“The harder we worked, the behinder we got,” I smiled.
Sheila politely laughed, but I could tell she didn’t see the humor. “You would think, as soon as it looked like we might miss a milestone, someone would speak up.”
“Why do you think your team was silent? Were they aware the project was getting behind?” I asked.
Sheila nodded. “I talked to them and got a funny response. Everyone knew the project was behind. One person said they got nervous when they inspected some of the production and found it was defective. They knew there would be hell to pay, so they worked overtime, doing rework, used up the raw material that was reserved for the next day. You can see where this was going. The next day, the whole crew stood around, not able to work and we were further behind.”
“And they didn’t tell you what was going on?”
“No, not right away.”
“Why didn’t they tell you?” I pressed.
Sheila looked to the side, then to the ceiling. “I don’t know.”
I have seen that ceiling stare before, also experienced the work harder, push, push, push – Why are you not telling me anything?
When I examined their system and metrics we found that the team had no idea of what the push was for or where the end was. All they were told eveyday is “we are behind you guys have to pick it up” so they would. ALthoughh no system existed that the team understood on how to judge progress.
Eventually the team, leadership, with some help from me created a metric to measure their progress.
blank stares, and organizational curtains
There are a multitude of reasons why problems are avoided and neglected. Ego. Bullying. Shame. Don’t want to disappoint. It’s as if they believe that if no one speaks up, somehow no one will notice, or it will somehow eventually correct itself. In my book Without Warning, I refer to these challenging situations as “Silent Problems. Problems that are avoided, neglected or go unnoticed.
The challenge with these Silent Problem situations are numerous. First, they rarely fix themselves. Second, they often have toxic underpinnings. Third,they commonly have emotional underpinnings.
These Silent Problems can and often are some of the most dangerous problems a manager or business leader might face.
Michael,
How are things in Buffalo? Thank you for posting your comments. I know you have a special interest in teambuilding. The next subject area in our Working Leadership program will be Team Problem Solving and as usual, we will be supporting its curriculum in the blog. I specifically like your description of the ceiling stare. Looking forward to hearing from you again.