So welcome once again to the Connected Leadership podcast by Zentano. My name is Dave Morris. I'm here with my colleague and friend Rich Horton. Hi, Rich.

Hi Dave.

This is the third episode in our Leadership Dilemmas What Would You Do? series, where Rich and I explore situations in which the answer is rarely as straightforward as it first appears. And I know, Rich, I've really enjoyed the first two conversations, so we have another dilemma to talk about today. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. We do. We do, yes.

And today's dilemma will be familiar to anyone listening to this who has led a team meeting, worked on a change initiative, or even tried to turn a group decision into some action. So imagine the scenario. The meeting appears to go well.

Everyone seems to agree. There are plenty of nodding heads. Nobody raises a serious objection. Actions have been documented and you leave believing that the team is aligned. But then nothing happens. Actions are delayed. People drift back to their old ways of working and concerns that were never raised in the meeting begin appearing in conversations afterwards. So what is going on? Did people really agree?

or were they simply being polite? Did they understand the decision differently or did the leader mistake silence for commitment? So Rich today, I want to discuss when everyone has apparently agreed, why doesn't that always translate into

Mm-hmm.

action? So let's begin with that apparent contradiction. Everybody's agreed in the meeting, but nobody

Mm-hmm.

has followed through.

What on earth might be happening beneath the surface there?

Yeah, I think the first distinction to make is to separate what people appear to do in the room and what they've genuinely decided in their head to do afterwards.

Yeah, fair point.

So, I mean, it's not uncommon for people to externally nod. imagine somebody agreeing and nodding and saying yes.

underneath actually the internal narrative or dialogue could be yes i generally support this

Mm-hmm.

it could be yes i understand what's been decided it could be yes because the senior person clearly wants it

Yeah, yeah.

it could be yes but i don't think this is going to work yes in principle but i'm not sure who's who's responsible am i responsible don't know

It could be yes, because I don't feel able to challenge. So I'm

just going to say yes.

Hmm?

Or it might be, yeah, well, for now, but I've seen these sort of initiatives come and go and it's going to disappear just like the last one. the external responses could look identical in a meeting, but they could represent different levels.

of commitment. So

Hmm, interesting.

the danger is the leader observes the external behavior, the nodding of heads, perhaps doesn't actually hear any objections and then treats that as proof of some sort of alignment. So a quiet room is not necessarily an aligned room, I would say.

Very good point. So are we saying that leaders should be suspicious whenever people appear to agree?

Okay well yeah

I'm not sure I would say suspicious I mean it's a word we use very often I would say just curious so

Yeah, okay.

it may be that the agreement in the room is actually genuine so

Mm-hmm.

you know so don't just second-guess and immediately think the worst but it's important to test the agreement and to test whether people have

fully understood the decision, had, you know, if it's right, had the opportunity to influence it and to know what they're committing to. So the aim here is not to manufacture opposition or to make every decision unnecessarily difficult. It's to ensure that the surface, the apparent agreement is real enough to survive outside the meeting.

Interesting interesting. Yeah Okay, so let's move the conversation a little bit further then so if actions are not being completed Most

Mm-hmm.

leaders would probably jump to saying well, that's an accountability problem But but is

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

that necessarily where the problem begins? I'm not sure it is

No, not always. I it could be sometimes,

Hmm.

and there's a conversation to be had around that, around why there's not been the follow through. But we've talked before about the Patrick Lencioni model called the five dysfunctions of a team.

Yeah.

And I think as a model, I think this offers a useful lens because

The model is in essence, is a bit like a pyramid with five layers and

Yeah.

the lower level, the first level, level one, is what we call the trust level. And then the level above that is conflict. The level above that is commitment. The level above that is accountability and the level above that is results. So they're the five levels, trust,

Hmm.

conflict, commitment, accountability and results.

It's the bottom two levels which are quite interesting, the trust and the conflict layer. So trust is at the bottom, conflict comes next. And

Mmm.

then on top of those two things, commitment is built.

