Have you ever been in a meeting where you just know something is off? Something is left unsaid, you can just feel it in the atmosphere. I've seen this many, many times with leadership teams.
They struggle with an issue that's never discussed; a holy cow, a white elephant, whatever you want to call it. They can carry it for years and they never resolve it as they are too afraid to open it up. It holds them back as a leadership team. It holds back the true results the company is capable of.
As facilitator and as an EOS implementer, we are primed to pick this up. This is where the true value of having an independent professional, with no baggage in the room, comes in. We call it 'Enter the Danger.'
Whenever I feel something is off, I might simply ask, It feels to me like something is off, am I right? Or, I notice you guys do not want to discuss this issue in depth. Or, I see you guys are not making eye contact here, what is going on? And then I wait. I let the power of the pregnant pass sit in the room. Someone eventually always feels uncomfortable enough to blurt something out, you just need to pause long enough. They may say, "You know, I know I'm causing this problem." Or someone else may say, "You know, it's between the two of us. Our relationship isn't what it needs to be. We need to work on it." Or something like this. In one of my sessions, a relatively junior leader was brave enough to say, "We've been struggling with this for years and years. It's time we speak about this. We need to resolve this issue."
At this stage, we are firmly in the dangerous territory and we're able to start resolving the issue. We've 'entered the danger.'
What's in the open, we can work on. We can focus on what will serve the leadership team as a whole, and the company as a whole, best. Egos are put aside, all baggage is abandoned, and the team works openly and honestly together to solve the issue.
Once the issue is resolved it's time to celebrate what we've just achieved. As facilitator / coach, I will highlight to the team to always be on the lookout for similar situations. When there's room for improvement, it's a place for growth. Sometimes it's camouflaged as an uncomfortable issue where we need to be brave and enter the danger to resolve the issue and keep growing as a team and as a company.
The true value of the independent facilitator is that we have no baggage and we are trained to enter the danger. We will go there. We will use our core value of 'humbly confident' to serve our clients, even when it gets uncomfortable, especially when it gets uncomfortable. In the danger is found the best opportunities for growth.
If you're interested to discuss how to bring the power of EOS to your business, let's book a call. All we need is 15 minutes; simply send an email to
nico.human@eosworldwide.com and we'll get it scheduled at your earliest convenience.
