Picture this: You're in a conference room with 23 executives, everyone has perfect PowerPoint presentations, engineering milestones are ahead of schedule, and you're about to sign off on a $25 million bet that feels like a sure thing.

That was the scene at HP when we were developing the Envy 133—the world's first 100% carbon fiber laptop. Everything looked perfect: engineering was ahead of schedule, we projected a $2 billion market opportunity, and the presentations were flawless.

Six weeks after launch, Apple shifted the entire thin-and-light laptop market, and our “sure thing” became a $25 million cautionary tale about decision-making.

Here's what I discovered: Your people aren't lying to you—they're protecting you. Every layer of management unconsciously filters out inconvenient truths. We had two massive blind spots:

Information in organizations goes through more filters than an Instagram photo. Each management layer edits out inconvenient truths—not from malice, but from basic human psychology. People want to be helpful, to be problem-solvers, to avoid being bearers of bad news.

I started treating information like a scientist treats data, using three temperature checks:

Technique 1: Pre-Mortem Confessions

Anonymous submission of biggest fears before major decisions. Read aloud without attribution to remove personal risk and stress-test plans against criticisms.

Technique 2: Messenger Reward System

Formally reward people who bring bad news, not just problem-solvers. Recognition in leadership meetings and promotion consideration. Within six months, intelligence quality improved dramatically.

Technique 3: Devil's Advocate Rotation

Assign someone to formally challenge assumptions in every major presentation. Rotate among team members to institutionalize dissent and make doubt safe to express.

Technique 4: Customer Voice Channel

Spend 25% of time with direct customer contact. This included executive briefings but also weekends in retail stores watching real customer behavior. The gap between what customers wanted and what product teams assumed was staggering.

Technique 5: Failure Story Requirement

Every presentation must include one failure story—not dwelling on failures, but incorporating lessons from setbacks into decision-making.

I developed a six-factor scorecard (1-5 scale) to measure information quality:

Review quarterly—scores below 3 signal information silos are forming.

Building a truth-telling culture isn't about finding better people—it's about creating better systems for handling difficult information. The market will always contain signals that contradict your plans. The question is whether those signals can survive the journey to your desk.

This Week's Challenge: Try one technique—run a pre-mortem confession on your next major decision or assign a devil's advocate to your next presentation. Small changes in how you handle information can prevent million-dollar mistakes.

For the complete Truth-Telling Scorecard and detailed frameworks, visit Phil's Studio Notes on Substack. For the full backstory on the HP Envy 133 project, including all the details, check out the complete article there.

Subscribe to the Killer Innovations Podcast | Watch on YouTube

To learn more about why best employees are sabotaging decisions, listen to this week's show: Why Your Best Employees Are Sabotaging Your Decisions (And How to Fix It).