Yeah.

So let's not worry about the other levels for a minute, but let's just think about trust and conflict. So the big question from a trust perspective,

is you might see the problem at the accountability level and say well you know nobody's done what we agreed

Yeah, yeah.

but have you got enough trust in the room so everybody feels actually that they've been able to share their perspective share their point of view and they've been able to you know put a counter case to have a debate if that's appropriate

have those two levels of trust and conflict actually happen because they need to happen in order to get true commitment. Because if people feel that they've been heard and they've been able to express any sort of counter view or to debate any doubts that they have in their mind, they're more likely then to commit.

Yeah, and guess if you're the leader in the room,

Mm-hmm.

you might think there is enough trust in the room. Doesn't mean to say there is.

Yeah,

no, no, exactly not. No, no, exactly. Yeah. And actually, you know, the real problem may be a conflict problem.

Okay.

So, you know, the conflict problem again is related in trust. So, you know, in your team, people may have learned that it's safer to agree publicly and express concerns privately because

maybe they fear being seen as negative, difficult or disloyal or resistant to change and you know, behaviourally and in terms of the dynamics in the room they feel that it's not safe to express a counter view for whatever reason. So that might

Hmm.

be down to leadership star, it might be down to toxicity in the team and other team members you know, dismissing or punishing if you like other people's perspective. So

People can quickly learn to remain quiet. So just because they remain quiet, that doesn't mean they become committed. So the difference between the internal and external that we're talking about, it simply means that their disagreement has gone underground.

No, and I guess we want people to have agency, we? We want them to commit on their own terms. But I'm guessing

Yes, yes.

if they're not able to express their own views in that team environment, then they're probably not going to fully commit, are they?

Well, no, no, and then they're not gonna feel listened to or understood. So that's where potentially you could get a disparity between the internal and the external.

So yes, I mean, without all of that lot, accountability will become quite difficult and collective results will definitely suffer. There's no doubt about

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

that. Yeah.

so Rich, let's talk about something I've heard you talk about before, which is artificial harmony. Many teams pride themselves on getting along well, but

Mm-hmm.

when does harmony become a problem?

Yeah, so this very much relates to the trust and the conflict layers of the Patrick Lencioni model. I do a lot of work with teams. And when I present the Patrick Lencioni model, one of the things I'm at pains to make clear to a team is to not mistake the trust level, having trust in a team for being...

harmonious and everybody just getting on really well and there's no apparent sort of conflict or disagreement amongst the team. My personal view is that if a team says that we're very harmonious, we never have arguments or fall out, I mean, that may be a good thing.

might be.

it might be a good thing and they might have a means of working through disagreement. But if a team is not able to express different views, test assumptions, raise concerns, work through tensions, reach clarity about a decision, and then potentially you've got artificial harmony. People are just perhaps...

A lot of people, myself included, are perhaps uncomfortable with conflict

and disagreeing

Hmm.

with other people. We like to be liked as human beings.

Hmm.

So there's a sense in which everyone can get on well inside a team, but actually people don't feel confident or brave enough to engage in healthy conflict. And healthy conflict is where you have

where you have healthy debate around ideas and concepts and it doesn't become personal. And it's quite difficult to do well in practice. So in the context of a team, the key question is not simply did we avoid having an argument? Because I think that's the wrong question.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I think actually the question to ask is did we have the conversation that we actually needed to have?

Now, let me just stress that people have different tolerances for the degree of argy-bargy, if you like, as a psychologically technical phrase,

Yeah, yeah.

the degree of argy-bargy in the context of a robust discussion. So constructive disagreement doesn't need to look aggressive and it certainly shouldn't look personal. But it means that actually people can question ideas.

They can expose risks. They can offer different perspectives without fear that it's going to damage relationships around the table. It's interesting when you and I worked together, we both have a very different tolerance level for the degree to which we express differences of opinions.

Hmm.

