It's their job!

RANT ALERT!!!

I can't believe I'm still hearing some leaders say, “They are just doing what’s required of them in their job. Why should I thank them?” Really? How’s that working out for you?

Some leaders seem to believe that employees should be grateful that they have a job, and just get on with it. And while you’ll never hear me say a bad word about gratitude, (It’s a powerful way to shift mindset and even body chemistry for the better) this just doesn’t cut it.

Employees are the absolute engine room for success in business at any scale beyond sole practitioner. When they have clarity about what they are doing and why, and feel it’s genuinely appreciated, it makes a world of difference.

If you even remotely think “Why should I thank them?”, run an experiment. For a month, just try it. Go out of your way to catch people doing good work, showing good intent, contributing ideas, effort or leverage to your enterprise. Notice them doing it and thank them for it. See what a difference it makes. If you can’t find anything, thank them for showing up. See the differences in happiness,

CAUTION: Don’t even bother trying this if your thanks are not genuine. People can spot that BS from over the horizon.

For the rest of you leaders who genuinely get this and already make a habit of it - Thank you! Keep up the great work. How you make your employees feel contributes to my community!

OK. RANT over. Soap box returned to storage.

Clarity

Brené Brown is well known for her assertion that “Clear is Kind”.

In Psychological Safety research people give many reasons for avoiding clarity. The top ones are:

• It will result in some form of retaliation

• It will damage the working relationship

I see myself and others do this all the time. I have something to tell you but I’m not sure hope you’ll react - so I beat around the bush using vague statements, or avoid the topic entirely.

Psychological Safety and clarity are reciprocal. Build one you build the other. Damage one you damage the other. Usually our own intention and meaning is 100% clear (and obvious) to us. For clarity to be shared, we have to get past filters, assumptions and experience.

Make it a personal and team standard to be more clear as a result of any interaction with others. Some places this applies:

• Vision, mission or purpose

• Expectations about behaviour or standards

• What success looks like

• How problems get solved

• Who is responsible for an action, and by when

• Targets and time frames

• Boundaries of delegated authority

• What you are asking for

• Your ‘Yes’ or ‘No’

What is one thing you could do immediately to be more clear? What about this week? Are there any longer term projects that could benefit from greater clarity? How could you contribute to clarity? Is there anyone you need to seek greater clarity from?

Kindness

Our local open spaces look great. Today I saw why. A young city staff member was flat out with a rake and blower piling up and then picking up autumn leaves and rubbish. Without her efforts I reckon it would be knee deep. I paused on my morning walk and said “Thanks, the place looks great.” She smiled.

I’ve been reminded a lot lately about the impact of kindness. It’s easy, especially if we are stressed, to be short with others or overly focused on problems and criticism. At its worst, this can even be people making personal attacks. I certainly don’t always get this right. However small those harsh moments, they have a negative impact.

Christine Porath and Christine Pearson have investigated the impact of incivility (unkindness) in the workplace for decades. Their findings are profound. Even small moments directly impact people's mental health, productivity, customer service and the bottom line. Being kind is not only the decent human thing to do, but it makes good business sense too.

At the moment, many people across sectors are feeling fatigue, stress and pressure. One of the practical things we can do to impact this is set the intent of kindness, and follow it with action.

Ask yourself:

• When, how and with whom am I most likely to be harsh?

• In what simple ways can I demonstrate kindness today?

• How can I be kinder to myself?

If you’d like some specific suggestions, let me know.

What story will we tell?

When I was working as a Survival Instructor, one of the most effective ways to create uncertainty and duress was to give people incomplete information. Humans are natural story and meaning makers. If something is incomplete, or doesn’t make sense, we can't help it, we make a story to fill the gaps. Often the stories are not helpful.

