“We champion individual voice.” It’s one of the most common value statements in organisations. On the surface it sounds great and makes a lot of sense: of course individuals should bring their opinions to the table. Yes.
But it’s actually only half the story and without the missing half, we run into problems.
We need to champion individual voice: to create spaces where people can share their ideas, ask questions, receive and provide feedback, to make mistakes. But to do so requires a risk-assessment. Does the benefit of voicing an opinion outweigh the risk of something negative happening? So’s imperative to create the conditions for championing individual voice.
Many of the disciplines and organisational programs in the last couple of years have followed this lead, for example DEI/EDI programs. To augment and create space for individual / representative experiences.
The challenge lies in when we focus on the individual voice at the expense of the collective. By ‘collective’, I mean team, organisation, or society – it has micro and macro applications. When we over-emphasise individual at the expense of the collective, we lose direction, purpose and cohesiveness. Unwittingly, by championing individual voice, we paradoxically create greater division than before. We forget the group that is left out, ignore group dynamics, or prioritise one person over others.
And we overemphasise collective experience over individual voice, we lose individual autonomy, self-actualisation and drive groupthink due to lack of dissenting opinions.
Our organisations this uneven pendulum swing between focusing on individual voice and collective experience, rather than achieving balance.
We need to champion individual voice and collective experience.
Despite good intentions, imbalance results in tension and greater division in our organisations.
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Examples of where this dynamic shows up:
- Teams balance individual needs with group needs
- Engagement balances organisational direction with specific employee segments
- New product development balances edge cases with broader standardisation
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We need to achieve balance in our teams, customers, partners the individual voice and collective experience: whether it’s in product choices, service delivery or engagement.
Because we’re better together but nobody taught us how.