And when I first met you, I find it quite challenging because you have a tendency to be much more direct and blunt than I am. There's nothing wrong with that. That's just a statement

Mm-hmm.

of

In I tend to wrap things up in fluffier words.

Cotton wool.

There's nothing wrong with that. Both approaches actually have their strengths and their weaknesses. But the challenge for the two of us, and it still happens today, doesn't it? When we work together and have disagreement, our different tolerances around how we respond to conflict is quite difficult to work through.

So as a leader, you need to be really sensitive to the interplay and the dynamics between people. Understand that some people are more sensitive to this than other people. And you need to create an environment where the quieter voices, those people that are more sensitive, have a means of expressing what they're thinking, even a different perspective or a challenge.

and they're able to do that without feeling they're being attacked.

Yeah, and my response to would be, I think that's why we need to spend time with people that we work with regularly, particularly if they're like a business partner like we are, or

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

a team that we're regularly working with, or even colleagues across the business that we interact with fairly regularly. It's relationship building, because we've worked together now in this business for 10 years. We've done a lot of work

Mm-hmm.

getting to know each other. We understand each other's strengths and weaknesses. We understand

Yeah, yeah.

how we respond.

and do things differently. And as you said, there's no right or wrong, it's just different. But

Yeah.

we also know what each other's triggers are. We would not

Yes, yeah, yeah.

automatically try and purposely trigger each other just to get, know, play a bit of one-upmanship or anything like that. But

No, no indeed, yeah.

we might accidentally trigger each other, you know, without even thinking. That's almost definitely gonna happen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the thing I would add to that, I mean, we'd not plan to say this actually, but I think it's also important to honor another person's, if you like, traits and approach. You so I've learned watching you in terms of the way you engage,

Mm-hmm.

that more blunt, direct approach. I've learned actually there are times when I use that approach.

as opposed to just wrapping things up in cotton wool. And actually, I think we've both learned from each other in terms of how we

Yeah.

engage around conflict and expressing ideas differently.

And

undoubtedly, yeah. And I think that is going back to what I'm saying about the importance of building relationships and learning from each other. think that is,

Yes, absolutely.

so maybe anyone listening to this thinking, yeah, okay, I kind of get what Rich was saying about constructive disagreement. Well, maybe the building blocks of getting to that where you can do it more effectively, because Rich is dead right. It's actually quite a difficult thing to do. Maybe

It is difficult,

your starting point is build some stronger, more robust relationships, get to know each other.

on a deeper

Mm-hmm.

level because that's what you and I've had to do to spend 10 years working together and

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

it does pay dividends and I think

Mm-hmm.

that is really, really important.

Yeah, yeah, agreed.

Yeah. So let's move on to the next point I wanted to talk through with you, Rich, is about commitment not requiring consensus. Does everybody

Mm-hmm.

have to agree before the team can move forwards?

No. Yeah. So,

In a word. Okay.

you know, so it's okay to disagree. don't want that to turn into endless debate.

No.

But there are times actually when as a leader, well, I guess there's a number of ways to think about this. So the degree to which you want other people's perspective inside the team.

and to engage in a genuine consultation about a particular issue and to get their view. Now there's a difference between consulting people and getting consensus. So getting consensus is essentially, okay, well, let's have a bit of a discussion and a debate and let's have a vote on what the decision is. So that's...

that's sort of getting consensus around the table.

Yeah.

So a leader might say, well, actually for this particular issue, it doesn't really matter what it is, let's get some consensus around the table, the majority, let's have a conversation. It might not necessarily be a vote per se, but actually you seek to get consensus. But there are times actually when as a leader, you will know from a business perspective,

you have certain constraints around the decision that you're gonna make. And actually consensus seeking is not the right approach. So it might be that you wanna hear different perspectives and you wanna triangulate your perspective against what other people are thinking in the room. It might just be that your engagement with the people in the room is that they've genuinely been heard.