Early on in my business, I was lousy at follow up. The story I told myself if I hadn’t heard back from a potential client was that they didn’t want my services and wouldn’t appreciate hearing back from me. With incomplete information from people, I was filling the gaps. On a rare occasion that I was following up someone told me they were very grateful for the follow up. They thought the work we were planning was really important, but it was getting buried in short term priorities. My follow up was keeping it active on the list. I was totally surprised by his reaction, because it was so different from the story I was telling myself. I’m much better about follow up now. The story I tell myself now is that it’s part of my job and most people appreciate it, if it’s done well.

As leaders we operate continuously on partial information. It’s also not possible to tell everybody everything you know, so they are operating on part information too.

Tuning in to the stories you and others are telling to fill the gaps is a useful leadership skill. Ask questions like:

• What information do we have?

• What assumptions are we making about it?

• What stories are we telling? Are they true? Are they effective? Are they leading to the action/results we are looking for?

Is there a better story to tell?

The way things are done around here

Most sectors are experiencing higher than normal turn over at the moment. Coupled with already high workloads for many, this adds load and fatigue. Under those circumstances it can be challenging to welcome new team members and set them up for success. A couple of clients have intentionally paused to plan beyond the formal induction process. Together we have explored creating a really warm welcome for their new team members, giving the best chance of rapidly reaching high performance together.

If you are in a similar situation here are some elements you might like to consider:

• How your team works together - What holds the team together, creates momentum and cohesion?

• What is important to the team? - Are there values, targets, standards, expectations or priorities that set/maintain direction?

• Are there significant things to know about the organisation and its status right now?

Are there significant things to know about the organisation and its status right now?

Also consider whether there are any challenges for people that have been on the team for a while. For example, they may be feeling disappointed at the loss of previous team members, or a ‘bit over’ inducting yet another person. Ideally, the team doesn't want these ‘past facing’ issues rubbing off on new staff.

It can be challenging carving the time out to make sure people are welcomed well. It’s more essential than ever in the current market.

Field of Play

“The ideal solution is re-stump the house. That would cost around $80K. I don’t think it’s worth it. We can stabilise the structure and achieve a reasonable result for way less, but It won’t be perfect. Let’s discuss the compromises and consequences of the cheaper version to make sure you’ll be happy with the result”

Harry the Chippy

“We have clarity about the features that must be included at launch. These cannot be compromised. If needed we’ll delay launch until we can deliver them. Then there’s features that are essential to long term success. It would be great to have them at launch, but we won’t delay for them. We’ll likely release them over the first few months of the platform being live. Finally there’s our wish list, features that would make the product match our dream. For now we can’t be distracted by these. We can build them as we build success.”

Mike the Software CEO

Both these are examples of a leader doing one of the most effective things to reduce uncertainty - they are bringing clarity to the field of Play. Imagine a sporting team trying to focus its effort without knowing the rules of the game or boundaries of the arena. It would be chaos.

As a leader, especially in uncertainty, one of your main roles is to clarify the field of play.

Effective Action

We were 5 days into a serious desert survival exercise. We had run short of water because we had assumed that the springs we saw in the first few days would continue. Up until that moment, no one had really spoken candidly. As with any team in the early stages of coming together, we were inclined to defer, accommodate and agree. That all changed when someone suggested a 7km backtrack to the last large body of clean water we had seen. Given our 20km daily target, this would have almost doubled our work rate for the day, and added risk. We were standing beside a small flowing stream, but it was smelly and had algae covering the water.

The effort of the suggested backtrack flipped the group into a candid conversation about the effort, reward, risks and other factors involved in the decision. While the conversation was difficult, our decision to filter and boil the lower quality water and keep moving forward was a good one. We all focused on the problem, rather than the people. Suggestions were made and debated vigorously.

In a workplace this is one of the key benefits of psychological safety. Candid conversations get us to better decisions, less unnecessary effort, less do-overs, less frustration. It’s commercially astute.

