?”
I’ve experienced this scenario, and I bet you have too. But I’ve also worked with an organization that deliberately took steps to avoid this kind of mishap. I was in a room where the project leader presented a plan for implementing a key decision they’d just made, and I was asked, “What’s wrong with our thinking here? Tell me what we have missed. Why isn’t this going to work? Be brutal with us. Tell us everything. We need your help. Please.”
I was on a red team, a group that was assembled for the express purpose of poking holes in an action the organization was about to take. Amid all the pressure to go-go-go, my role during the meeting was to tell the project leader all the reasons they should stop. My job was to tell the project team why their plan just wasn’t going to work.
The project team had just decided to ditch a well-established technology vendor and replace the vendor with a relative newcomer to the market. During the red team meeting, I shared my concerns about the new vendor’s unproven technology, the fact that their suite of offerings was incomplete, and that they lacked experience working with our industry. My fellow red team members and I shared our views about steps the organization would need to take to supplement the new vendor’s offerings, if the project team decided to proceed with their plan. As we presented our thoughts, project team members noted our concerns. They didn’t defend their decision to us. The project team truly seemed eager to hear our views about the risks and costs we thought their plan would pose to our organization.
They’d move ahead anyway. But not without first making a change or two or three that addressed the problems my fellow red teammates and I had surfaced. I like to think that our input made a difference and helped our organization score a real win with the project.
In this chapter, we’ll take a look at the red team and explore how you can apply the practice in your organization. You’ll see that the red team is a tool that focuses on the hard side of change, because its main function is to help your project teams make better decisions and improve your chances of achieving planned results. But you’ll see that the tool also helps you focus on the soft side of change. When you implement the red team concept correctly, you create an environment in which it’s safe to voice opposition and dissent. And that questioning and critical thinking may be just what’s needed to keep your project safely on the rails.
Marko Kovic, principal at the consulting firm Ars Cognitionis, describes a red team as “an independent group or team that is tasked with critically challenging decisions, procedures, or strategies in order to detect and eliminate cognitive blind spots” (Kovic 2019). Separate from your core project team, change management team, and transition-monitoring team, the red team meets periodically—perhaps just before your team completes a key milestone—to review plans and decisions you’re about to implement. The team’s goal during these meetings is to point out all the reasons your plans and decisions may not work. That way, you can make adjustments, if needed, before you move forward with a plan that might otherwise contain hidden flaws and weaknesses.
Strategist Micah Zenko explains that the idea can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when the Roman Catholic Church established the role of “devil’s advocate” to identify potential character flaws in candidates under consideration for sainthood (Zenko 2015). Today, businesses, government institutions, and not-for-profits around the globe establish red teams to perform that same function. They ask their red team members to play the role of devil’s advocate by actively challenging decisions and critically evaluating whether their plans really make sense.
Why set up a team that’s specifically charged with pointing out flaws and potential mistakes? Won’t people just tell you if they think you’re about to do something that could go wrong? Well, maybe … or maybe not.
Sometimes employees stay silent when they know their organization is about to do something that isn’t going to work. They may feel like their ideas just don’t matter, or they sense that they’ll experience retaliation or suffer other negative consequences if they express disagreement. They don’t want to be told to “Get with the program,” or that “You’re either on the bus or under the bus.” So they keep their concerns to themselves. The red team combats this tendency by providing an environment in which employees feel safe to voice objections and disagreement, because that’s exactly what you’ve asked them to do.
And even if you’ve established a psychologically healthy environment, your team can make errors when you ignore, or just fail to see, the risks in your plans. As Joel Neeb (2020), from the consulting firm Afterburner, states, it’s easy for teams to sit “so close to the problem, so close to the plan that they don’t see the forest for the trees. And there are glaring omissions that if anybody else were to put eyes on this plan they’d be able to help them out.” Sometimes a team just becomes overconfident or falls victim to “groupthink.” Or a leader becomes wedded to a decision, perhaps sensing that their own reputation is on the line if a decision needs to be reversed. So they start ignoring contrarian evidence when the flaws in their ideas start to surface. A red team provides an independent, second pair of eyes that can help your team navigate past these blind spots.
