“Fierce” Conversations

I was working with a team recently that suffered from what many teams do: lack of clarity around their roles, poor communication from leadership, infighting, gossip, very little feedback on job performance, a set of values that no one references or acts in accordance with, and almost no accountability.

Leadership, instead of rectifying these things, provided their team with “Fierce” Conversation training.

Does this make you as angry as it makes me?

Again, leadership, instead of working to fix their own misses, decided that their teams should simply get better at working things out amongst themselves.

Look, I’ve never met a person who couldn’t get better at having tough conversations. But that’s not the point.

Providing almost no clarity for the team, and then leaving it to them to basically fight it out when things inevitably go south, feels like some kind of archaic bloodsport.

This is a complete abdication of responsibility from leadership.

Leaders: do not do this.

It’s not up to your team to get better at working together when you haven’t provided them with the proper tools first. And, once those tools are provided, they need to be consistently reinforced.

If not, be prepared for lots of “fierce” conversations directed your way.