On top of creating the environment for frank conversations, there also has to be effective action. The two most common reasons people have for not speaking up:

• Fear - looking stupid, ridicule, losing your job, retaliation, retribution or isolation have people weighing whether it’s worth the risk.

• Nothing Changes - If people do speak up, but nothing changes, it feels pointless and people will stop doing it.

Candour in our survival group required action on both fronts. People’s input was welcome and respected (after all, we would all have to live with the consequences of the final decision). Once discussed, a firm decision was made and the group immediately took action.

Which of these 2 reasons for not speaking up is more prevalent in your workplace? Why? What could you do personally and today to move forward?

Making it Right

I showed the plumber a mishmash of 5 pipe connectors roughly glued together. I asked him what he thought it was. ‘Crappy Reticulation?’ was his best guess. Not even close! It was part of the main water connection to our house and no where near compliant with any standard past or present.  The carpenters accidentally broke the pipe which was buried barely a hand span below ground.

The carpenters could have done a quick repair and hidden the issue, but instead pointed it out potentially saving major problems later. 

The desire to do a high quality job outweighed fear of repercussions from admitting the damage and highlighting the substandard system. That’s an admirable attribute of the business owner. I’d also briefed him that I was expecting to find some hidden problems and wanted to rectify them while work was being done so he was not expecting a negative reaction for raising it. Combined with his preference of service over personal comfort, it's a perfect recipe for a great outcome. 

People don't speak up when they feel there will be blow back. Sayings like ‘No one got fired for silence’ and ‘Better safe than sorry’ give clues about the challenges of creating an open environment in work places.

Have you ever maintained your silence even when you knew you should speak up? If so, what risks were you weighing up? 

If you are a leader, how sure are you that people would be comfortable and willing to raise issues, suggest improvements or ask questions? If there are gaps, what risks do they cause?

That’s a great question…

“If you want a better answer, ask a better question”

I ask a lot of questions. I reckon it’s a key leadership skill to ask more than tell.

Often people say “Great Question, do you mind if I use it?”. I’m always delighted to share! A great question has a way of slicing through layers and revealing new insight.

There’s no doubt that using questions well is a worthy skill to develop.

Here’s some tips

• Collect good questions. Any time you hear a great question, record it somewhere. Make some notes about why it resonated.

• Ask yourself Where might you use it and why?

• While the question is important, it’s far more important to be genuinely curious about the answer.

• Ask generously. Questions are often used as traps to convince people or make them look/feel uniformed (politics is a great place to look for examples of this). Ask with the intent to explore.

• Make it safe to answer. We sometimes judge people by their answers. Small sounds of disapproval, eye rolls, telling them they are wrong etc are easy ways to put people off.

I’m always happy to share questions. How can I claim ownership of something that has probably been asked before? Many of the questions I use are collected from somewhere and I can’t always point to the source. I’d rather share them and encourage others to get good at asking too.

What's the best question you have ever been asked? Why did it have such a memorable impact? How could you use that question, or a version of it in your leadership today?

Grinding the Gorge

“If we are where you say we are, that wall should be north of us,” he said.

I agreed, it was an obvious statement. We’d been looking at the map, confirming where we were. He pulled out the compass and pointed it at the wall. South! My brain did back flips as I assimilated the info. I was horribly wrong about where we were, and we were way off course!

How did it get so bad? We’d been walking for a while assuming everything was OK.

In hindsight I caused it all. I’d set up an environment where there was little opportunity for input from others and low incentive to offer it. Even though the mistake cost everyone effort and miles of walking, it was a long time before anyone spoke up. Perhaps you’ve been in leadership situations like that… Wishing someone had said something earlier. 

So what were the causes

• Arrogant overconfidence. I’d been navigating on land, sea and air, plus underwater for years. I taught classes on the topic. I knew my stuff and was technically good. I felt like I couldn’t go wrong and that got me fixated on my assumptions rather than open and curious. 

• Man with the plan. People defaulted to me as the ‘guy with the answers’ because I quickly took control and started moving.