and they can express their fears or whatever around the decision. But sometimes you just need to say, right, okay, I'm gonna listen to you. These are the boundaries of the decision and the decision then rests with me. We're not making this decision as a consensus of the team. Because as leader, you will know what the business wants around this particular decision. you know, people can disagree with the decision and still commit.

to implement in it. But the point is, have they been genuinely heard when they need to be heard? Has the process been fair? Is the

Yeah.

rationale understood? Is the decision clear? then, you know, do they know what their part is and they understand what happens next? The other thing I would say, and it's a mistake I've made in the past,

Mm-hmm.

is there are certain decisions that I've made as a leader and I've...

sort other people's perspectives and points of view. I've consulted, if you

Yeah.

like. And actually, I was consulting because I was fearing making a difficult decision and I knew what the decision should be. And I was using the consultation as a mask for my need for approval

Yeah.

as a leader. So in those situations, just be clear.

There's no consultation as part of this. This is the decision. But what you might want to do then as leader is to genuinely hear their perspective around the decision that you've been making. you know, there might be important perspectives or points of view that you've not thought about in terms of the outcomes of the decision that you need to take account of. It gives people the opportunity to feel they've been genuinely listened to. But be really clear.

Are you consulting? Are you informing? And be very clear around, if you like, the ground rules around the conversation that you're having.

Yeah, and I guess for anybody who's participating in those conversations, there is quite a bit of difference between them thinking I've got the outcome I wanted from this discussion and actually

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

thinking I had a fair opportunity to contribute and I understand the

Yes, yeah

decision that was ultimately made and whether or not it was my preferred decision, I will now support that decision. Yeah. And as you said, there's a

Yeah, yeah, indeed. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

process to go through to get that, isn't there? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah

and you know somebody can strongly disagree with the final decision but yeah, okay

Well, that was my next question. So if you have that conversation, you and you have

given everybody that opportunity, so let's say you've done that pretty well, that conversation, but somebody still strongly disagrees with that final decision, what do you do then?

Well, I think it is important to take that disagreement seriously. So you don't simply just dismiss it or they're just being an idiot because

Mm-hmm.

you've not explored what lies beneath the disagreement or you may not have fully explored what lies

Mm-hmm.

beneath the disagreement. So I think it's worth exploring whether their fear, their disagreement reveals a genuine risk. Might be an ethical concern.

It might be important information has been missed. But once that concern has been properly heard and the appropriate decision maker has made the decision, the team just then needs clarity.

And guessing also sometimes that extra conversation may not happen in the group. It might need to be a side conversation that you have with that individual. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So think about what's appropriate in terms of who is disagreeing and how to have that conversation. Because if you force it in the group, may not, it might backfire on you basically. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And

I think, you know, if they can't support the decision at all, that you need to be open and honest and straightforward with each other about that. And if

Hmm.

they then start behaving inappropriately and are seeking to undermine the decision, well, you know, that's a performance issue that needs to be addressed. You know, as a leader, you need to have a proper conversation with them. But if you've done all the right things around, you know, seeking to understand where they're coming from or all that sort of stuff.

Hopefully people will feel because they've been heard enough, they're prepared to then commit to the decision.

Yeah, and I think in a work context, we have the duty to professionally commit, you know, because there's a greater good, there's a greater good, isn't there? It's not about me,

Well, we do, yes. Yes.

it's not about you, it's about a lot more people than just you and I. And

Mm-hmm.

it's not even just about the people inside the business, it ripples into a lot, a lot. So

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

that professional agreement or commitment is really important. So can

Mm-hmm.

we just talk about something that's a bit of a clash here? People complying versus genuinely committing. So...

Yeah.

We've used the word commitment several times in this conversation already. What's the difference between committing to something and simply complying with it?

Yeah, so I think compliance says something like this. Okay, I'll do this because I've been told to. That's compliance. Commitment says probably internally something a little bit different. So commitment says, well, I understand why this matters. I might not agree. I know what I need to own and I intend to follow that through. That's commitment.

That's the professional commitment I was just talking about.

Yeah, absolutely right.

