Callaway Golf and golf media and retail company Good Good got themselves into some public relations hot water this past week for running an ad that clearly depicted a man shoving a woman to the ground over the fact that she touched his golf club.
As you can imagine, the backlash was quick and vast, and both brands drew incredible public scrutiny; sponsorship dollars were lost; I'm sure someone was fired; and, as a result, the question was asked, "How did this happen?"
How an ad in today's day and age would get approved to run without anyone stopping and asking if this was a good or a bad idea is shocking to me, but after twenty years inside of a corporate office, I can tell you I've seen some really dumb decisions get made, so it's no surprise.
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The bigger lesson here isn't really about Callaway or Good Good. It's about what happens inside companies when people stop raising their hands. Somewhere along the way, someone probably had a gut reaction that said, "This feels off," and either they didn't say anything, or they said it quietly enough that the momentum of the idea kept moving.
That happens all the time. People sit in meetings and hear something ridiculous, but they don't want to be difficult. They don't want to slow the project down. They don't want to challenge the executive who is clearly excited about the idea. So they nod, take notes, and hope someone else says what they are thinking.
That is how bad ideas survive.
You don't need to be the smartest person in the room to stop something dumb from happening. You just need enough confidence to ask the obvious question. "Are we sure this is a good idea?" "How is the customer going to react to this?" "What are we missing here?" Sometimes that is all it takes to break everyone out of groupthink.
I think people underestimate how valuable that skill is. Companies don't need more people who agree with everything. They need people who can disagree without being assholes. There is a huge difference between being combative and being willing to protect the team from a bad decision.
If your only strategy is to stay quiet until someone else speaks first, you are basically outsourcing your judgment to the room.
The hard part is that raising your hand can feel risky. You might be the only person in the room who sees the problem. You might be wrong. You might annoy someone. But if your only strategy is to stay quiet until someone else speaks first, you are basically outsourcing your judgment to the room.
There have been plenty of times in my own career where I wish I had spoken up earlier. I saw things I didn't agree with, thought to myself that they were going to create problems, and then watched those exact problems show up later. At that point, saying "I knew this was going to happen" is useless. If you knew, you should have said something.
That doesn't mean you need to challenge every decision just to prove you have an opinion. Nobody likes the person who turns every conversation into a debate. But when something feels materially wrong, damaging, unethical, tone-deaf, or simply stupid, that is the moment to speak.
The best cultures are not the ones where nobody makes bad decisions. That's impossible. The best cultures are the ones where people feel responsible for catching bad decisions before they become expensive ones. Raise your hand. Ask the question. Say the uncomfortable thing. You might save your company from a very public lesson later.