CHAPTER 2

Oh, Sh*t! We’re Not in Kansas Anymore (and Other Stories)

Several years back, we facilitated a unive rsity leadership team in the midst of a breakdown.

“Okay, you asked for it. I’m angry and I think this is a waste of time!” yelled Eric, one of the executives. He slammed his fist on the table. “People are saying a lot about how I haven’t done my job, but no one says any of it to me in person. Why should I trust these people?”

Interminable silence followed. This was a critical moment in the success or failure of the meeting and the team itself. As the management consultants and facilitators, we needed to ensure the growth opportunity did not slip by.

Eric was a senior member of the team, responsible for a critical project that had failed. We didn’t like that Eric was yelling and pounding the table. But he’d said something real, raw, and honest. For the better part of the morning, the team had tiptoed in a brittle, artificial harmony that, frankly, was unproductive.

Susan spoke up. “Eric, I get that you’re angry,” she said. “Even though I’m uncomfortable with the volume and your fist hitting the table, I’m glad you spoke honestly.”

Eric looked at Susan, weighing his response. Finally, he said, “I think I have the most to lose here. Why should I be interested in trying to fix the damage done? Apparently, it has been my lack of leadership and mismanagement that has resulted in most of our current issues. People around this table basically think I’m stupid.” His voice was still strong, but there was a definite shift in tone.

“Look, Eric,” Susan replied, “if you were really going to lose your job over this, do you think you would have a seat at the table today? I doubt people think you’re stupid. They may have some concerns about how you’ve been doing your job. If you really want a straight answer on that, now is the time to ask for it.”

This university leadership team had been ignoring their interpersonal issues for a long time. Their efforts to have appropriate and respectful meetings had resulted in mounds of underground tension, which made forward progress almost impossible.

Again, the ensuing silence was big. But with our support, Eric courageously stepped back into the mess and asked for some honest, open feedback.

What followed were straight, real comments about things Eric had done to cause the failure of a key project and undermine the leadership team’s success. Absolutely no one, however, thought Eric was stupid. People were upset and angry about what Eric was avoiding and how he had approached the project.

The tricky part was that none of his team members knew how, or even felt it was okay, to speak up about such uncomfortable, negative judgments. With this lack of empowerment, the concerns all went underground. Everyone knew there were issues, and Eric definitely knew people were upset, but none of it had been discussed.

After the team unloaded their direct, clear, and hard feedback, Eric wanted a breather. He exited the room alone, and we all took a break. Ten minutes later, he returned and we resumed. He acknowledged that hearing the honest opinions and having a chance to process and integrate what he had heard was enough to bring him back to the table.

Eric ultimately agreed with all of the interpretations. He shared that he felt overwhelmed with the demands of his position and, at the risk of appearing incompetent, had been uncomfortable asking for help. Instead he had tried to do everything on his own and had indeed let a few highly critical issues slip. As a result, the project had failed.

While everything was not fixed then and there, the dynamics of the team became remarkably different. The team committed to engaging in conflict, even if it might get messy and disrespectful. They created a new, innovative plan to recover from the failed project. They each agreed that going forward they would speak up when they saw unproductive behaviors in each other.

In a follow-up session, we helped the team more effectively rebuild its cohesion and the organization’s success. Today, they are aligned and creative because they thrive on healthy conflict, even when it isn’t comfortable.

OH, SH*T! WE’RE NOT ALIGNED

For six months, we worked with the leadership team of a software business unit within a larger international computer company, which we’ll call MCW. The business unit had a key role in influencing the rest of the computer company to improve their products’ experience. The team was finally ready to roll out their organizational direction, including their purpose and goals, to the rest of the organization. We would facilitate the company-wide meeting by conducting team-building and sharing the leadership team’s process to reach organizational clarity. The day before the meeting, we had a coaching call with Todd, the president. The next day, his leadership team would communicate the new business clarity to all employees and receive initial feedback. We had last met with the entire team a month earlier.

“We are all set for tomorrow,” Todd said, his voice strong and confident. “The entire organization will be here. We’ve put together talking points for the business clarity we’ve been working on since the last offsite meeting.”