• No Space. The pace left no room for questions. Even if people were unsure, stopping to ask a question would have felt like impeding forward progress (we had some ambitious destination targets). If the ‘question’ was a niggling uncertainty rather than a clearly formed concern, it would risk looking foolish in front of the group. When we stopped for a break, someone had time to look, think, examine the map and ask a question, but before then it would have been hard.

• No feedback loops. As a group we did nothing to establish how we would work together. We just flew into action. Spending some time doing this would have saved us hours of pointless walking.

If your people are not contributing ideas, voicing concerns, suggesting improvements and bringing their best, it’s worth asking:

“What am I doing to make it difficult for people to do that?”

If you have a trusted advisor you might like to ask them the same question and listen to the answer.

Leaders set the tone for the team.

This is a set up? - 3 keys to feeling safe.

I put the document in my desk drawer and locked it, taking care to remove the key. The document wasn’t particularly sensitive or contentious, but in the current environment it could be used against me. Trust was at an all time low. One of our leaders was setting factions against each other. Information was being stolen and manipulated to favour some and disadvantage others. People had lost their jobs as a result of blatantly manipulated information. 

There was no such thing as open conversation, sharing of ideas, or collective problem solving. Dog eat dog. It’s the most extreme environment I have ever worked in. 

I reckon leaders mostly operate with good intent, rather than being actively malicious. Sometimes though, our actions can create unintended impacts on Psychological Safety.

Here are three ways you can rapidly influence it.

1. Clarity - What's the overall purpose and direction? What is each person's role, responsibility and scope of authority? What are our priorities tactically and strategically? What does success look like? If any of this is unclear, it can easily feel as if the goal posts are shifting. It adds uncertainty.

2. Respect Hierarchy - When leaders bypass direct reports to task people further down the hierarchy, the people in the middle feel like they aren’t trusted. Same happens when leaders routinely step in to deal with problems or complaints from further down the hierarchy. Clarity makes this significantly easier.

3. Responsibility - When teams look for scapegoats anytime problems arise or mistakes are made, the result is mediocrity. People tend to operate in a way that doesn’t attract attention. Finger pointing hardens the boundaries between silos and reduces willingness for collaborative work. Great questions to ask (and encourage others to ask) are ‘How have I (or my team) contributed to the issue?’ ‘How can I/we contribute to a solution?’ What is the best outcome in relation to our clear direction and priorities?’ 

When these 3 are missing, people often feel as if there is deliberate action against them, even if there is no direct malicious intent.

Breathing Space

When was the last time what you said was misinterpreted? What was the impact?

A coaching client told a member of his team months ago that he didn’t have time right now to look at something for them. He was overloaded. His intent was to have the person bring it to him later in the day. He was mortified to find that months later the team member thought he meant, “I don’t care about your problems or workload - deal with them yourself.” He wasn’t aware of the impact until he had to intervene in a problem that couldn’t be solved by the team member alone.

It’s a great example of how easily psychological safety can be damaged. Even though he and the team member have discussed it and reset, it will take a while before she feels entirely comfortable bringing problems forward. A lot is riding on his reactions to the first few.

In my latest book (Un)shakeable, one of the leaders I interviewed passed on a lesson from a mentor who was head of MI5 in the Middle East during a significant conflict. The essence of the advice was:

“You always have at least a minute to think (if not, it’s probably a ‘duck for cover’ situation). A minute may not seem like enough, but run a stopwatch. 60 seconds is a decent amount of time to think if it’s used well. And the minute you spend thinking will have a greater impact on the outcome than taking immediate action.”

Creating breathing space like that, especially when you and your team are under serious pressure, is a great way to reduce actions that damage the psychological safety of the team.

How can you create breathing space in your day?

