Why you need a devil’s advocate

We all think that we have great ideas. And we all tend to fall in love with our own ideas because, well, they’re ours. But most of my ideas—and yours—are probably mediocre. And no, that’s not an insult; it’s just a fact about the way most ideas are generated. I mean, if we were all genuinely spewing game-changers the world would be in a much different place than it is today. 

Most ideas are created without much thought or insight or pushback—and could probably benefit from people challenging them a lot more. Way too many ideas get approved that shouldn’t have made it out of the conference room, but with lack of time, energy, and questioning, they move forward at an alarming rate.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Imagine if you had someone whose job it was to voice concerns about those ideas; someone whose sole purpose was to poke holes, identify flaws, and challenge assumptions. A Devil’s Advocate isn’t there to be negative just for the sake of it. The role exists to make your ideas sharper and more bulletproof before they ever get the green light. The purpose isn’t to tear down or be difficult; it’s to help you move forward more confidently with the best version of your idea, an idea that has been stress-tested and refined to withstand real-world challenges.

A stress test

The reason you need a Devil’s Advocate is simple: it’s the only way to make sure your ideas are ready for the real world. It should be common practice to stress-test your assumptions, invite dissent, and build real critical thinking into your process. Constructive debate is a cornerstone of the innovation process and should be embraced. Personally, I love it.

Here’s why: it makes me, and my ideas, better. The Devil’s Advocate role creates honest discussion, and pushes people to elevate their work by considering: “Is this really the best we can do?” They encourage people to say the hard thing: what others may be too afraid to express. I’d much rather have someone help me think through all the potential angles early so I can win versus being blindsided later. 

“I tell my team when I’m introducing an idea: ‘Please argue with me—I need your brain on this!’ I don’t have all the knowledge or ideas, so I don’t make a decision until we’ve done that,” says Tracie Ybarra, VP of talent at Avantor.

Without someone willing to push back, your ideas may never reach their full potential. Instead, they’ll simply be okay ideas, good enough to get by, but not strong enough to disrupt, innovate, or leave a lasting impact. And that’s a shame. Because we’re all here to live a life of meaning, not mediocrity.

Make Your Ideas Stronger

How does being a Devil’s Advocate actually work? The goal isn’t to be contrarian or difficult just for the fun of it. It’s about creating a process that welcomes balance—seeing the potential and the problems in an idea, and generating solutions to overcome issues that arise. When you know that someone will challenge your ideas, you work harder to defend them, to improve them, to find the flaws before anyone else does.

A good Devil’s Advocate is a professional skeptic: They don’t just point out what’s wrong; they ask why it’s wrong, and they offer alternative solutions. Engaging with you like this forces you to reflect, to rethink, and revise with the goal of improvement, not failure. 

Jarret Kleppél, VP, talent and organizational development at NBCUniversal, agrees: “Inviting critique and cynicism throughout our process keeps our team less emotionally attached to the proposal and more focused on the outcome.”

This process also builds an important skill: resilience. You can’t prepare for every problem in advance, but you can certainly stress-test better things before you go live.

The Power of Constructive Conflict

Constructive conflict is what makes a successful team. But we often take conflict as a negative thing. I like to think of constructive conflict to be more like a contrast—it creates productive friction by giving a different perspective, not a divisive one. Without that, we settle into mediocrity, where comfort ensures everyone’s happy, but nobody really grows. Real innovation happens when different perspectives collide, when people aren’t afraid to challenge each other’s ideas in a productive way.

A MIT Sloan-affiliated piece emphasizes that having a critical reviewer in meetings improves outcomes. One company that they studied experienced a 25% improvement in their project success rates when this role was active. What does that mean? It means that the Devil’s Advocate creates a stronger foundation for your ideas by challenging them before they face the real world.

Devil’s Advocates also eliminate some of the fatal flaws of some collaboration: groupthink and the tendency to favor consensus over critical thought. People are scared of scrutiny so we avoid it, and that’s how “good enough” takes hold. 

A Devil’s Advocate Doesn’t Kill Ideas. It Protects Them

A good idea that hasn’t been tested isn’t good—it’s vulnerable. It’s like sending a fighter into the ring without any practice or training, expecting them to win. Doing that is naive, and somebody just might get hurt. The Devil’s Advocate is the trainer that makes your idea go a few rounds in the gym before it’s ready to compete. 

At X, Google’s innovation lab, teams designate employees to act as devil’s advocates, identifying flaws in ideas to make them better before launch. IBM thoroughly tests ideas for weaknesses during high-stakes project planning to dramatically increase its chances of success.

Christine Tricoli, group executive vice president and chief human resources officer at H.W. Kaufman Group advocates for this approach: “One of the benefits of having someone ‘call you out’ or share the ‘unspoken concerns’ of the group is that it spares the team the embarrassment of having someone external discovering the issue for you. It saves time and money and helps you be more productive sooner rather than later.  Leaders need to cultivate an environment that encourages this type of disruption or challenge within the team.”

How Do You Implement the Devil’s Advocate?

It’s easier than it sounds. Start by assigning someone the role of asking (or rotating the role among the team) tough questions during brainstorms or project planning. This person should have the power to challenge assumptions, ask what could go wrong, and offer alternative solutions without repercussions. Their job isn’t to just criticize; it’s to actively work with the team to solve problems and refine ideas so they’re more likely to succeed.

Ask yourself: when was the last time you let someone challenge your ideas in a constructive way? And if you don’t have a Devil’s Advocate on your team, how could you benefit from having one?

Let Dissent Be Your Friend

My closest friends are the ones that can be most honest with me. I need them because they make me a better person, and their intent is to help, not to harm. It’s the same here with ideas. By challenging your ideas early and often, you help move them forward and give them the best shot at success. 

Stop avoiding the hard questions, and stop letting groupthink win. Instead, build the Devil’s Advocate into your process and let it turn your good ideas into great ones. Because in the end, the only thing worse than a bad idea is an unexamined one.

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