Joe tells the story of walking into a company meeting where the CEO spoke for seven minutes and no one was listening. The first thing Joe said was: “What I just noticed was that he spoke for seven minutes and none of you were listening.” He asked each person why they weren’t listening, then asked the CEO why he spoke for seven minutes without being heard.
After initial avoidance (“I was listening!”) and discomfort, the real issues surfaced within an hour: the team felt the CEO needed to be right rather than get it right, trust had broken down, and the team had divided into fiefdoms.
“If you had a way for you to figure out the 10 reasons your product doesn’t work inside of an hour, would you hire me to do it? Yes. So it’s that emotional thing that people don’t want to feel which prevents them from finding the truth about their company quickly.”
CEOs commonly believe they need to take care of everyone, handle everything alone, and not share how they’re feeling. But if you’re not sharing what’s happening for you, you’re not trustworthy — and you’re not trusting your team. The team can’t trust you because they’re always waiting for the reaction, the bad move, the hidden agenda.
Related Concepts
- Keeping it together blocks team trust
- Emotional avoidance creates blind spots
- Conflict-avoidant managers destroy trust