When did you last avoid saying the real thing – and what did that avoidance cost

When did you last avoid saying the real thing – and what did that avoidance cost? We can help. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_leadership-management-psychologicalsafety-activity-7360930467069534208-zPil Sign up for thee free five core practices challenge at https://link.redquadrant.com/5corepracticeschallenge

When did you last avoid saying the real thing – and what did that avoidance cost? We can help.

Most ‘difficult conversations’ fail before they start. We avoid the truth to protect the relationship, and in doing so, we damage both.

The first day of our five core practices challenge next week is about making conversations genuinely productive. We slow down the ladder of inference, explain our reasoning, and ask better questions – so the undiscussable becomes discussable.

This is #leadership as practice, not performance; it is how real #management creates #psychologicalsafety and unlocks #productivity. We’ll use simple moves – balancing advocacy and inquiry, naming the thing, checking meanings – and you will test them in a live context, not a workshop bubble. Expect initial resistance – that’s the point. Then expect movement.

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A leadership team we worked with had a huge issue with team dynamics. The totemic example was that one senior manager had failed to attend a critical team meeting scheduled on the day of district council elections, as he conducted his traditional role as senior officer at a polling station.

He and the leader both thought the other was being unfair and disrespectful.

A ‘productive conversation’ held during our programme allowed them to get the issues out on the table, and talk about them honestly. They could both see the other’s perspective – grudgingly.

It didn’t ‘fix’ the relationship – in fact, it appeared at first that opening up fuelled anger. But their relationship and their work together started to improve.

And the whole team go two messages:

1 – what was festering had been opened up to the air and was healing.

2 – it’s OK, and more productive, to express something like this – even if you need support to make sure it’s constructive.

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Sign up for the five-day challenge (link in first comment). If you want the invite by DM, just reply ‘I’m in’.

When did you last avoid saying the real thing – and what did that avoidance cost?

Join me for free on August 18-20, an hour a day for free – take the five core practices challenge, see what results *you* get 🙂 https://link.redquadrant.com/5corepracticeschallenge 12pm-1pm ET/ 11am-12pm CT/ 9am-10am PT/ 6pm-7pm CET /  5-6pm UK time