What it was:

Short workshop on ‘Reasonable challenge’ in London on 26 September 2018.

What I learned:

• The Chilcot report, which examined Government decision-making in the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, warned against the dangers of ‘group-think’.
• Challenge is a key way of fighting group-think.
• Challenge is difficult in a hierarchical organisation like defence. We can get swept up in ‘senior narratives’ and find ourselves working within these without necessarily challenging them.
• Being on the receiving end of challenge is difficult for leaders. The instinct can be fight or flight.
• The MOD has developed a simple Reasonable Challenge guide that helps people to direct challenge in the right way, and helps leaders to encourage and harness challenge.
• The language we use to introduce a reasonable challenge is important, make sure to phrase it as a helpful suggestion
• The role of leaders is to create a context in which everyone can make a reasonable challenge.
• Reasonable challenge is now being baked into training across government.

What I will aim to do differently as a result:

• Apply reasonable challenge lessons at work
• Publicise the reasonable challenge guide in my team
• Conduct a workshop to explore how we apply challenge in our team
• Consider recognising or rewarding team members for making good use of challenge