Yeah, yeah.

I compliance is not always wrong. know,

No.

there are times where, you know, we just have to sit back and hold our council and it's risky, you know, to put our head above the parapets. Let's make no bones about that. And organizations sometimes require people to follow decisions they would not have personally have made,

Mm-hmm.

you know. And there are times, particularly in large organizations, where

a decision is literally come down from above and you have no choice and you have no choice and that's quite difficult emotionally to deal with as a leader because as a leader you might be on the receiving end of a decision that you don't understand and there's a sense in which you're going to need compliance from yourself and from the team to follow through on that and you have no choice.

And you can still do the things, exploring people's resistance and fears and all that. I still think you can do that well. But the fact of life is sometimes we can't get the ideal commitment that we're talking about here. Sometimes compliance is necessary.

let's just pick up on that point you've made because I think there's a distinction

to be made here. So yes, let's assume a decision comes down from on above, which

Mm-hmm.

you as the leader of your team, A, may not understand, as you said, or agree with. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, indeed.

So you can still go and have a conversation with your team to tease out any any views. But what you shouldn't do is end this debate, the decision that's been made in terms of whether we can change it, because it's been made. You can

Yes, yes, yes.

you can spend time

understanding people's perspectives on it and how that may or may not get in the way that may well be valuable but don't spend

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

hours and hours talking about trying to get the decision changed if there's an absolute no it's been made

Yeah, yeah.

you just have to follow it I think there's a difference to be to be there so if I think

Yeah.

too much of the other stuff happens where we just we just have a long-winded debate about the decision that's already been made and it's not going to change so we're wasting our time basically yeah

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So more likely when we're talking about commitment in the context of this podcast, probably we're talking about getting commitment rather than compliance, where as a leader, you can have some sort of ownership or autonomy around the decision that needs to be made. you know, commitment is more likely to survive when...

you know, the work becomes difficult, the leader's no longer present, you know, the plan needs adapting, you know, results are disappointing. know, so commitment allows those things to happen when the leader is not around.

Hmm.

Whereas compliance asks questions like, what's the minimum that I'm required to do? What do I need to demonstrate to the leader when they're around to demonstrate compliance? It's a bit...

It's a bit similar actually to, in moral philosophy, that there's this concept that a person's true character is shown when nobody is looking. It's what you do when nobody is looking.

Mm. Mm. Mm. Yeah.

And true commitment, true commitment is what people do when the leader is not looking.

Yeah,

I guess that the challenge here for leaders is we're not trying to manipulate people here into being enthusiastic, is it? Basically, what

No, no, no.

you're trying to do is create some conditions in which people can understand decisions, contribute honestly, and ultimately take some meaningful ownership. But my next question, Rich, is does that mean that every decision has to be participative? I'm guessing you're going to say no.

Yeah, well, and we have talked about this before, so I don't want to label this,

No.

participation and decision making authority are not the same thing.

No.

So, you know, be really clear. When is it you need to gather views? When is it you need to consult? When are we making a decision together? And signal that very clearly to your team. So they're

Yeah.

very clear the binders of the decision making and how that's going to work. And they're clear when you're seeking their inputs and

I'm going to say when you're not seeking their input that doesn't mean you're going to shut down objections but you're being very clear the boundaries where the decision-making lies.

Hmm. Yeah. That's fair enough. So

let's move the conversation again then to the actual leader, him or herself. Yeah, the person leading the conversation, leading the team.

Mm-hmm.

So I want to talk about the leader's part in creating what I'm to call false agreement. So could the

Okay.

leader unintentionally be creating the appearance of agreement, even if it's ultimately not there?

So I think this relates to a concept that we've talked about in a previous podcast. Do remember I talked about this idea that we bring our office, our set of responsibilities, our role, we bring that into a room.

Yes.

