Ep 313 | The Devil's Advocate

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. One role that I've come to embrace in, in business and, and sometimes in life is this role known as, oftentimes known as, the devil's advocate. I don't necessarily love the name devil's advocate, but the role— I have a natural tendency when looking at different scenarios or certain decisions where I'll take the opposing side just to create conversation, just to create debate. Not because I love the debate, but just simply because I want to make sure that we're analyzing all decisions from multiple angles. So, I take this devil's advocate role. I'm the dissenter. I'm trying to challenge the thinking or the decisions made by others. So, I'll play this role devil's advocate. I want to talk around this role a little bit and its value, right? I don't want to talk about the technical steps to being the black hat or the devil's advocate, but I want to talk about the role itself and how valuable it is, or I believe it to be. And I want to, I want to dig into the actual meaning behind the term devil's advocate or the origination of it. The term originates, no, no surprise, with, with the Catholic Church. And it's an official position, or it used to be an official position within the church that was established sometime in the 1500s by the Pope at the time. Now, the role of devil's advocate was to critically examine the life and miracles of individuals that were proposed for canonization, which was sainthood. And that person's job, the devil's advocate role, was to argue against their sainthood. So they were proposed for sainthood post-death, and this person's role, this individual's role, was to fight against the canonization, right? So the church was pushing it forward, and this person Their job was to fight against it. Now, this was done to ensure that only those that were truly deserving were in fact made saints. The devil's advocate would take this skeptical view and, and he would present all possible objections to the candidate's sainthood, while there was an advocate on the other side who was the promoter of the cause. He was known as God's advocate. He was the promoter of the cause, and he would argue in favor of the candidate. It was a rigorous process, a rigorous examination that helped maintain the integrity of this canonization process, and it prevented the approval— or its intent was to prevent the approval of unworthy candidates. Now, over time, the term has become to mean more than just that. It's more— it's used more broadly to describe Anyone who argues a contrary point of view or a skeptical position for the sake of debate, or at least to test the strength of an argument. And that's, that's why I use that term devil's advocate. I embrace that role. Now, what's interesting, and this is what I want us all to be thinking about, the church actually stopped using the role of the devil's advocate in 1983. So it was diminished in '83. The change came about as part of reforms that were instituted by the church by Pope I think it was John Paul II. He, he proposed to eliminate this role, and in 1983 it actually happened. And so they, they reformed the process or the procedures for canonization, and the intent was to streamline things and make it a little less adversarial and, and more collaborative. One major change was the reduction of this devil's advocate role. So the new process, the new procedure, no longer required a designated official to argue against sainthood. And again, instead, it was meant to be more collaborative, less confrontational. And the Church started moving forward post-1983 with this less confrontational, more collaborative approach. So the investigation into the proposed saint, they look at the candidate's life and miracles. And again, it was a collective effort of the Church officials. So the role was— the devil's advocate role was not entirely, you know, eliminated or abolished. It was just rendered obsolete by the changes in procedure. Now, what happened? And this is why I'm sharing all this with you. Before 1983, so really from the beginning of the formal sainthood process in the Catholic Church, that started around the 10th century. So quite a long time ago, 1,000+ years ago. In 1983, when things changed, right, the process changed in 1983. So from the 10th century all the way through 1983, there was about 300 saints that were canonized in that entire period of time. Now, Pope John Paul II puts these new changes in place in 1983. He himself, under, under Pope John Paul II, he canonized 482 saints during his reign as pope from 1978 to 2005. Then after him came Pope Benedict, who canonized 45 saints through 2013. And over the past 10, 11 years, Pope Francis has canonized almost 1,000 saints. Almost 1,000. So just so we're clear, pre-1983 there was 300. Post-1983 there was about 1,500 in just— what's that, a 30, 40-year run? So in a 40-year run, 1,500. In a 1,000-year run, 300. So the streamlining of the process, we can say, was pretty effective if the intent was to in fact canonize more saints. Now, what does it take to be canonized? You've got to— you've got to display whatever the church is in fact looking for. You know, you got to live a great life and maybe perform some miracles. And I don't fully understand the church. I'm not part of the church, but I know enough around this, or I've researched around enough around this. If you're going to become a saint, you've got to be a pretty special person. Now, I'm not judging the church by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just finding it Interesting that in 1,000 years, only 300 when the devil's advocate was involved, but then post-1983, things changed. There's probably a lot of reasons why that was, but I think it's safe to say that without the devil's advocate role, without the individual that was going to challenge, was going to dissent, was going to black hat, was going to challenge the arguments or create arguments and hopefully healthy debate, You know, in not doing that, it did open up the floodgates a bit. Now, maybe many people were being held back, many potential saints were being held back in the years prior, and I'm sure that's actually the case. But to the extent we now see post-1983, I find it fascinating. So what am I advocating for? I'm just wondering that if a devil's advocate was still an active role in today's, today's Catholic Church— and again, I don't know the church inside and out. Many of you listening know it far better than I ever will. But I, I have to believe that without that role, or if that role was in fact still in place, maybe there would be more debate and therefore less Saints at this time. So what does all this mean to you and why am I even talking about it? I believe this role to be critical in all that we do, particularly in business. I believe if you're listening to the No Days Off podcast, you are likely an entrepreneur, a business owner. At a very minimum, someone that is making big decisions on a fairly regular basis. So my question for you today, do you have somebody that sits in a role within your organization, or do you at the very least have somebody within your world that can play the opposition, that can take the other side of the coin and challenge your beliefs, challenge your decisions? Put up an argument which prompts you and your company and your people to look a little bit deeper into the decision you're making. Maybe do deeper analysis, maybe ask more questions, maybe even take more time so that you fight for— you have to fight for whatever decision you're trying to make. A great place where I like to see the devil's advocate role live is in hiring, right? So you interview someone, maybe you reviewed you know, dozens and dozens of resumes. You interview some people, you check references, you interview them again, you have them meet with other people within your organization. At some point, you put in so much work that you almost want to just get this over with. And you're, and you're advocating to make this hire partially because you may feel that the right fit, but partially because you've, you've run a pretty thorough process and it's time to make a decision. Do you have somebody or somebodies on the other side, though, that are sitting there, you know, kind of removed from the equation, not emotionally attached, not attached to the outcome in any way, that you are in fact presenting a package of information or whatever it may be, but presenting the person that you want to hire? Are you advocating for them and allowing them to challenge, to ask questions, to poke holes in your argument? If you make it through that process, how much better do you feel about the hire? How much more confident do you feel? Now, maybe you don't make it through the process, which is also an amazing thing because ideally that devil's advocate or those black hat individuals are challenging you, maybe making you think about things you didn't see the first time around. And as a result, yes, it may, may throw a, you know, a wrench in your plan, but ultimately save you time, money, and resources down the road. Now, this exists all throughout business, not just in hiring, but again, in a variety of decisions or products or services you want, whatever it may be. This role, this black hat role, this devil's advocate role is such, such an important imperative role. Do you have this? If you have it in business, do you have it in other areas of your life? Just think around that. And that's the focusing question. Where do you have this player or not have this player? And what steps do you need to take today to either take greater advantage or to add this person into your world such that you can make better decisions moving forward. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.