Unspoken Discussions on church boards and work teams

Church boards and work teams are notorious for their unspoken discussions! Those unspoken discussions are the issues that are present, that people know they are present, but that either individual board members or the board itself do not dare to discuss as a board. These are elephants in the room - often critical issues for the church that require being named and dealt with, but the board's culture mitigates against it.

Many individuals do not like conflict; their definition of conflict is anything that might cause individual or group discomfort. So, there is subtle pressure put on board or team members to be friendly and not rock the boat by naming issues that are out there and need discussion. (The same dynamics can be had on almost any team.) You know that you have breached a topic that makes people uncomfortable when you put an issue on the table, and there is either silence or someone jumps in to quickly deflect the problem from the discussion.

I recently read an article about Patrick Lencioni suggesting that major financial institutions have been in trouble lately because of the prevailing culture on company governance boards to not deal with issues that would make others uncomfortable. So, the culture of nice sabotages a culture of truth and effectiveness.

Pastors, leaders, board members, or team members who choose not to speak in the face of real unspoken issues do a disservice to their organization. The irony is that everyone generally knows there are unspoken issues - they just don't want the discomfort of naming them. The hope is that they will just go away!

How we speak to the issues is essential. If I approach an unspoken issue and put it on the table, it will be best received if there is not a personal vendetta and my words are not meant to hurt. I don't have a hidden personal agenda; I want the best for the organization; I communicate in a way that invites rather than disinvites dialogue; I say it in love; and I acknowledge that the issue may make others uncomfortable.

The funny thing about "elephants" is that once they are named, they are no longer elephants. I once worked with a group around a whiteboard and asked them to name every elephant they felt existed in their organization. We filled the whiteboard (a bad thing), but once up there, we could talk about all of them (a good thing). Once named, an elephant is simply another issue that we are allowed to talk about. Unnamed, it is one of the unspoken discussions we know we need to have but need more courage to discuss.

Every board, team, and organization is better off with a high level of candor and trust, which mitigates the candor turning into anger or cynicism.

If you are brave, I would suggest that you ask your team or your board in a relaxed atmosphere to brainstorm on any unspoken board discussions you need to have, on any elephants that need to be named, whiteboard them, and then develop a plan to talk through them one by one.

Unspoken discussions are not discussions, just frustrations, and they often hide real issues that unresolved will hurt the organization.

Avoiding the Activity Trap

One of the most strategic things we can do - and insist from our staff is not to fall into the activity trap. Simply put, the activity trap is the mistake of believing that activity is synonymous with results. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Think for a moment about people you know. Some of them are always busy, but the results from their work are, well, meager. Others may or may not seem busy, but the results of their work are significant.

I have watched senior leaders and even CEOs fall into the activity trap, endlessly busy with "important things" but truly meager in terms of the results of their work. If it were not for some good folks around them, they would be seen as the "emperor without clothes." Sometimes, they can fool outsiders who see the activity, but insiders have difficulty figuring out what they produce.

What differentiates those who see meager results and those who see significant results?

The difference is that those who see the best results understand that activity does not equal results. Activity is simply being busy. But if that activity is not carefully focused on specific outcomes, one is left merely with activity.

General or unfocused activity yields broad and unfocused results. Specific and focused activities will deliver pre-determined outcomes that help the organization realize its objectives. In the first case, the activity is focused on activity, while in the second, the activity is focused on outcomes. It is a critical difference.

I am not indicating that those with unfocused activity are not doing good things. The question is whether the activity is focused on the good things that will yield the results they are after.

A problem with typical job descriptions is that they are a list of activities rather than a description of necessary results. That is why it is far better to have job descriptions with Key Result Areas, which are the outcomes wanted for the position, than to have a list of activities. With Key Result Areas, any activity in the job is focused toward a few definable results that spell success for the job.

One of the ironies is that those who do less often accomplish more because they are more focused than those running at a heavy pace.

To avoid the activity trap, we should be able to answer these questions:

What specific results do I want from my work? For instance, I have five Key Result Areas that spell success for my work. Can you define what spells success for you?

Is my daily, weekly, and monthly activity focused on achieving the specific results I have identified?

Do I have a strategy for making sure I stay focused? After all, it is very easy to drift, and a strategy for staying focused is essential.

If you are a supervisor, can your reports answer these questions?