Rio Report: Risks and Challenges

Rio Tinto made a bold move publicly releasing the Broderick report into their workplace culture. The report highlighted bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault in many global operations. Many felt unable to report or act. Rio have a hard road ahead, and an opportunity to reshape themselves into a genuinely world class culture. The proof will be in the action taken over coming weeks and years. One leader I admire at Rio said “The price of a great culture is eternal vigilance”. 

It’s easy to throw opinions around about Rio, but I reckon the report presents a number of challenges and risks to us all.

Organisational Challenge - If you opened your organisation to a similar review,  would the report be positive? How visible are the issues? How are they being addressed? Is there a culture of tacit acceptance and ‘open secrets’? How do you actively promote a higher standard?

Leadership Challenge - How and where do you address issues like those reported? Broderick found a ‘leadership lottery’ where people’s experience of Rio and negative behaviour varied greatly depending on their leader. How do you stack up personally? Do you actively create a solid culture and call out abusive behaviour? If, like me, you provide support to leaders, how are you addressing these issues? We need more open conversation and support for action. 

The Risk - The report rightly highlights Bullying, Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault as critical issues to be addressed. They absolutely must be. But… if  psychological safety is seen as only the absence of those behaviours, we do a disservice to the people in our organisations. In physical safety,  serious incidents, accidents and fatalities absolutely need critical and urgent attention, and  a well rounded approach also looks at much smaller indications of safer/less safe. We could look at banter taken too far, gossip, disengagement, rudeness, unkindness, among others. 

Let’s work the complete spectrum and create workplaces not only free of bullying, assault and harassment, but ones that are a genuine delight to work in.

It’s the right thing to do.

Creating a Sense of Safety and Connection

Have you ever had a moment where 4 small words had the potential to dramatically change your experience? Back when planes were a regular part of my work and life I had one of those moments. 

I was seated halfway along a smallish plane. 

The aircrew were moving along the plane from the back opening all the overhead lockers as they came. There seemed to be a sense of urgency.. 

I wondered what they could possibly be looking for. Aircrew know where things are. If they needed some piece of equipment they would go get it. 

It also seemed unlikely they were looking for something for a passenger.

If we want something from hand luggage in an overhead locker we stand up and get it, not call the aircrew for a systematic search!

And yet, here they were systematically searching lockers along the whole plane… Strange.

Eventually the crew arrived at my row.  She opens the locker, stands on tip-toe to peer in and appears to be subtly sniffing the air. 

I couldn’t help but ask, “Are you looking for something?”

Her response amazed me. It was very low on the list of things I would ever expect aircrew to ask a passenger. 

She looked me straight in the eye, smiled as only air crew  can and asked, 

“Can you smell smoke?”

Her question didn’t especially bother me. I couldn’t smell smoke, and I’m very comfortable on planes

For a less comfortable passenger the question could well be enough to have them clawing for the handles on the nearest emergency exit!

It’s a great illustration of psychological safety. For the crew, the situation clearly wasn’t of great concern, and she was in an environment very familiar to her. When we are familiar with our environment, we can inadvertently do or say something that deeply disturbs someone less familiar.

One of the quickest ways to build trust and psychological safety is to anticipate possible perspectives and issues for those around you, especially if they are new to the environment.

Time spent setting their mind at ease strengthens their trust and regard for you.

The challenge is to be aware enough of what those concerns might be, especially if the environment has become routine for you.

Where could you more effectively build trust and psychological safety for those around you?

Clean Probability

Further to last week. I finished with an opinion stated as a probability. 

“I reckon there’s a 95% chance that they are right.” 

Adding probability lends artificial credibility to my opinion. It’s not based on anything at all. Clean teams are very careful about this kind of tactic. It’s much cleaner for me to state that I agree strongly with something, and to lay out my reasons, than it is to arbitrarily give it a number. 

How do you and your team show up in this space?

How Tight is Your Team?

