Founders: use radical candour to address the elephant in the room

No one talks about the hostility and conflict between two team members. A colleague’s repeated lack of attention to detail delays projects. At the Monday team meeting, the founder doesn’t mention that two client proposals were lost the week before. These situations occur at many startups, and they are hard to address because they are uncomfortable to raise and discuss. There’s an elephant in the room.?

The phrase elephant in the room represents an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about, because it makes them uncomfortable. It is a metaphor that something as conspicuous as an elephant?can appear to be overlooked.

After Ivan Krylov wrote a fable entitled The Inquisitive Man, which tells of a man who goes to a museum and notices all sorts of tiny things, but fails to notice an elephant, the phrase became widely used following Mark Twain’s?1882 story, The Stolen White Elephant, which recounts the inept, far-ranging activities of detectives trying to find an elephant that was right on the spot after all.

When uncomfortable issues aren’t addressed, organisations end up tolerating toxic cultures and fractious employee relationships. Recurring background tensions lead to squandered energy and personal fatigue. The ‘undiscussables’ sap morale and motivation. Nevertheless, organisations abound with keeping silent, hoping to avoid short-term conflict surfacing.

The more you can pair disconnects between what is being said and what is happening, the more likely it is that you’ll find an elephant lurking in the corner. ?While an organisational elephant can stubbornly resist coming out of hiding, there are situation that signal its presence, for example:

• We’re getting there… Things aren’t working out as intended. Everyone keeps talking about it, but no one is bringing up what’s really at the heart of the problem, and the options for really moving forward.
• It’s all important, but other things getting in the way… Key priorities have shifted, and resources are diverted elsewhere, but no one is discussing what has to be let go in order to achieve milestones.
• Just get it done… Deadlines are repeatedly missed, but no one is discussing what else could be behind the issue.

Not all elephants are the same size. ?On the opposite extreme are the gigantic, mastodon-sized elephants sitting on a company as they struggle with poor processes that have an adverse impact on customer, and smaller, irritating elephants such as the lack of a decent office coffee machine, which just annoys everyone, every day, but just isn’t fixed.

Startup founders come across this issue as they scale, changes in culture arising from growth and different perspectives between the ‘founding team’ and subsequent new hires. For example, finding a you-know-what standing you-know-where can emerge between product and marketing teams as different personas interact for different stages in the business growth cycle.

If you’re a startup founder, when a silent disagreement rests within your team, it requires your involvement to bring the team back together. Elephants in the room can often be hard to recognise due to the conspiracy of silence that surrounds them. This leads to walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around issues, as no one flags them. The taboo associated with the topic is often more powerful than the desire to address the topic. Fear of repercussions means its intimidating, and open discussions avoided leaving gossip, rumour, and innuendo.

Often founders seek to avoid bringing things to a head because they are trying to protect relationships or themselves. These are natural reactions, but great relationships are not the ones where there is no conflict, but the ones where you can resolve and thrive because of it. Where you can grasp the nettle together, everyone comes out stronger.? When we approach our metaphorical elephants-in-the-room with compassion, curiosity, and courage, we’re able to be open with others and replace vulnerabilities with powerful possibilities.?

Having difficult conversations requires tact, empathy, and courage. Difficult conversations often take place when frustration boils over to anger, and someone decides to drop a ‘truth bomb’. This results in an aggressive/defensive dance that not only does not resolve the issue but also adds one more reason to ‘not go there’ in the future. This cathartic release of pent-up emotions can quickly turn into a long-winded rant that helps no one.

I have encountered these situations many times, and while it may be extremely tempting in the moment to just look the other way and hope things pass, you can’t let it fester, so how do you go about addressing the loxodonta lurking in the corner? Here are some tips.

1. Adopt a ‘radical candour’ approach Radical Candour: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity is a leadership book by Kim Malone Scott. ?Scott defines the term radical candour as feedback that incorporates both praise and criticism which involves caring personally while challenging directly.

To explain the concept, Scott introduces what she calls a compass for candid conversations and defines the following four behaviours that managers fall into when giving feedback:

• Obnoxious Aggression - brutal honesty is what happens when leaders challenge directly, but do not show they care about the individuals personally. It includes both insincere praise and unkind criticism.
• Ruinous Empathy - leaders care for individuals personally, but they fail to challenge directly. It includes praise that is not specific and criticism that is sugar-coated and unclear.
• Manipulative Insincerity - backstabbing or passive-aggressive behaviour, happens when leaders neither care personally nor challenge directly. Their praise is insincere to a person’s face and their criticism is harsh behind a person’s back.
• Radical Candour - is what happens when leaders show that they care personally for their folks while also challenging them directly with clear, kind feedback that is not aggressive or insincere.

