Leaders must be willing to address unspeakable topics at work

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Leadership consultant Christina Wing believes there are too many conversations we’re not having because the topics are deemed taboo.

“We don’t talk about money because it’s too awkward. We don’t discuss politics because it causes too much conflict. We can’t admit failure because it hurts our ego and may cause others to think less of us,” the Harvard Business School senior lecturer writes her book, Unspeakable.

More broadly, they revolve around power, identity, status, aging, ambition or family. We know those topics are important but also believe they are too sensitive to address – issues we were trained as children to avoid and professionals are taught to tiptoe around. We don’t know how to talk about them without risking discomfort, conflict or negative judgment.

Her teaching and consulting focus is family enterprises, where the stew of money, ambition and relationships can be complicated and volatile. But her approach also applies to most workplaces.

“When we avoid the Unspeakables, they don’t disappear,” she warns. “They metastasize. They distort decisions, corrode trust and shape outcomes – often in ways no one intended.”

Most managers and employees, for example, leave unspoken the issues outside of the office that intrude on their work efforts. That can lead to confusion, erroneous assumptions and seething emotions. She points to one intrepid (and intelligent) manager who every year – separate from performance reviews or compensation discussions – holds a “capacity and life-stage conversation” with each of his staff members.

The best practice for discussions on sensitive topics, she advises, is to have a script to open the conversation and here is that manager’s: “What constraints are you managing outside of work this year? Are there periods when your availability will be different than usual? Is there any special flexibility that would help you do your best work while managing these constraints?”

What made this effective, she believes, is that he tackles it with each employee – not just obvious targets like new parents – and is proactive, not waiting for employees to come to him with challenges. He isn’t perceived as making secret, special deals with favourites because everyone is able to raise their own work-life complications. It has paid off in higher retention than most other teams in his firm.

Her office at Havard is not far from colleague Amy Edmondson, who popularized the notion of psychological safety, which is of course important for holding sensitive discussions. “I’ve come to believe that fear is the most underappreciated force shaping behaviour at work,” says Ms. Wing.

She notes it comes in six flavours: Fear of punishment, authority, judgement, conflict, ambition and failure. That makes leadership, for her, the management of fear.

She points to one leader who inherited a team known for silence. Meetings were efficient but empty. So he began asking at the end of each meeting, “What’s one thing we’re not talking about that we should be?” As you might expect, initially nobody took the bait. When somebody finally did, the leader gave it his full, supportive attention. Over time, repeating the question at each meeting, and with it becoming clear that nobody would be punished for speaking up, issues began surfacing earlier and debate sharpened, with an accompanying improvement in performance.

Religion and race are widely seen as topics to avoid at the office but she argues as our workplaces become multicultural groupings it’s vital to understand each other better. Otherwise there can be confusion and resentment over how and when people celebrate religious holidays, how people dress and display outward symbols of religious belief, how people’s adherence to behaviours that align with religious beliefs can conflict with common business behaviours or activities, and how religious identity can foster strong beliefs around geopolitical conflicts.

“When geopolitical conflict or racial violence erupts – whether it’s war in the Middle East or police officers using excessive force on people of colour – it doesn’t stay outside the office walls. People bring their identities, fears and grief right into the Monday morning meeting. Leaders may have an impulse to pretend the tragedies aren’t happening, but ignoring a current event that’s causing colleagues grief or anxiety is shortsighted. It tells employees: ‘Your pain doesn’t count; your story isn’t part of the conversation.’ That is corrosive,” she writes.

She will invite her MBA students to come in groups of eight to a dinner party at her home. Many are from outside the United States and she will often ask, “Why don’t we discuss American politics?” The normally voluble students turn silent, having learned that political conversation are minefields. But for aspiring leaders she believes that’s a harmful attitude, because politics and public policy increasingly shape the environment in which businesses operate. “Declaring politics off-limits doesn’t insulate leaders from its effects; it simply leaves them less prepared to respond,” she says.

She also stresses that staying silent on political issues can have real costs for leaders. Although they worry political discussions will divide employees, she counters that silence is not neutral and can backfire: Many young people are values-driven and want their companies to take public positions on social and political issues.

She urges you to get ahead of political firestorms: If having a political position seems sensible, make it known before the political temperature rises. Similarly, if you want to dampen political discussions in the workplace, don’t wait until heated battles have emerged.

None of this is easy. But she believes you can be a better leader if willing to address the unspeakable.

Cannonballs

• A recent celebration of life for a treasured former colleague at which friends from his cottage life joined us led to these thoughts: The people we work with are all talented in different ways. The press of deadlines, different visions and egos lead to lots of collisions. It’s important to acknowledge other people’s talents (ideally before they die or you stop working together); how you combine for magnificence, at least some days; and the range of their life beyond what you see in the workplace. 
• Change causes fear – fear of the unknown, fear of failure. Entrepreneur Seth Godin says that instead of telling those with such fears “there’s nothing to be afraid of” it’s wiser to ask, “What would make you feel safer?”
• Roy H. Williams, after nearly 50 years of writing radio and TV ads for owner-operated business across Canada, The United States, and Australia, observes: “The game begins and ends with your ideas and your words. When your message is right, every media delivers results. When your message is wrong, no media delivers results.”