The Danger of the Devil’s Advocate

Author Tom Kelley wrote that “the Devil’s Advocate may be the biggest innovation killer in America today”. And he may be right. 

Understanding the origins of the Devil’s Advocate can shed light. Vatican records mention the expression as far back as the 1500s. It became an official role assigned to someone to make an argument against candidates for sainthood (canonization).  The goal was to maintain a high bar and the Devil’s Advocate’s role was to identify character flaws or issues with the evidence regarding miracles that were attributed to the candidate. 

History tells us that it worked. Looking at the last century alone, there were only 98 canonizations until 1983. In 1983, Pope John Paul II diminished the role of the Devil’s Advocate and the flood gates opened. In the last few decades over 500 people were canonized.

On the surface, this sounds like an effective concept that can be applied to the innovation process in the business world.  But here is the issue. The Devil’s Advocate was designed to take a retrospective look at the evidence to support a claim of sainthood. It is a static historical review of the evidence.

Innovation, on the other hand, is about taking a prospective view of the world. It has no past, just a future. It is about making a link that doesn’t exist or creating something for the first time. Innovation is about constructive improvement not destructive pessimism.   Innosight's work tells us that over 90% of successful innovations started out as something different.  Someone saw the brilliance in the idea, adapted it, iterated, learned, and created value that didn’t exist prior.

In fact, the Devil’s Advocate may be a key contributor to Christensen’s ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’ which says that companies are doomed to fail because of their anchoring in past business practices. Many companies with good intentions may inadvertently jettison great ideas by deploying the Devil’s Advocate, a process which is meant to focus on the flaws and worst case scenarios of an idea rather than build on what makes it great.  The Devil’s Advocate is anchored in the past and feeds the negative bias that already exists in our psyche.

As Dr. Mike Bechtle has said, “our brains are wired toward the negative, not the positive”.   Fear is one of the strongest motivators in humankind and it can be wielded mercilessly by the Devil’s Advocate. Whether it be the fear of the risk to existing lines of business, fear of worst case scenarios, or simply fear of the unknown, it can extinguish any future possibilities of good ideas.  

Make no mistake, we need a mechanism to prioritize our innovation ideas and invest our resources, but the Devil’s Advocate is the wrong tool.  

Great innovation cultures don’t need to assign someone the role of tearing down ideas. If a company gets their culture right, they can exorcise their reliance on the Devil’s Advocate and improve their innovation potential.   You know your culture has no need for a Devil’s Advocate when it:

·     Embraces diversity and fosters inclusion

·     Is open to suggestions

·     Places the customer and their needs at the center

·     Criticizes constructively (instead of destructively as the Devil’s Advocate does)

·     Is process orientated to develop, value, and prioritize ideas

When we get the culture right, we can avoid issues the Devil's Advocate is "hired" to address like groupthink, overly powerful influencers, and an inability to prioritize among others. 

Innovation is already hard enough. Don’t let the devil in, he is up to no good.  And he is the one entity that certainly doesn't need anymore advocates.