As a leader, the most dangerous response you'll ever get is a 'yes' nobody actually means.
Researcher Dr. Brené Brown calls it a "dirty yes" - when someone agrees out loud with no real intention of following through, and it happens more than most leaders realise.
Here's 3 ways to spot it, and what to do once you have.
#1. "What would make this hard to actually pull off?"
If the room can answer that easily, the yes is probably real. They've already thought it through. If you get silence or a vague shrug, that's worth paying attention to.
#2: "What's the part of this you're least sure about?"
A real yes usually still has an answer here. A 'dirty yes' has nothing, because they weren't really thinking about it in the first place.
#3: "If this doesn't work in a month, what do you think will have gone wrong?"
Someone who actually means the yes can picture how it might fail. Someone who didn't, usually can't, because they never pictured it succeeding in the first place...
A lot of your leaders might think their job is getting to yes, but it's actually making sure the yes is real.
A no slows you down for a day. A 'dirty yes' blows up the change project in a month, and you won't see it coming because everyone already "agreed".
If you've ever given someone a fast yes you didn't mean, you know exactly why this matters.