Sense and decide
Keep positional power out of the room
Leave the most senior person out of a feedback session, because their presence stops people telling the truth.
Borrowed from Pixar Animation Studios, as described by Ed Catmull in Creativity, Inc. Read the original source.
Changes a rule or role · Minutes to start · Anyone on the team can start it
Try this first
Ask the most senior person to sit one review out. Have someone summarize the feedback for them after.
Use it when
The senior's presence is chilling truth-telling in reviews.
Skip it when
Never use it to cut a leader out of a decision they own, or to run a session behind their back. It works only in the open, with their agreement.
How to introduce it
For a session that exists to produce candid feedback, leave the most powerful person out. Explain the reason openly. This is a design choice, not a snub: with the boss in the room, people soften or withhold the honesty you called the session to get.
How to show up
Arrange it in advance and explain why, so the excluded leader understands you are protecting honesty, not hiding from them. Get the honest output back to that leader afterward in a form they can act on.
How long it takes
No real setup beyond deciding who is in and who is out.
What makes it hard
Senior people believe their presence does not dampen honesty. Most are wrong, and the case has to be made kindly and firmly. Watch that their absence does not turn the session into venting with nobody accountable.
What it looks like when it's working
People say things they would not say with the boss there, and the feedback lands sharper. If the softening happens anyway, another source of power is still in the room.
How long until it sticks
One or two sessions to see the difference in candor, which usually makes the case on its own.
How you know it stuck
The team designs honest sessions by asking who needs to be absent for the truth to come out.
The idea behind it
People self-censor around power without deciding to. Taking the senior person out is often the fastest route to the truth.
Where it comes from
Pixar's Braintrust. Deliberately exclude the boss from the candor space. Catmull kept even Steve Jobs out of Braintrust meetings so his presence wouldn't chill the truth-telling.
Why it matters for senior teams
Seniority can make this problem worse because people are less likely to challenge a high-status colleague