A candid exchange based in reality, while not a comfortable process, actually brings with it a palpable wave of relief for the team, clearing away misunderstandings and misperceptions. In the end, candour, and openness trumps unspoken silence. It enables a founder to be a mirror, track the emotions and getting to what’s right, not a simple yes or no outcome.

2. Be a decision architect In the discussions, use both verbal and nonverbal forms of communication, notably the 7%-38%-55% rule created by Albert Mehrabian that only 7% of a message is based on the words, 38% comes from the tone of voice and 55% from the speaker’s body language and face.

Of course, standoffs arise whereby compromise is needed if there is to be a resolution. This can often be regarded as a climb down or defeat, and the elephant becomes a confrontation with no goodwill, a battle of attrition. This needn’t be the case, a position should be sought where ultimately both sides feel comfortable with a compromise solution acceptable to both, leaving both feeling that they've taken away something positive from the discussion.

Meeting half-way thought, isn’t a result. Playing split-the-difference is lazy, it’s the midpoint between two arbitrary standpoints. Where is the logic in that? Think about the common ground but don’t be afraid to explain your objectives and what you’d like as an outcome but do so in a non-confrontational style.?

3. Acknowledge and identify yourself what is impeding progress The first step in handling and resolving a difficult situation which is creating tension in a small team is to acknowledge and accept the existence of the conflict. As a leader, your first step is to define what is the blocker. This could be submerged tension, inconsistency in action, differences of opinion, a negative emotion, or passive disagreement. It’s your job to identify what’s happening. Ask yourself, what’s at the heart of the matter?

4. Look at the situation with curiosity The next step is to open up your understanding of the issue. What do you sense and feel? Intuition is important here. What possibilities exist besides my ideas about what’s happening? What else could be going on? Lean back, give yourself distance to identify possibilities without becoming emotionally triggered. This step also helps prevent bias because you’re not identified with a point of view, side, or outcome.

5. Zoom out wider than the elephant Zooming wider than the elephant in the room doesn’t mean ignoring the elephant and the polarizing differences, it means rising above the immediate friction to see the core of what matters to everyone together.

The key to saying goodbye to the elephant is?accurately assessing the situation without prejudice or bias, a sixth sense to not only see the elephant more wholly but to know how to strategically use the diverse viewpoints to address the elephant and to accomplish more important objectives.

6. Name what you observe to others, without judgment This step requires that you describe your observations about what’s impeding progress. This step normally starts with these words: I notice…, I observe…, It seems…, or I’ve heard…?Be open and your thoughts on the causes and impact of having an elephant in the room.

7. Get to the heart of the matter. Be direct, honest, and detailed, but stay calm, you set the temperature of the discussions, which are bound to be emotive. It is essential to be straightforward, even if the facts are unpleasant. Tiptoeing around the issue will only perpetuate the tension. Being direct builds respect and trust. By naming what everyone is avoiding, you will transform the elephant into an obstacle that people can tackle together.

8. Don't let the elephant go rogue If you do not address the elephant it will trumpet, tread and blunder around causing all sorts of trouble. However, it is this avoidance which causes all our subsequent interaction to be distorted. Having set out to banish the elephant, you have to follow through to a conclusion. Defuse the situation.

9. Invite reflection and input from others How you approach the conversation can ease the tension. Anger, outrage, can greatly hamper the effectiveness of the discussion. Be calm and set everyone else at ease. Make it constructive. Make it clear that you want to have a working dialogue about the issue. Set the expectations and allow everyone opportunity for input.

10. Freeing the elephant Once you’ve spotted an organisational elephant, you’re in a position to find out what is actually feeding it and take the necessary steps to move forward.

Search for ‘elephant food’ Just as with their counterparts in the animal kingdom, organisational elephants thrive on different types of food. These include unrealistic expectations, mistaken assumptions, misunderstandings, misperceptions, and a deep fear that facing the issue will create more problems than it solves. The more contributing sources you find underlying the elephant, the more likely it is that you will be able to take control of the real issues and move forward.

Summary

Unfortunately, in an age where the ‘gotcha’ moment is highly prized and personal attacks are the norm, it can be hard to take the high road and aim for a meaningful discourse. Reframing the elephant is a great way to decrease both the anxiety associated with ‘we need to talk’ moments and increases the chances that everyone walk away feeling heard. This starts by seeing elephants in the room as opportunities for growth, for bringing conflict out into the open, helping move relationships past sticking points, and creating a sense of psychological safety in which it’s OK to disagree.

Done successfully, pulling the elephant into the spotlight and out of the shadows of silence is empowering and liberating, leaving people wondering why they waited so long to finally speak up. As a founder, it’s an opportunity to find one’s voice and show the team your leadership credentials.