Perhaps that’s why Luis, in the JCo acquisition case you read in chapter 5, recommended establishing a red team for his project. He may have recognized that JCo employees would feel pressured to acquiesce to whatever plans the acquisition integration team set forth, even if they knew these plans were flawed. After all, Wilab had just acquired their company and their jobs might be at stake. Perhaps it really was better to just stay quiet and go along with things. Luis might have realized that he needed to establish an opportunity for JCo employees to safely ask questions and poke holes in the plans the core project team had prepared. And Luis also might have recognized that in their haste to move forward and quickly integrate JCo into Wilab, the project team might make some misguided assumptions that, if left unchecked, could create major problems. He probably saw how helpful it would be to have an independent set of eyes critically evaluate their plans before they proceeded to implement them. That’s why he recommended establishing a red team.
But why did Luis feel compelled to set up the red team as a separate, independent body? Couldn’t he just ask core project team members or members of the transition-monitoring team to do double duty? Couldn’t these other teams just take a step back and critically evaluate whatever was planned “from a red team perspective?”
Luis was wise to resist this temptation. Your core project team is responsible for moving your change project forward and for meeting deadlines. Once they get cooking, it may be hard for them to stop their go-go-go momentum and take a critical look back. And yes, your transition-monitoring team does serve as an internal focus group–the group you run plans and communications by before they are finalized and launched. But remember that they also serve as internal champions of the change within their respective organizations. So once they get started, their natural bias may be to support the change as well. Establish the red team as a separate group of individuals who you specifically charge with finding flaws and for putting on the brakes. You need a group who’s biased toward thinking “Here’s why this isn’t going to work.”
Are you convinced? Let’s see how you, like Luis, can establish a red team for your change initiative. You’ll need to:
• Choose your red team members and charge them with their responsibilities.
• Communicate the team’s purpose to the other project teams.
• Meet with red team members to solicit their input, and respond to their feedback and ideas by adjusting your plans and decisions when appropriate.
Let’s look at each of these steps in more depth.
To staff your red team, start by thinking about the people you haven’t already selected for another team who have the functional knowledge and experience needed to understand—and evaluate—the plans or decisions you’re reviewing. Who knows enough, or has seen enough, in the area covered in your plan that they can detect misguided assumptions and errors in your thinking? This might be a seasoned staff person with years of functional experience in an area that’s related to your project. Perhaps it’s someone who has lived through similar change projects in the past and has the battle scars to show for it. They’re someone who has done lots of things right, but also who has made mistakes that they’ve learned from. Who has the functional or technical expertise needed to determine if your plan makes sense?
For example, in the JCo acquisition case, when Luis recruits red team members to evaluate plans for migrating JCo employees to Wilab’s finance, sales, procurement, and HR systems, he might seek team members who already have significant experience using these systems at JCo. He might also recruit someone who has worked on system integrations in the past.
But think beyond the functional and technical skills needed to critically evaluate your plan. As you recruit members for your red team, include employees who have distinguished themselves by their analytical thinking skills. Who are the fearless critical thinkers in your organization? Who are the creative nonconformists? Who’s known for questioning decisions and for challenging the status quo? Who might lack functional expertise or experience in the area addressed by your plan, but who can spot a problem from a mile away—and they’re not afraid to call your attention to it? This might be a promising up-and-comer who’s participating in your company’s high-potential leadership development program, a staffer in your organization’s compliance or risk management function, a smart new hire, or just someone you know can really think three steps ahead. Make sure you include on your red team individuals who are skilled at critically evaluating assumptions and questioning decisions, regardless of their functional background.
