Photo by Elijah Hail on Unsplash

For some reason, a long airplane ride is a great place to reflect on my work.



On a recent flight, I was struck by the similarity between four of my clients.



Four clients in different industries, with different team sizes and expertise, and who described their problems very differently. Yet, they shared a common problem.



One client felt their team had stopped caring about outcomes. One client was experiencing more turnover than expected. One client was frustrated that their team didn’t keep them in the loop about project status. One client felt their team had become entitled.



When I spoke individually with team members at each client, I saw patterns.

They felt unexpressed frustration with their manager.

They told me some information their manager didn’t know.

They could not identify any productive next steps to take.

They were afraid of being honest with their manager.

When I spoke individually with managers, I saw other patterns.

They felt unexpressed frustration with team members.

They told me information their team member didn’t know.

They could not identify any productive next steps to take.

They believed some team members are just “difficult to manage” by nature.

They spent most of their time with people they got along with, which excluded the “difficult” team members.

This leads me to believe that:

Some of your team members may feel the same way about you.

You might feel the same way about some of your team members.

I hope this isn’t the case. But if it is — don’t be surprised if you have the same problems as these clients did.

Stuck in the middle

This makes me sad because both sides are hurting.

They feel stuck without a path forward.

Once we feel stuck, our defenses kick in to preserve our self-esteem. This causes us to feel that:

Some people are not ‘cut out’ for programming (or managing)

Some employees are simply ‘difficult,’ and some managers are just ‘jerks.’

That it’s pointless to invest time in some people.

We quickly get into the stuck -> blame -> justify -> blame -> stuck loop, and it’s tough to break out of it.

This comes from the belief that there are things we simply can’t talk about.

For example:

We can’t talk to our employees about their attitude, or it will get worse.

We can’t talk to our boss about our disappointment with a raise, or they will fire us.

We can’t talk to executives about unrealistic expectations, or they will punish us.

We can’t talk to customers about budgets, or they will take their business elsewhere.

What you can’t talk about may define your culture more than what you can talk about.

How to break through

If these problems sound familiar, try asking these questions at your next 1:1, retrospective, or team meeting:

What feelings, failures, resentments, frustrations, fears, disappointments, or expectations are we not allowed to talk about?

What else are we not allowed to talk about?

What might be different if we found a way to talk about them?

How might we experiment with talking about these things?

Feel free to forward this article to your team, and ask them to make a list of the topics that are off limits.

Then walk them through the questions, and wait for the discussion to flow.



Stand back; you might get an earful.



And that’s a good thing because now you’re communicating.

Rainbows and Unicorns

Let me warn you, this is going to feel very awkward at first.

To be honest, it might be very quiet. And, everyone might stare at you.

But, you will not die, I promise. Nor will you look stupid.

These are reasonable questions that adults can ask each other. And, they are reasonable questions to answer.

Yet now, before you’ve asked them, this could feel like a leap of faith. A HUGE leap, which can seem terrifying.

But, I promise it’s smaller than it looks.

Let me give you a jiggle to help…

Steal my script

Identify the reason for the discussion: “When people work together, it’s easy to fall into habits of communication. It’s easy for small frustrations to turn into resentment or hard feelings over time. It’s also easy for us to get into ruts with what we talk about. Yet honesty and trust is the foundation of teamwork, so I’m going to ask you to be a bit more honest than you’re used to today, in the spirit of improving how we work together.” Ask the questions:

What feelings, failures, resentments, frustrations, fears, disappointments, or expectations are we not allowed to talk about?

What might be different if we found a way to talk about them?

3. Smile openly.

Sit quietly with a pad of paper and pen ready to take notes, sipping your tea.

4. Do not speak, and let the silence settle in.



5. Write down whatever is said.



6. Do not dive into any of the topics yet — the goal here is to gather topics which can’t be discussed. Not to discuss them.



7. Once everyone has had a chance to speak — ask the group which topic they would like to discuss today, and promise the others will be discussed soon.



8. Lead a discussion on the chosen topic.



(Note: A variation on Step 4–6 is to use the Liberating Structure’s 1–2–4-All meeting format. This works well if you suspect you’re not hearing from the introverts, or if some are dominating the idea generation phase.)



Now, I’ve illustrated doing this in a small group, but the same script works in a 1:1 meeting. The goal is to discuss what’s bothering people, become more honest, and build more trust.

Letting off small bits of steam prevents the pot from boiling over.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +431,678 people.

Subscribe to receive our top stories here.