There is a very real possibility that you are not hearing the best ideas from your team.

I wonder how much that is costing you.

Many years ago, I was the president of a local nonprofit association. Among my eight board members was a woman whom I will call Chanelle because she sounds exotic. Chanelle was someone who could be called a “placeholder” on the board. She showed up diligently at all board meetings, but didn’t really contribute anything. He sat silently and voted on the things that others proposed. I’m not proud to say this, but after a few meetings, Chanelle became almost invisible to me.

Bad leader, no cookie!

A few months after my term expired, I was talking to another colleague and the name Chanelle came up. To my complete surprise, my colleague said, “OMG, he’s brilliant! One of the best brains I’ve ever met!”

Since then I have gotten to know Chanelle better and my colleague was right. She is brilliant. And quiet.

Chanelle is an introvert. She is not, and never will be, the noisy one in the meeting.

But it is the noisy ones that are heard. It is the noisy who dominate. And because of this, it is usually the noisy ones who set the agenda and the policies.

However, and I believe this has been verified, there is no known correlation between volume and intelligence. The loudest people are not necessarily the smartest. And just because an idea is loud doesn’t mean it’s good.

This is what I didn’t realize back then. The leader’s job is to make sure everyone is heard, including quiet people. Because quiet people won’t do it themselves, especially when loud people interrupt and talk continuously. I’m sure you’ve seen it happen. But unless you’re actively keeping an eye on it, you may not actually notice it. Why? Because, after a while, it seems to be the natural order of things. Loud people take over and quiet people fade into the background. They become invisible.

So how do you fix this? It is easier than you think. All you have to do is put in place a system to make sure everyone is heard. The simplest and most effective of these systems is this:

When it’s time to discuss an agenda item, he walks around the table and everyone has uninterrupted time to contribute. And I mean everyone. Nobody can pass. This may be uncomfortable at first, but it will quickly become the norm.

The three key rules are:

1. Everyone contributes.
2. No one can interrupt.
3. The leader goes last.

Chanelle was a tremendous resource to my team, a resource that I completely missed. If instead I had started a system like the one I just described, it is not known how much my team could have been or what kind of results we could have achieved.

And you? Missing out on your team’s best thinking? And, if so, what are you going to do about it?