And finally, think about who might be most inclined to doubt the wisdom of the change you are embarking on. As you staff your red team, consider including a few individuals who are known to be critical of the project or decision that is under review. Who are your naysayers? They likely have a valid perspective that’s important for your core project team and change management team to hear. For example, in the JCo acquisition case, Luis noted that Wilab’s head of IT had complained about Wilab proceeding with another acquisition at this time. Luis might ask Wilab’s head of IT to join the red team to ensure that the core project team appropriately heard, and potentially addressed, this person’s reservations. And don’t be surprised if you see one or two naysayers convert into project champions after they participate on a red team. Some red team members may become strong advocates for a change once they realize that they have had an official opportunity to critically evaluate plans and present their concerns.
After you compile a list of prospective red team candidates, take a step back. Are you seeing the same names on this red team that you’ve used in the past on other projects? Resist the urge to ask the same employees to join red teams over and over again. Even when your organization completely accepts the value of the red team concept, red team members may get labeled as organizational naysayers if they’re seen participating on red teams too frequently. Instead, consider rotating membership. This way, you’ll provide more employees throughout your organization with experience voicing critical perspectives. And you’ll help strengthen the critical thinking skills across your entire organization when red team members return to their regular jobs equipped with a bias toward challenging assumptions and asking probing questions.
Educate red team members about the distinct role they will play in the meetings they’re invited to join. Explain that their role will be to ask clarifying questions, probe for assumptions, and offer critical feedback about why the plan or decision might not work. Their job is to be critical, yet thoughtful, objective, and respectful. Make it clear that they may raise objections or surface risks that organizational leaders may end up deciding not to address. Their feedback is highly valued, but many factors, in addition to their input, influence how the project team will proceed. And reiterate to red team members that the information they receive is confidential. Your organization is trusting that red team members won’t share what they see with their peers and won’t disparage the project based on the discussion that occurs. This definitely is a situation where what happens in a red team meeting stays in the red team meeting!
For the red team to serve its purpose, core project team and change management team members need to understand the role they’ll play when they meet with red team members. Their job during a red team meeting will be to present their plan with the understanding that it will be reviewed to expose flaws and weaknesses. They need to share information, answer questions, and provide needed clarification. But most important, they need to listen—not to debate or defend their plans and decisions. They’re there to hopefully learn. They need to accept that there are risks and vulnerabilities they may not have adequately accounted for, and they must be willing to hear contrarian perspectives.
During their meeting with the red team, core project team and change management team members may hear objections that they’ve already accounted for. That’s okay. They can describe the actions they had planned to address the risk, and ask the red team if these plans are sufficient. Or they can nod, say “Thank you,” and ask for additional feedback. But they need to avoid critiquing the critique. That’s the purpose of the red team—to criticize, object, and find faults.
Although red team members need to demonstrate objectivity, respect, and good judgment, core project team and change management team members do too. They can’t disparage red team members for their analysis after the red team meeting has concluded. What’s said in the red team meeting needs to stay there.
Plan to meet with your red team whenever you’re approaching a key milestone on your project or whenever you’ve reached a key decision point, where it would be helpful to hear an independent review. You may meet with your red team only a few times throughout the course of your change initiative—perhaps once after your team has created its project plan, again right before you pull the trigger on a major action contained in your plans, and then anytime you’re about to make a significant change to what you had planned. For example, in the JCo acquisition case, Luis might schedule a red team meeting after the core project team had developed its plans for when and how JCo employees will migrate to Wilab’s systems. The focus of that meeting would be to hear from JCo and Wilab employees serving on the red team about the possible gaps and mistaken assumptions contained in that portion of the acquisition integration project plan.
I’ve seen a red team convene immediately before an organization announced a major restructuring they had planned. Another organization conducted a red team meeting before proceeding with their decision to terminate a massive project that had been under way for years.
You don’t need your red team to review every aspect of your project plan and every decision your team makes. That would be overkill. Just ask it to assemble whenever you’ve reached a major juncture in your project plan or need a critical review of a decision.
Here’s how you can conduct a red team meeting in your organization.