So for example, if your job title has head of such and such in its job title,

Yeah. Yeah.

you bring that into the room and

Yeah.

people will sit up

and they will listen because of the title, because of the office, because of the status that you bring into the room. leaders by definition have more influence over a conversation than they actually recognize. And you can do it very subtly. So you can close down a challenge by perhaps announcing your preferred answer too early, you know, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You it's almost like you frame this is my preferred, this is my preferred approach. so you've already set out your store. So who's going to disagree then when you feel... Yes. Yeah. What's the point? know,

Well, I'm already thinking, well he's already made his mind up, so what's the point? Yeah, exactly.

I think it's very important how you respond to disagreement. I've talked

Yes, absolutely it is.

in previous podcasts about the microbehaviors that...

essentially is the shadow that you cast into the room. So if somebody disagrees and you sit there and you huff and sigh or you roll your eyes or you raise your eyebrows or whatever it is, that creates a shadow in the room and it can frame disagreement as something negative. So.

And it's amplified by the fact that you might have head of or director of or team leader in your job title. I think you can do it subtly as well by rewarding people unconsciously, might be doing this unconsciously, who agree quickly with you.

Yeah.

It's possible that you rush the discussion where actually you need to have a deeper discussion around this.

and you just say, okay, we're all happy with that, aren't we? Look around the room, there's silence, and then you treat that as consent. So it's very easy for a leader to fall into the trap of thinking that they've got agreement in the room, commitment, but actually that they haven't. And I think going back to Patrick Lencioni, the five layers model, he wrote another interesting book called The Five Temptations of a CEO.

And one of the temptations he talks about is a temptation for a leader to prioritize popularity over accountability. And that's relevant here, I think, not because leaders should seek to make themselves unpopular, but because the desire to be liked can make them reluctant to create discomfort.

Yeah.

So they might avoid having those difficult conversations.

So you'll quickly just skirt over the, does everyone agree with this? But the irony is avoiding the discomfort during the meeting creates larger, more damaging problems afterwards, I think.

It does. And there was one thing when you were talking just there about how we might subtly be influencing the conversation.

Mm.

You talked very on in this podcast about the importance of being curious and staying curious. the leaders really got to role model that so that everybody follows suit here.

Yes. Yeah.

So be careful not to respond to curiosity led questions that you may well get defensively. Because I think

Yeah.

we can almost subconsciously be quite defensive about being questioned.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yes,

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so how can leaders therefore invite challenge without making the meeting feel confrontational?

Yeah, well I think language matters here actually.

Okay, yeah.

So, you know, people have different preferences for the degree to which they're willing to speak up and the degree to which they want to censor before they speak or reflect

Mm-hmm.

before they speak. So instead of putting people on the spot and say, right, does anybody disagree? You have a two second gap. Wait,

Well,

Actually

in their head the answer might be, do, but it's too dangerous to tell you that I do. Yeah,

Why exactly, yeah, yeah.

absolutely.

So, you know, some good questions could be things like, you know, are we missing anything here? What's going to make this difficult to implement? Are there any concerns in the room that have not been voiced yet? If this failed in six months, what's the reasons going to be perhaps for this?

Mm-hmm.

Does anybody see this differently? So.

So by asking those open-ended questions, which are not leading questions,

Mm-hmm.

and pointing people to the decision that you want,

You

you're inviting people to contribute constructively and to challenge, and you're inviting them to be honest. And then it's really important then how you respond to those challenges.

Well, yeah, and I don't just

take that list of questions that Richard has just been running you through there as well. I heard what Richard say that, so they sound like quite good questions. I'm just going to ask them. Genuinely ask them with some curiosity because I think that people

Yeah, yeah, that's the point.

can spot falseness when you're doing this. Do

Mm-hmm.

it authentically, do it genuinely. Really actually

Yeah, yeah.

try and tap into that natural curiosity that you've all got. We've all got it. This is

Mm-hmm.

a great time to tap into that, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so let's talk about ownership and...

What you and I call the ownership gap. Let's assume people have had the honest conversation and there

Okay, yeah.

is sufficient commitment in the room. Yeah

Mm-hmm.

