How to Solve Silent Problems

Don’t avoid conflict; solve it

Don’t avoid conflict; solve it.

Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

“It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” — Mickey Mantle

The most important role of a leader is to face reality.

Understanding what lies ahead is critical to making the right decisions. Accepting reality requires to remain open to new information — especially the one that challenges what we know for sure.

Avoidance doesn’t make issues go away — sugarcoating the truth only makes them worse. Surprisingly, denying reality is the main reason CEOs get fired. A team can only solve the problems they talk about.

Denial Is Dangerous

“The health of an organization is measured by the lag time between when you feel it and discuss it.” — Joseph Grenny

Freud referred to denial as “the state of knowing but not knowing.”

I see this all the time when coaching teams — people know what’s wrong at their organization but they act as if they didn’t. Fear and lack of support have turned everyone silen…