• Identify the portion of the plan or the decision you need the red team to review. Ideally, select a portion of the plan or decision that is still in draft form, that isn’t ready yet to be executed. You and your team need to be open to making changes based on the ideas you hear in the red team meeting, and you need to have time to make these changes before moving forward with implementing your plan or decision.
• Decide who will attend and who will lead the meeting. Invite members of the red team and members of the core project team or change management team whose plan or decision will be reviewed. Usually, your project leader will attend and facilitate the meeting, unless the discussion will focus on communications, training, or stakeholder engagement, in which case the change management leader should lead. Regardless of the topic, be sure to include at least one member of the change management team. They should listen carefully as the red team surfaces objections and concerns, because they may need to address these issues as they create communications plans, resistance management plans, and other plans for building stakeholder buy-in and support. And, of course, sometimes it will make sense for the red team to review and evaluate decisions and plans created by the change management team! If that’s the case, the change management team needs to be open to this critique and willing to adjust their plans and decisions based on what they have heard.
• Schedule the red team meeting and send any documents you want red team members to review in advance. In your invitation, remind participants about the overall purpose of the red team and the upcoming meeting, including the area the meeting will focus on. For example, you may say, “During this meeting, we’re asking the red team to review and critique the training plan we’ve created for this project. We’re eager to hear ideas about how we can make the plan even better.” As you’re setting the timeframe for the meeting, build in time at the end for core project team and change management team members to review and discuss what they have heard.
• Open the meeting by having the project leader (or change management leader, if the discussion will focus on communications, training, or stakeholder engagement) state the purpose of the gathering. Ask the project leader to kick off the meeting by saying something like, “We are eager to review our plan with you. It isn’t complete yet and we know it has holes in it. We need your guidance and ideas so we can make this better. We specifically want to hear from you about what’s wrong with our thinking. Tell us what we have missed. Why isn’t this going to work? Be brutal with us. Tell us everything.” You want to signal to the red team members that you’re eager to hear their feedback, need them to focus on gaps and omissions, and appreciate the role they will play in helping to make your project a success.
• Review and agree on meeting ground rules. Consider establishing ground rules like:
○ Leave titles at the door. Everyone has a valid perspective to share.
○ Red team members will offer criticism and objections respectfully and thoughtfully.
○ Core project team members will listen to the feedback provided, and will not debate the feedback or defend their plans.
○ Core project team members will thank red team members for their feedback and ideas.
○ The plans and discussion are confidential. Nothing discussed in the meeting will be shared outside the meeting.
○ There will be no retribution or repercussions for anything discussed in the meeting.
• The facilitator then presents the plan or proposed decision to the red team.
• Encourage red team members to ask clarifying questions so they can fully understand the plan or decision and the factors the team considered when creating it. To maintain an environment of respect, urge red team members to ask questions such as “Have you considered …?” as opposed to “Why didn’t you …?”
• Ask red team members to offer their criticism of the plan, proceeding in round-robin fashion as they identify all the risks, flaws, errors, and omissions they have detected. While red team members state their concerns and objections, core project team and change management team members should listen quietly, ask for clarification as needed, and take notes.
• Keep the conversation going by asking questions like:
○ “What else have we missed?”
○ “Why isn’t this going to work?”
○ “What problems do you think we’ll run into?”
○ “What could go wrong and what do you think we should do about it?”
○ “Where are we making the wrong assumptions?”
○ “What are we risking by doing this, and how likely are we to encounter that risk?”
• After red team members have provided all of their criticism, close this portion of the meeting by thanking them for their time and input. Say something like, “Thanks for sharing all your insight and feedback. We are going to take a step back and review everything you’ve just shared with us, and decide how to proceed.”
• Immediately after the red team exits the meeting, review and discuss what you have heard and decide how to adjust your plans or decisions if that’s needed. The red team may have surfaced risks or objections that you’ve already adequately considered and accounted for in your plan. You might note that feedback and decide not to act on it. Of course, the red team probably also identified real gaps and omissions that you hadn’t considered. Where possible, amend the plan or decision to incorporate and address this feedback.
