Why nobody challenges the plan until it's too late

You know the meeting. Everyone sits around the table. The proposal is presented. The leader asks if there are any concerns.

Silence.

The plan gets approved. Everyone leaves. And the real conversation starts in the corridor.

"That's never going to work."
"Did anyone else think the timeline was unrealistic?"
"I wasn't going to be the one to say it."

In Anglo cultures, this pattern is particularly evident. Societal culture plays a bigger role in execution than most organisations realise. This pattern around confrontation runs through Australia, New Zealand and the UK societies, to varying degrees.

Broadly, we value directness in theory, but default to politeness in practice. Challenge gets interpreted as confrontation. Disagreement gets confused with disrespect. And flawed plans get approved because nobody is willing to be the person who pushes back.

My research highlighted that, 73% of senior leaders believed avoidance behaviours were having a high to extremely high impact on execution in their businesses. Not because people lacked opinions. Because the culture had taught them it was safer to stay quiet.

Most organisations sit in one of two places. Either people feel safe but nothing gets challenged. Meetings end with false agreement. Plans sail through unchecked. Or people do challenge, but it depends on personality and power. The loudest voice wins. Others learn to stay silent.

Neither delivers execution.

The zone that does is where both safety and challenge are present. Not safety first, then challenge later. Both designed together. Where challenge is expected, not tolerated. Where it is built into how decisions are made, not left to individual courage.

Challenge doesn't become normal because someone brave starts doing it. It becomes normal when it's designed into how decisions get made. That's the work in Leadership: building an executive team where disagreement is expected rather than survived.

One organisation in my research built a simple mechanism: a shared phrase that gave people a way in. "I want to challenge you constructively." It sounds small. But it gave people language to cross the gap between silence and confrontation without it becoming personal.

That is the difference between challenge as a culture and challenge as an act of bravery. When challenge depends on courage, it is a lottery. When it is designed into the system, it becomes the norm.

This is part of lever 7 (Culture for Execution) of the Strategy Execution by Design Model. See the full framework →

Not sure which of the seven levers is holding your execution back? Take the Strategy Execution Maturity Model Assessment →

Written by Rebecca Reti, strategy and execution consultant working with boards and executive teams across Australia and New Zealand.

There's a one-pager mapping what challenge looks like when it's left to chance versus designed for execution, with five practical mechanisms for building it in. See it on LinkedIn →