Let’s not talk about communication

Getting things wrong is a normal part of learning and growth. But if you’re intolerant of failure, your team will avoid admitting error. Sometimes they may say nothing and hope you don’t find out. And that’s even worse.

On 20 October 2004, I realised I had made my first professional mistake. An Excel spreadsheet formula error in the department budget that I'd submitted to company headquarters. In my mind, the consequences were catastrophic.

When I realised what had gone wrong my first thought was, "I have my passport, I can just get on a plane, leave the country, and never come back. They'll never find me." I was so embarrassed. I felt stupid and incompetent. I was afraid I’d lose my job because my manager didn’t tolerate making mistakes.

If you’re that leader, I know you’re not doing it deliberately. But you’re kidding yourself pretending everything will always be fine. Failure is normal and inevitable. You need a plan B, so that when there’s a problem, your team know what to do. And when you get through a crisis, ask yourself, what can we do better next time?

I work with a lot of teams of technical experts who do retrospectives. But they focus on process, and forget to address the most important bit - how the humans behaved.

They don’t talk about the frustration, hurt feelings, passive aggressiveness or raised voices. The unanswered emails or seen-but-ignored Slack messages. How the communication culture makes people feel scared and unsafe. That it leads to problems taking longer to solve.

They don’t ask why the root cause of the error wasn’t discussed as soon as it happened. Or how a culture of fear and blame has grown in a team.

So don’t be that leader. Ask your team, “How did we cope? How could we have handled that crisis better? What could I have done better to support you all?”