“We’d planned to bring your leadership team back together for a quick review prior to the rollout,” CrisMarie replied. “There were some questions about the business clarity direction when we were with you last. Did you work out those issues?”

“We are good to go,” Todd affirmed.

CrisMarie pushed to make sure. “Are you sure about this, Todd? You can’t leave this to chance. The team has got to be rock solid and aligned when you present tomorrow. We can get on a last-minute Skype call with the team to make sure.”

“No need. Yes, I’m sure.” Todd sounded confident, and we moved forward.

The next day nearly fifty people filled the room, sitting at round tables with their own teams. Each leadership team member sat with their direct reports. We introduced the Path to Collective Creativity team model. Afterward, Todd spoke to the high-level business clarity.

“This is our core purpose: to change the DNA of MCW so that it delivers great experiences! Before I go any further, is that a surprise to anyone?” Todd paused for comments.

“Well, actually, I don’t think that is what our core purpose is,” someone said. We swiveled our heads searching the crowd for the source of the comment. We were surprised to see it was Steve, one of the leaders sitting with his team, who had spoken up. Steve is an introvert. During our off-site the previous month, Steve stayed quiet, saying he needed time to process before he could commit.

Oh, sh*t! From the onset of working with this team, our biggest concern had been that the group would finalize the clarity piece without everyone buying in. In this moment, our fear was justified! Steve had finally processed his thoughts and now disagreed with Todd.

The all-employee organizational event quickly shifted from rolling out the business clarity to debating and redefining clarity in front of the entire organization. This is not an ideal scenario to showcase a leadership team’s cohesion. A great debate ensued, and in the end another leadership team member agreed with Steve. Oh, great! A few brave folks spoke up and directly called into question the cohesion of the leadership team. We wanted people to have a chance to respond so we let it go on for a bit, but we knew how to transform messy into real and recover.

CrisMarie interrupted the process and took a bullet. She acknowledged our part in the mess and reflected back what she was hearing from folks. She knew, though, the game-changing comment really needed to come from the leader. She turned to Todd urging him to model what we had been coaching him and the team on for the last six months.

Todd rose to the occasion. “Look, I take responsibility for this,” he began. “I thought we were aligned and committed, but I clearly didn’t go back and make sure everyone had shared their concerns. I may have assumed folks who disagreed would’ve spoken up earlier. That was my mistake. So now that we are here, let me roll out a couple more related organizational clarity items. The leadership team will have some more discussions at our round tables and finalize the core purpose and other business clarity items—again.”

We debriefed the previous day’s events the next day with the leadership team. They finally hammered out the business clarity pieces, getting full, explicit buy-in and commitment. The team walked away stronger for it and rolled out the business clarity to the organization shortly thereafter at another organization-wide meeting, underscoring their learning from the experience.

Later, Todd told us that first meeting was one of the worst days for him in his tenure as president. But instead of wallowing in regret, Todd made his oh, sh*t! moment work for him. It was key learning for him and the leadership team about the importance of full, explicit commitment. When they finally successfully rolled out the business clarity, they acknowledged the importance of getting commitment and the inevitable chaos that would ensue if they didn’t.

This was a hard, but important, lesson. It resulted in greater cohesion and business clarity. While no one on the team would want to repeat the chaotic day, they are better for it. Now, when they meet before any key organization-wide communications, they ensure a full, explicit commitment. We’ll talk about what that involves later in the book.

In both of these examples, the university leadership team and software business unit leadership team were each faced with more conflict than they had the capacity to process. These moments were neither pretty nor comfortable, but each time at least one person was willing to show up vulnerable and curious, and that shifted the situation. Those who spoke up influenced the rest of the team, and that evoked creativity to resolve the business issue. Every oh, sh*t! moment is a potential source of creativity and innovation, but only if you opt in. Unfortunately, that’s not what usually happens.

What usually happens is that people want to run like hell to get away from an oh, sh*t! moment. Let’s take a look at how most people handle oh, sh*t! moments. Maybe you can relate.