• Recognize that the red team may present bad news about the viability of some portion of your project or decision. Be willing to act on that news. Nothing can shut down trust more than when employees know that leaders had access to information that would have helped them make a sound decision, but that they chose to ignore. This doesn’t mean that the red team can reverse decisions. But make sure there’s a sound reason for why you are proceeding with a decision given the risks that the red team has surfaced.
• If appropriate, notify red team members of the changes you made to the plan or decision. Thank them again for the vital insight they provided.
The red team concept focuses on the hard side of change—after all, it’s used to produce more informed decisions and better business outcomes. But for the practice to pay off, you need to carefully attend to the soft side of change too. As you implement the tool, you need to create and maintain an environment in which it’s safe for employees to raise objections and express dissenting views. This is a habit you can build in your organization over time. There are active steps you can take to promote and protect that habit.
Train employees and leaders on how to engage in productive and respectful dialogue. Some organizations require anyone attending a red team meeting—including organizational leaders and red team, core project team, and change management team members—to attend training prior to participating.
Encourage meeting participants to respond to criticism with statements like, “This is great feedback. Thanks for sharing that,” “I hadn’t thought of that. Tell me more,” wor “That’s interesting. Why do you say that?”
Ask leaders to model appropriate behavior during red team meetings. Encourage them to demonstrate humility, curiosity, appreciation, and respect. Ask them to say things like, “I clearly don’t have all the information you do from your experience working in xyz, so I need your help,” or “I’m confident I’ve missed things—maybe many things—and would love to hear your thoughts.”
During and after the meeting, strictly monitor compliance with the ground rules, and actively enforce them.
Acknowledge that hearing critical feedback can be hard. After the red team exits the meeting, encourage core project team and change management team members to take some deep breaths before deciding how to respond. This may be a situation where it’s best to “sleep on things” for a short while. Team members may need to pause, take a step back, and let the sting of criticism fade a bit before deciding how to proceed.
Do you want to try out the red team concept in your organization, but are you concerned your colleagues just won’t want to get on board? Start by inviting your co-workers and internal clients to conduct a critical review of a project you are leading. Let them know that you want to explore the red team concept by having them participate in a red team meeting where the focus is on your plans and decisions. You may find that your co-workers welcome—and even respect you for providing—an opportunity to evaluate your project. After all, it’s not their work that is being critiqued! As you present your plan or decision to your co-workers for their review, ask:
• What am I missing?
• Why isn’t this going to work?
• What problems do you think we’ll run into?
• What could go wrong and what do you think I should do about it?
Don’t defend your plan or explain your thinking. Just listen and thank your co-workers for their honest review. Then let your co-workers know about changes you plan to make to your plan or decision, based on the input they provided. (Come on, there must be something you can change!) Once your co-workers have seen the value of the red team meeting they participated in, they may be more willing to apply the same concept to their plans and decisions.
When you begin meeting with your red team, don’t be surprised if they tell you that your plan contains a glaring omission—you’ve left out a key stakeholder whose input you need for your project to succeed. In chapter 9, we’ll look at the steps you can take to try to avoid making that error. We’ll look at the stakeholder analysis—the process you can use to make sure you have identified everyone you need to involve as you move forward with your project. And yes, we’ll also look at what you can do if a red team member, or someone else, lets you know that despite your best planning, you’ve made that mistake anyway.
Kovic, M. 2019. “What Is Red Teaming, and Why Do You Need It?” Medium, March 15. medium.com/arscognitionis/what-is-red-teaming-and-why-do-you-need-it-31a6d4087d2e.
Murphy, J.D. 2011. “The Red Team: A Simple But Effective Method to Improve Mission Planning.” Toolbox HR, October 27. hr.toolbox.com/blogs/james-d-murphy/the-red-team-a-simple-but-effective-method-to-improve-mission-planning-102711.
Zenko, M. 2018. “Leaders Can Make Really Dumb Decisions: This Exercise Can Fix That.” Fortune, October 19.