When I was interviewing leaders I admire for the (Un)shakeable book, several phrases stood out. Jodi Cant, then Director General of the Department of Finance said “There’s no daylight between us” to describe how united her executive team were once a decision was made. It's a great example of Commanding the Narrative and Mantras . The Mantra is visual and clearly sets intent for unified behaviour. No daylight = not even the tiniest gap. For me it conjures an image of the team standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the future, filled with courage and shared commitment. 

You only get alignment like that when the discussion, data and dispute leading up to a decision are robust. The minimum standard is that each member of the team can live with the decision. The gold standard is that each member of the team wholeheartedly agrees with it. It takes courage, solid culture and huge commitment.

If the process is not robust, the gaps between the team are huge. Often they show in undermining behaviour like:

• Leaders agreeing when face to face, but voicing disagreement to subsets of the team behind the scenes. This is a really fast way to reduce trust. It’s one of the key tactics that reality shows like Survivor use to create factions on their shows.

• Leaders going back to their team and blaming the decision on other members of the leadership group.

• Leaders not communicating the decision to the people they lead.

• And a host of other more subtle ways of undermining either each other and/or the decision.

Robust leadership cultures can be confronting. The courage, vulnerability and work involved in “No Daylight” is not for the faint hearted. There’s no room for passengers. AND if you take the time to build a culture like that you can achieve incredible results. 

How much daylight is there between members of your team?

Mantras

Last week’s article hit a nerve for some of you. 

“The word ‘command’ in command the narrative feels too aggressive” was one of many comments.  

I get it. I wrestled over the word for months before I was happy to use it. Even now it provokes some discomfort in me. 

Command the Narrative!

It’s a bold declaration. It has impact in a few short words. It conveys boundaries and a willingness to defend them. It has gravitas and forward movement. It takes courage and a willingness to be seen. It cuts through babble. 

It’s memorable. 

It’s a mantra.

Mantras are one way to Command the Narrative.

You’ll find they already exist in your culture. They are short phrases loaded with meaning. (Not necessarily positive or what you want – remember fermentation from a few weeks ago). They get repeated in meetings and casual conversation. You may have heard some around.

It’s always been that way

‘They’ don’t understand

I’m so busy

Nothing ever changes

It’s too hard

These things are sticky, contagious, and pervasive, just like a good mantra will be. It’s part of the reason that Command the Narrative is not too strong. Without intentional narrative, the default prevails. It costs energy, momentum and resources. 

It leaves a lack of clarity hanging over everything like a fog.

Notice the mantras in your culture? Are they contributing to the right future? 

Leading from where you are

"The team don't like or respect him", he said. "But I can make a difference to how the team operates, even if I'm not the leader."

It was an inspiring conversation with a young man who understood leadership. He was working in a team where the official leader was dictatorial and inconsistent. The team spent a lot of time over the 'water cooler' complaining about their boss and the direction he was taking them. 

"That just adds to the dissatisfaction and tension. When people push back they make themselves a target." 

When I asked what he did differently, here's what he shared:

• I don't buy into gossip. It doesn't help anyone. If something is factual, i share what I know, otherwise I stay out of it.

• I don't talk behind people's back, and when I hear others doing that, I pull them up. If I have feedback to give, I'll do that straight up with the person it concerns.

• I do the best job I know how, even when I don't like how the instructions are given.

• If I'm told to do something unreasonable, I respectfully  say why I think it is unreasonable.

• I maintain my own standard of work and encourage others to do the same - It's easy to let it slip when you don't like the boss, but that reflects as much on me as on him.

It's a great example of leading from wherever you are. This young man is making a contribution to his team and his workplace that adds value and quality. What he is doing makes his team more unshakeable.

How do you lead from where you are?

Feel Like a Vending Machine - Ask More Questions.

Many leaders feel like a vending machine. Staff come to them with problems. They dispense solutions. It's exhausting and keeps leaders down in the weeds, rather than focussed on higher level thinking and work. The article I wrote about it hit a nerve and provoked some questions. Over the next few weeks, we'll explore some tips for getting out of the 'vending machine' cycle.

