Who Is The Tenth Man/Woman On Your Leadership Team?

What every leader can learn from the movie “World War Z.”

I watched the movie World War Z recently and was impressed with one scene, when Brad Pitt is speaking with a high-ranking Israeli intelligence officer, he is told of the concept of the Tenth Man on council. The role of the tenth man is to take the contrarian view to the agreed upon consensus to ensure that the council is always ready for the most improbable of situations (like a zombie attack).

Companies often forget about their blind spots, get complacent when everything appears to be going right, might underestimate a new competitor, downplay a recent shift in the industry, under estimate economic indicators, get caught by a regulatory change, ignore a customer complaint, or blow-off the departure of key, high performing individuals. The company later ends up in a crisis, only to realize that one of these lead indicators was pointing to what was now a major shift in their business.

One way to avoid this situation is to ensure someone is appointed as the “tenth man.” This role can be rotated on a quarterly basis, but comes with the responsibility that, as the appointed tenth person, the individual must think of every bit of information as a potential threat and raise discarded indicators to the team so as to ensure they are discussed as if they were pointing to the most important and immanent threat to the business. To have the courage to appoint and develop such an approach requires a leader with good self-confidence, who is transparent, encourages dialogue, surrounds him/herself with top performers, assembles a diverse team, and encourages dialogue and debate.

No matter how big your business, you should appoint your tenth man/woman and ensure they have a voice.