Mar 31, 2026 | Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Management, Team Coaching
When a professional services firm I work with rolled out its return-to-office mandate last year, the executive team invested significantly in getting the communications right. Town halls, manager talking points, a well-crafted rationale. What they spent almost no time on was a harder question: did their teams have the design and leadership conditions to be effective together in person? Three months after the mandate, attendance was up. Engagement scores were not.
Mar 31, 2026 | Leadership, Team Coaching
Most leaders think they have a communication problem.
They don’t.
They have a tolerance problem.
I worked with a leadership team where:
11 out of 40 people responded to a survey…
…and that was considered a win.
Why?
Because non-responsiveness had become normal.
Unchallenged norms are what keep teams stuck.
Not lack of skill. Not lack of effort.
If you want to shift performance, don’t start with tactics.
Start with this question:
“Why is this okay for us?”
Mar 30, 2026 | Leadership, Team Coaching
Here is a question worth asking before the next major initiative hits your organization:
When the deadline arrives, will your organization move faster—or will it meet more often?
Most executives recognize the pattern immediately: a mandate emerges that demands coordination across multiple functions, and while the objective is important, the deadline real and everyone agrees the work must get done, it stalls.
