A Disaster with a Discouraged Team
The room felt like a funeral when the manager’s meeting began. In the end, the meeting was a disaster. I did something I shouldn’t have done.
You can’t find the light with your heart in the dark.
Turn or burn:
Concerns and complaints bubbled out of them. It felt like the team needed to talk.
Normally, I turn conversations toward the future. But I let the conversation circle the black hole. The room grew darker. I let it continue.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have met at all. One strategy might have been to meet one-on-one. Maybe the darkness wouldn’t have expanded so quickly and become so thick.
Turn people toward the future or the past consumes them.
Coaches and leaders turn people toward the future, but it took nearly two hours before I turned them. By then it was too late.
I wish:
I wish I’d jumped up and recorded all their concerns on a flip chart. After writing one concern, I would have asked, “And what else?”
I wouldn’t have explored any single problem too deeply. That’s where things go dark.
Dance on the edge of the darkness, don’t dive in.
5 questions to the light:
- Which of the issues on your list are completely out of your control? Cross them off the list with a bold red marker.
- What are the top three/five issues that aren’t crossed off? Focus on issues that are within your control, at least partially.
- Which of the top issues would you like to do something about? You find the light by focusing on things you can do, not things you can’t.
- What will you do to address that one issue this week?
- What would you like me to ask you next week?
What suggestions might you offer for dealing with a discouraged team?
Thanks, Dan. This is great advice. We learn from our successes and our mistakes–and from practising humility.
Thanks Donna. I think we learn most from our mistakes. 🙂 … I suppose we have to accept and reflect on them for that to happen.
Too often, Dan, it feels like you are walking beside me. I serve churches going through transition– and that means the grief and fear of change inevitably raise anxiety and end up with inappropriate behaviors surfacing. Leadership teams, experiencing the same things personally, have to step aside from them and find purpose and direction for the larger group. It’s a complex dance. I appreciate both your words and images in this post. Acknowledging the reality of the darkness felt has to be refocused on the possibilities of a brighter future and the need to move in a different direction. Timeliness is crucial. I’ve spent this past week in this dance following a dark congregational event, filled with selfish emotion. We have a leader’s meeting in a couple days. Two groups are bringing new proposals for doable, purposeful projects that have the potential of generating a viable future. I’m grateful for your questions. They will help us respond, not react, and work through the situation with faith, not fear.
Thanks CB. It seems like you have experience in these challenging areas. Your compassion toward people who are lost in the dark shines in your comment. I thing compassion really matters. It usually doesn’t work to kick a discouraged person in the pants.
What suggestions might you offer for dealing with a discouraged team?
Determine the levels of discouragement and focus what you have the capability to fix as you mentioned.
Show them there is light at the end of the tunnel with a different perspective perhaps lighter than darker as you stated.
Open the team up to discuss the issues as a group and then focus on each item and determine the best path, resolve what you can and move on.
Thanks Tim… Resolve what you can and move on. Bingo. Trying to fix something outside our control is frustrating and eventually defeating.
I do wonder if sometimes we focus on things outside our control so that we can avoid and not take responsibility for things within our control.
Dan,
I know there are times we all dwell on things outside our control, human nature perhaps?
Avoiding responsibility I think we are all different, “If the shoe fits wear it”. As true leader’s I believe ” if we are in the mold” we accept responsibility, no ifs and, or buts.
Fantastic post with relevant and actionable suggestions at just the right time. thanks!
Thanks Rose.
Good reminder that leaders are not just tools of reality, but agents of hope!
Thanks Duane. Love the sentence!
Dan, do people really find a way of completely avoiding (I don’t really want to use the word “ignoring”, but…) the impact/fallout from issues that are out of their control?
Does polishing up/improving some issues you can control really have an impact if their are big problems that are out of your control?
Thanks Mitch. Does polishing up some issues really impact other big problems? I suppose we should ask if working on things you can’t control helps?
Glad you stopped in.
Sometimes it is not possible to turn to the light or the future and is exploring the darkness and feeling the weight of it necessary. Acknowledging that they carry the burden and be there with them is important. It takes a leader to help the team to do this and then, at the given point, be able to go into the meta conversation and reflect on what is going on and turn to the future. I am sure you did what was needed to do.
Thanks Anne-Marie. Yes. You can’t pretend the darkness doesn’t exist. You can’t minimize the challenges that lie ahead. It just does little good to sit in them.
A leader who minimizes challenges makes others believe he/she doesn’t get it.
Good post, Dan. I think that occasional discouragement is inevitable. What really matters is how we move past it. Having said that, I love your advice to cross off the items we have no control over – so powerful!
Thanks Brilliant. Move past. Move through. Move around. Do what you must. Few things are more energizing than progress.
From what I remember, the notion of “Catharsis” is false. Venting on an issue does NOT remove the pressure and often simply makes it worse. Kids allowed to hit clowns simply hit MORE clowns as they were allowed to continue. They did not get over it.
Your strategies are good, but they seem to miss the “peer support” and group-think beneficial aspects of discussion — if ONE person says, “cross it off,” the others might still have the issue and simply sit there, smoking. (Not talking about cigarettes!).
Better is to get the issues and then process using some kind of Dot-Voting process where everyone can put a dot on the issue. Many ways of doing it, with people using different colors for different levels of a problem or each getting three red dots to focus on the worst things or voting yellow to indicate that the issue is political and out of their control or whatever.
I wrote a how-to article on this a long time ago, with some different frameworks: http://performancemanagementcompanyblog.com/2013/06/07/dot-voting-and-square-wheels-for-innovation-ideas-and-improved-shared-ownership/
Thanks Dr. Scott. I’ve read the same research that says venting doesn’t help. I suppose talking through issues is different from venting. Talking through to understand and then working to move forward makes sense.
Your suggestion of some voting process also makes sense to me, especially if there is low trust.
Depending on the situation, I still see the benefit of agreeing on one item and making progress. That process shouldn’t be too complex. However, is there is low trust, people may not speak their mind. In that case, progress is only useful for the ones who believe the issue they took on mattered.
Perhaps choosing the one issue could be done with a 1 to 5 vote. The item that gets the most points wins the attention of the whole group.
Sounds like some experiences I have had in the past! It is so important for the leader to bring the team up with encouragement not just analytical numbers and conversions. I believe a lot of people do not read their audience, if you have a room full of exspressive people they are looking for encouragement, thank you for good job done, interaction from the leader more than just numbers and how much they are down. A strong leader will bring light to dark that will lead the team to success! Very good article!
Thank you😇
What if the enterprise needs correction? What if these people you have loved, taught, trusted, followed, developed, and embraced are correct and the ship is headed in the wrong direction? Seriously… is it all about saving the boat and a course determined by a handful of the most politically-skilled crew members?
Dan, sometimes you are blessed to help build a team that becomes more ethical, more bought-into the stated values of the enterprise than the executives du jour. When things really go awry, how then do those arguably most invested in the enterprise’s success “manage up” if smiley faces are requisite in an ultimately deferential environment?
Really, really, really love your leadership advice, but the insidious assumption herein is that the captain always knows best. Even if the captain is a tyrant.
Don’t we sometimes have to take a step back and ask, “what is the right thing?” In the context of a compelling and larger vision, do the CEO and board always know best?