One of the easiest ways to break the cycle is ask more questions. Questions help you and your staff think through the issue and understand it. From your point of view, you want to be able to offer assistance (if it's genuinely needed) without bailing people out too easily. From their point of view, assisting them to think about the issue increases their understanding and ultimately their capacity. For both of you, the process builds greater trust and understanding making future issues and delegated tasks easier to tackle.

Here are some great questions to ask. You don't need all of them every time. One or two insightful questions create the space for your staff member to come up with their own solutions. They also identify what your most useful contribution to the issue, or your staffs development might be. Even if it is an issue that needs input from you, ask some questions first. It establishes an expectation that staff will think for themselves, and that you value/trust their input. The three questions in bold italics are almost always worth asking.

• Who is involved in this issue? Who does the issue impact the most? Who would benefit from a solution? Are there any people this impacts who may not be aware of it yet? Who raised the issue? Who do we need to communicate with as we work on a solution?
• When did you become aware of this? Are there any significant or critical timeframes we need to consider?
• Where are the resources you need? Do you have access to them?
• How would you solve the problem? 
• Why is this important to you/us/the company/our stakeholders? Why do you need my assistance?
• What is the impact if it isn't solved? What would it take to solve it? What resources/connections/networks would help? What attempts have you made to solve the issue? What do you think would be the most effective solution? What barriers (if any) are there to you doing that?

Go on - Unplug that vending machine!

When the game is over move on

I was talking to a colleague who has a rapidly growing business in entertainment. They manage artists, bring shows to Perth and create venues for great content. She's a great leader with a clear vision for her business. Her team are excited about creating it with her. With growth come several inevitable challenges for leaders. Systems have to move and evolve to keep up with where you want to get to. As the team grows, vision and leadership become more important, and simultaneously more diluted - Getting good and consistent messaging to staff and the market about what you are doing is critical. Growth also means that there may be times when staff who were a good fit when you were a different size, no longer are.

My colleague was describing a couple of conversations she had with staff who had been with her a while. In the early days, they had been awesome - Productive, switched on and enthusiastic. But that had waned.  She had spent considerable time with them attempting to recreate how it had been but nothing seemed to be working. Motivation continued to drop and they were starting to get in the way of progress.

She decided to have a straight conversation about the expectations they each had for the business and the role to see if that would lead anywhere productive. End result, the person left and was relieved. The staff member had been feeling obliged to stay with the business - feeling she would let the owner down if she left. She'd been excited about it when she first joined and had been a big part of creating the success. The rapid expansion was hard for her though, and she really liked smaller teams than this one was now. She found the constant evolution and growth stressful and wearing.

When they had an open conversation about what the owner needed from staff, and how her staff felt about the environment, it became clear to them both that it was time to move on. For the business it has been like taking a foot off the brake. A new person has joined with skill and enthusiasm for the current business, rather than what it once was. No doubt the person who left is also feeling relieved.

Situations like this are often stressful for everyone involved. It's easy to become victim to unspoken expectations and assumptions. Our perspective gets bent out of shape, and sometimes that results in conversations like this one becoming adversarial when there was no need for that.

Actions we can take:

Employers/Leaders/Managers - Set up clear expectations for people and roles early, and check in with them often. Use as many opportunities as you can to deepen you/your teams understanding of the expectations. Create an environment where conversations about what we expect and whether those expectations are being met are safe and regular. Don't let things fester. If there is tension, friction or conflict do something about it as soon as possible - most big problems start out a small ones.

If you work for someone else - Be bold about asking for clarification of what the business expects from you. If your ecxpectations are not being met, raise the issue and explore it. Don't let things fester. If there is tension, friction or conflict do something about it as soon as possible - most big problems start out a small ones.

For both - If it's time to move on - do it.