Is that you or your ego?
I’ve worked with a few people over the years where I would like to have gone back and asked that question!
These days thankfully I have no fear in asking it.
It is one of the things I most love about my role as a facilitator for teams and of change – and that is to set a purpose and a safe space where a team can be real with each other: where they can say the things they want to say about the organisation, how they work, what they want, why that matters to them and what they don’t want. Where they can be creative and where they openly discuss and work through what usually gets avoided – conflict – dialogue where there they may be disagreement (real or imagined) and “difficult conversations” one to one, usually about performance and the behaviour, of ourselves and others.
My experience doing this over and over is how much people long to be real with each other and how hard wired they are to not be. At least in the workplace.
What it takes to be real is to leave the ego at the door, that part that wants to impress, be liked, to please, to look good or to dominate. When you wipe it clean, the fear goes with it and the truth gets much easier to say. Funnily enough when your purpose to move things forward is firmly in place, it also gets a lot easier for others to hear .
And it is in this space that trust, energy, momentum and giant leaps forward in results are made.
If you would like to talk about the themes above and how they relate to your Exec teams and organisations please feel free to drop me a line or comment below.