What else causes action to disappear after the meeting is ended?

Yes, I think actually, you know, this might not just be psychological, this might be something, you know, much more practical and concrete.

Okay.

I think sometimes teams are often confused talking about something. They confuse that with deciding something. Yeah, yeah. So

Yeah, absolutely they do. Yeah.

you walk away. yeah, okay. So we talked, we talked all about that, but...

We did,

But what do we decide? What's the outcome we're trying to achieve? Who's responsible for which bit of that? Maybe it's been suggested that you do something, but what authority and boundaries do you have? When's it going

But isn't the reality

in those situations, Rich, that we can all go away thinking, yeah, we did decide that,

Yeah.

but we actually got three or four different versions of what was actually decided. And we're

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

actually convinced that's what we heard. Yeah, yeah.

Yes, exactly, exactly. So

it's very easy for, know, an action can be owned by the team, you

Mm-hmm.

know, so you've agreed something, but you you've not agreed very specifically who specifically is going to do this particular thing by when. So

Hmm.

nobody acts because nobody is truly committed.

Nah.

Yeah, so I guess, taking what you said there, yeah, let's be really clear. What exactly have we decided in this meeting? What

Yes.

outcome are we trying to achieve? Are we all exactly on the same page? Who owns the next action or actions? Those types of questions actually, just to make sure that you're leaving the room all aligned are really quite important. think they often don't get asked those questions.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Okay, so is simply recording actions enough? I think, and then we just...

It's probably answer again is no, isn't it?

Yeah, I think so. mean, you know, a more useful question is can the people in the room play back to you what they're actually taking away? Because,

Hmm.

you know, by checking that and sense checking that can reveal significant differences in interpretation. mean, you know, we as coaches are paid to be, to listen.

And I think generally speaking, I think I'm a good listener, but I do know from time to time, you know, that I delete large parts of a conversation, you know, maybe I've got distracted, I've got a bit tired or whatever, you we all do, we all miss bits and we all interpret, you know, particular words in a different way. So it's really important for a leader and a team leader when you've had a team conversation is to sense check actually.

What have people interpreted and what they taken away?

Yeah, I totally agree. That's actually part of being a really good listener, isn't it?

Mm-hmm.

It isn't just the act of saying nothing and letting your ears take in some words. It's actually when you've heard what you've heard, it's doing some sense checking and doing some, yeah, absolutely.

Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah, exactly.

So let's talk about psychological safety, which you referred to earlier on, and accountability. So psychological safety is often discussed as giving people the permission to speak.

Yeah.

How does that sit alongside accountability?

Well, I think they should strengthen each other because it goes back to the trust thing that I talked about earlier. So

Mm-hmm.

psychological safety doesn't mean avoiding standards, difficult truths or having difficult conversations. know, the trust and the conflict go hand in hand. know, so there's a balance to be struck here. So I think when you have that openness, when you can

acknowledge mistakes, uncertainties, disagree respectfully, that openness allows the team to make better decisions. So after the discussion, the accountability then still matters. So people need to take responsibility for what they've agreed to do. And without the psychological safety in place, accountability can just become a blame game.

Okay.

Yeah.

And without accountability, psychological safety can just become a nice sort of cozy, comfortable team environment without making progress and achieving results. So, you know, when we talk about connected leadership, our connected leadership model balances both those things. It balances support and challenge. It talks about balancing creating a psychologically safe, compassionate, empathetic, supportive environment.

but balancing that with holding people to account. And it's both and, it's not either or.

Yeah, yeah. So it can make it safe to disagree before a decision has been made,

but it also

Exactly, yeah.

makes ownership crystal clear after that decision has been made. Yeah, you

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

can do both together. I totally agree with that. So let's just talk briefly about turning a parent agreement into real commitment. What can a leader do practically at the end of a meeting to turn discussion into commitment?

