Candor is not a conversation. It’s a culture.
A leadership team we recently equipped for success began the day asking: “How do we get better at having the tough conversations?” They finished the day prepared to operationalize new knowledge: “Far fewer ‘tough conversations’ are needed when candor is constant.”
Constant candor occurs when you:
- Invest in building relational capital (meaningful connections) among team members
- Model that you welcome criticism and “bad” news
- Actively hire and develop confident employees.
When teammates sweat and spend hours rehearsing how they will have a candid conversation, it is a sign your organization is taking the long (and painful) route to developing a culture of candor.
Conversely, when teammates care about one another so much that they must tell one another productive truths sooner, then candor isn’t a conversation. It’s a way of being.
P.S. ‘Ways of being’ is the only means to ensure ‘ways of working’ do work. We will get further into the details of how you can strengthen your team’s ways of being in our next Activation Session, March 24, 2022, at 11 a.m. Eastern. You can register for free here. I hope you’ll join the candid conversation.
