Encouraging Candour to Boost Team Performance

A recent edition of the Harvard Business Review featured a column by Keith Ferrazi which lamented the lack of effective communication between teams and the price it exacts on performance and outcomes

We've all been there, trapped in pointless meetings where participants are afraid to speak honestly. We twiddle our thumbs through diplomatic powerpoint presentations, waiting for the meeting to end so that the real conversations - which usually happen in private - can begin.

My team interviewed executives at six top banks to gauge their teams' level of candour. We found that the teams that scored the lowest on candour saw the poorest financial returns among those banks during the recent global economics crisis. In contrast, groups that communicated candidly about risk securities, lending practices, and other potential problems were able to preserve shareholder value.Indeed, in our research at more than 50 large companies over the past three years, we identified "observable candour" as the behaviour that best predicts high-performing teams.

True collaboration is impossible when people don't trust one another to speak with candour. It takes work to create a candid environment supported by respectful, open relationships, but it's a challenge every leader should embrace.

The behaviours required to achieve this level of collaboration and candour have been a focus for FranklinCovey's work with teams over the past 20 years. Our Speed of Trust thinking crystalises the value to be gained / lost when such trust is either high or low and also provides strong thinking on the questions to ask individuals at the point of them joining a team so that you create the conditions for high trust interactions.

Within the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, communication is seen a key to truly interdependent relationship, and we develop people's instinct to value the perspectives of others, to listen to understand and to share feedback in a way that balances both courage and consideration. 

Finally, FranklinCovey's Helping Clients Succeed thinking recognises the potential for conflict in both colleague and client communication and introduces ways to slow down when 'yellow lights' occur and then to meet 'push pack with enquiry', so that more effective, and collaborative, outcomes can be achieved.