Every organization, for better or for worse, has a culture. Boards define themselves by how they interpret the organization’s mission; staffs are defined by how, and how well, they interpret the decisions that emerge from those interpretations. And at every step, they run the risk that the culture will get a little stale—places where people say things like, “This is how you’re supposed to do it.” Or that long-lamented phrase in associations: “That’s how we’ve always done it.”

Would it help to have somebody around whose actual job it is to push back against that kind of talk? At the Sloan MIT Management Review, a group of leadership scholars discuss the positive impact of a “critical reviewer,” an in-house devil’s advocate who is there to question the organization’s assumptions and internal behaviors.

As they put it: “The critical reviewer is an individual tasked with challenging prevailing assumptions and ensuring that ideas are evaluated thoroughly. Rather than accepting what’s presented at face value, the critical reviewer encourages the team to consider alternatives, think through risks, and ask whether all relevant factors have been considered.”

A pest, I thought, immediately upon reading that. That’s not fair, I know; the scholars point to research that shows that critical reviewers have substantial positive impacts on meeting effectiveness, productivity, and participation. 

But I came away from the piece thinking that there should be some clear lines drawn around the “critical reviewer” role, and some important guidelines, to keep the reviewer from being pest-like. First, especially in board environments, everyone ought to be a critical reviewer. Everyone in the room should feel empowered—indeed, is empowered—to question the research behind decisions they intend to make, to prompt them to consider alternatives, and to challenge the assumptions they’re working under. Having a critical reviewer assigned to a meeting isn’t an invitation for everybody else to abandon their strategic-thinking skills.

Everyone in the room should feel empowered to question research, consider alternatives, and challenge assumptions.

That said, I can see a couple of net positives for the critical reviewer role. First, while it’s good to assume that groups will think strategically, a critical reviewer ensures that the kinds of probing and questioning behind that assumption will be vocal and overt. Rather than being in the way and derailing conversations—being a pest—the role helps to ensure that everyone in the room is keeping a strategic conversation at a higher level.

Second, and perhaps more importantly on boards, “critical reviewer” is valuable as a rotating role that gives newer board members who aren’t on the executive committee an opportunity to demonstrate leadership. The Sloan article’s authors point to some benefits of rotating the job, which “ensures that no single person has to continuously question others, which could otherwise lead to tension or fatigue. Instead, the responsibility is distributed, helping everyone develop sharper critical thinking skills…. By giving each team member the opportunity to serve as the critical reviewer, participation naturally increased.”

Board chairs, of course, will have to manage that role along with all the rest—critical reviewing isn’t an excuse to get deep in the weeds, turn discussions toward pet projects, or passive-aggressively snipe at specific projects (or board members). But done well, it can be an effective way of keeping everyone in the room focused and strategic.

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