”The goal of the rumble is to get honest about the stories we’re making up about our struggles, to revisit, challenge, and reality-check these narratives as we dig into topics such as boundaries, shame, blame, resentment, heartbreak, generosity, and forgiveness.”
-Brené Brown
Before we lead corporate offsites, we survey all the team members who will be in attendance. We offer anonymity, but use tools like SWOT, The Seven Helpful Questions, and sometimes even an organizational health assessment. We humbly tell the owner or senior leader that we will likely have a better lens than they do regarding what is actually going on in the company.
Most companies do anything they can to avoid conflict. They want to suppress dissension, keep their problems in the closet, and sweep everything under the rug. This is not only unhelpful but downright destructive. This is the source matter of failed partnerships, dysfunctional leadership, and even failed marriages.
The pre-work helps us understand everything going on, including the stuff that everyone is working hard to pretend that isn’t going on. We know that the answer to organizational success lies in bringing all that unresolved stuff to the surface and discussing it in a productive, safe, and solutions-oriented direction. Brené calls it rumbling, we call it “mining for conflict”.
We work to establish a better foundation of organizational health and in the safety of those newly defined rules of engagement, we work to get the real issues on the table. We often hear things like:
“I can’t believe we actually discussed that issue.
“We’ve been dealing with that issue for 10 years.”
“I never thought we could resolve that problem.”
“The two sides were actually far closer than we thought.”
“It was easier to find common ground than we realized.”
“It sounds like we were going to lose key team members if we didn’t finally resolve that problem.”
Let’s face it, it is a challenging time to be a human and maybe the most difficult time to lead a team that any of us can remember. Instead of hiding from conflict or avoiding the rumble at every turn, we should be doing the opposite. We can’t afford to “admire” the same problems for decades and never resolve them. We can’t let unaddressed problems cost us our key team members.
Just like a healthy marriage allows for the discussion of even the most difficult things, so does the relationship of a healthy leadership team. If you really knew that you were all committed to the same vision, agreed on the prevailing culture, were for one another, and only wanted the best for the other, you could likely discuss even the most challenging issues and find a way forward.
If you don’t enjoy that with your spouse, get a marriage counselor. If you don’t enjoy that in your leadership, read Dare to Lead by Brene Brown, The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni, or maybe even hire a business coach to help. It has never been a valuable commitment of your time, energy, and resources.
Consider
Are you aware of the real issues and tensions affecting your organization?
Are they being addressed? Is progress being made on them?
What is it costing you in productivity, energy, or turnover to not be dealing with those things in a healthy manner?