I was working with a client last week at an away-day workshop, one session was about exploring the obstacles to change.  Before we’d got very far, it became apparent to me that the biggest obstacles still weren’t being talked about.  Having had some experience over the years of drawing out unspoken issues to help people talk about them, I challenged the participants: ‘What’s not being talked about here today?”

At first there was a stunned silence. Then someone put their hand up and almost in a whisper said “It’s that the competent people have the most work on dumped on them.   Not only that, we don’t know what to do with the incompetent ones either”.

Within seconds, the room was buzzing with energy as people wanted to share their ‘unspokens’.  Things like “I feel a slave”; “I feel powerless, overworked and unrewarded”. Then many small conversations broke out as everyone wanted add their own unspokens. I could sense in the participants a pent-up desire to talk about what was at the front of their minds; a need to express things they felt unable to voice at work.

In highly charged political work environments it can feel too risky, dangerous in fact, to speak up about what is felt to be most important. When people feel unable to speak honestly about the real issues, it can create the sort of frustration and confusion that soon leads to a culture of low morale, blame, distrust, resistance and ultimately sabotage.

I think this can be a big problem for leaders, as they often get shielded from the truth, so don’t get the honest feedback they need to lead effectively. If this gap of meaning between leader and staff isn’t bridged, it can spiral out into unproductive cycles of unreality and pretence. Eventually no one wants to talk about the real issues at meetings, even though they are staring everyone in the face. It is too dangerous to talk about them.

I often wonder about the financial cost of this fear-driven lack of honest conversation.  If organisations need accurate feedback to function, then the lack of feedback surely has a huge financial cost.  And we need to acknowledge that accurate feedback comprises two kinds of information: the rational and the emotional.  Both are vital if people are to work together effectively. If the organisation doesn’t have a vocabulary to talk about how people feel, then the information it’s working with is incomplete; and that lack of information can have serious consequences.

What do you think?

I believe this is an extremely important issue – maybe the biggest challenge leaders face – if we agree that organisational development and business success are fundamentally based on improving the quality of working relationships.  And we all know that the critical factor in improving relationships is finding better ways to create meaning through open and honest communication.  To this end I will be organising a workshop to explore this issue in September 2009 – please get in touch for more details.

Comments please to: julian@delta7.com

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