Listen In -> Lies and Myths We Believe About Work #5: Making Waves is Making Trouble

Fear is a tricky foe.

Fear often fools us into keeping to ourselves valuable information that might help the team as a whole because it is difficult information for some.

In order to protect ourselves from the fall-out that any difficult information would ignite, we withhold the information altogether. The result is that the team does not benefit from our contribution, insight, and/or perspective.

Pointing out what is not working well is more commonly known as “making waves.” It gets this derogatory name in order to intimidate us away from getting involved.

Insecure leaders views all forms of feedback (however constructive) as negative judgment on their competence. If they can create an even more negative perception of those who offer alternatives (make waves) then many of us will withhold our feedback. We don’t want to be perceived negatively, after all!

In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss this twisted and counter-productive logic, better known as, “making waves.”

Listen in.

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