Yeah, so very quickly, we've talked about things like, you know, asking questions like what concerns have not been voiced yet. So you surface, you know, what other people see differently to you or what might prevent this from happening. And then state the decision clearly. What's been decided? Why has it been decided? What's the outcome that's required?

and what has not been decided and who owns each of the actions,

You

timescales, all of those sorts of things. So you crystallise the conversation with clarity at the very end. And I think it's also important not to finish these conversations that you have in team meetings by asking vague questions like, is everybody happy? Because happiness is not the test.

No, that's a

point.

Good. You know,

going back to the point I was making earlier, the goal is not for you to be popular. The goal is for you to get clear decisions where there's clear understanding and clear commitment and to state that very clearly as a leader. So people have clarity and the outcome you're seeking to achieve is not your popularity or people's happiness. It's clarity is what you seek

Absolutely.

is seeking to achieve.

Okay, Rich, so let's return to our original dilemma.

You've chaired the meeting. Nobody has objected.

Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.

The team appears to agree. But two weeks later, very little, if anything, has happened.

Yeah.

What do you do now?

So I think it links back to what I was saying earlier. So it's important that accountability is not turned into a blame game.

Mm-hmm.

And it's important not to jump to the assumption that just because something's not happened, that they're not committed. So that's an interpretation

Mm-hmm.

that you've put on that. So I think it's really important then to go back to the team when something's not happened.

Mm-hmm.

and to explore, did people understand the decision? Did people genuinely believe what I thought we'd agreed?

Mm-hmm.

there any unspoken concerns? So have that conversation around all the stuff that we've been talking about and just go back around the cycle and then reestablish the decision, the ownership and the next steps. And then hopefully then accountability will follow. But don't assume that just because

it's not been done, that people are not, if you like, We need to explore why that is.

And also examine your own contribution to that as well. Yeah.

Well yeah, well exactly right, exactly right yeah.

Okay. So in terms of sort of closing reflections, and as we close this podcast episode, Rich, what question should listeners take back to their own leadership meetings from today?

OK, so I would say that when you've had a meeting, just reflect after that meeting is what evidence do you have that people genuinely committed rather than simply nodding? OK, did they have the space they needed to really express their thinking? Was the decision clear? Were individuals named to accept ownership?

but was express acceptance of that assigned accountability. So a quiet room is not necessarily an aligned room. you know, hold that thought in mind and then ask those questions after you've had your team meeting.

I guess also another point which we haven't mentioned yet is, was there a clear point at which we agreed progress would be reviewed? Because that's

yes, yeah, yeah.

a really important thing and that often gets missed as well I think in this. yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think for today Rich, that's our lot. So

Mm-hmm.

for anybody listening,

There's an important challenge there for all of us. When action does not follow a meeting, is tempting to assume that people are lazy or resistant or unwilling

Yeah.

to take responsibility. Sometimes the real problem began much, much earlier when concerns went unspoken, agreement was assumed, and nobody clarified what commitment was required. So good leadership does not eliminate disagreement. think Rich, you've made that crystal clear. It creates

Mm-hmm.

the trust to disagree honestly.

discipline to reach a clear decision and the accountability there to act on it. And

Yeah, absolutely.

we'd love to know what you what you guys do who are listening to this podcast. How do you distinguish genuine commitment from polite agreement? And what have you learned about turning leadership conversations into action? Please feel free to reach out to us on on LinkedIn and other social media channels and let us know.

Mm-hmm.

for today, thank you so much, Rich, for your time. Thank you to everybody

Thank you.

for listening once again to the Connected Leadership Podcast.

It is great to know that our listenership numbers are going up. We're really touched that we can reach as many people as we can and we want to carry on doing that. And I hope we're finding this Leadership Dilemmas series as much fun to do as we are to plan doing it. So join us next time because we'll have another Leadership Dilemma to talk about next time, Rich.

We

And that one is when you know the answer, but the team needs to learn. So, you know, don't jump in just because you know the answer.

Yeah, interesting.

That's for next time.

But for today, from me, thank you.

Thank you.