How To Teach Teams to Identify The “Elephant in the Room”

The “elephant in the room” is a familiar problem for team members. Unless it’s named and addressed, the team will not perform well because cracks in its unity will appear. Then, the results will dive.

If you’ve not heard this term before – or its close cousin, “the unnamed elephant” – it’s a fundamental problem, subject, or question that’s so big you can’t ignore it … and yet no one wants to mention or discuss it because it’s too risky. Examples would include:

• Loss of faith in a teammate’s competence or trustworthiness.
• The team’s unspoken feeling that it’s failing or its plan won’t succeed.
• A scandal affecting one, two, or more teammates.
• The leader’s loss of credibility.

The fourth example is tough to address – and probably won’t be – unless all members stand shoulder-to-shoulder in raising the issue.

How It Shows

Whatever the specific problem, the elephant in the room shows above all in the atmosphere.

You’ll notice it in the room’s degree of trust, intimacy, and unity and tension in the air. It’ll also show how much team members feel they can speak up and say what they’re thinking and feeling. Or it’ll show in awkward silences, anger, avoidance of subjects, body language, or perhaps the seating arrangements. Or people habitually turning up late for meetings or conversational patterns getting “stuck” repeatedly.

Team Process Skills

Although this is subtle stuff, anyone who’s worked in teams knows the atmosphere hugely influences their success, which explains why what I call “team process skills” are so important to leaders. So, in my view, team leaders would be wise to learn and practice four skills:

1. Noting the “content” (what people are saying and doing) while paying attention to the “process” (how it’s happening atmospherically and behaviourally. In other words, noticing and sensing what colleagues say and leave unsaid, people’s comfort with their roles, their sensitivity (or lack thereof) to teammates, the degree of trust and honesty in the room, and what members may be feeling.
2. Staying curious and considering what’s going on below the surface.
3. Asking questions to help the team examine how well it’s working without singling out or scapegoating anyone, especially when the team is going around in circles.
4. Describing what they are seeing without judging.

It helps if leaders are self-aware and have a healthy, robust self-image. Why? It takes courage to comment on and question the team’s process. That’s why one-to-one coaching for team leaders is a good idea. But it also helps if you agree with your team’s ethos and standards and recognize the value of “time-outs” to ask how things are going.

Leaders must usually make the first move in the team process, but their teammates also need to practice the four skills I just listed. You could try certain exercises as a team to build your comfort and skill in surfacing and addressing previously taboo topics. And that’s where training comes in.

Practical Exercises

Here, I’ll suggest three ideas for surfacing and addressing “elephants in the room” to help the team build its process skills. They are exercises I learned when training as a team coach.

• The “Dead Dog” exercise: Each team member writes out one question or one issue they have with the team that, until now, couldn’t be expressed. They fold the paper and put it in a box. Everyone takes a folded paper randomly and reads it as if it were their own. Having done that, the trainer or facilitator asks everyone:
• What does that evoke for you?
• Is it a real issue in the team?
• What options do you have for dealing with it?
• What could you do to enable more helpful behaviors?
• So, what will you do?”

Repeat the process with the other pieces of paper. Afterward, review the conclusions and agree on any next steps.

• The Unofficial Induction exercise: Split the team into small groups. Ask each small group to spell out everything a person needs to know to thrive in this team, the stuff no one tells you officially. Then ask them to jointly prepare and deliver this induction to the rest of the team as if they were new members. See what that surfaces and discuss in the large group using the questions I listed under the Dead Dog exercise.
• The Hero, Villain, Fool Stories exercise: This only works in what I call indefinite-lifespan teams (so not project teams with a short shelf life.) Split the team into small groups. Ask each small group to go away and return prepared to tell the other groups the stories, often about past members, handed down over time. “Hero” stories tell you how to succeed in this team. “Villain” stories tell you what to avoid. “Fool” stories tell you how people have tripped over the hidden rules or norms. Now discuss what emerges, see what strikes a chord, and decide if there’s anything you want to change or let go of or improve. NOTE: With this technique, there must be no names or specific examples.

Five Best Practice Tips

1. Handle the exercises with care because, being a team process challenge, you may be treading on psychological landmines.
2. Stress beforehand the importance of psychological safety, meaning everyone needs to feel they can say what they are thinking or feeling without fearing they’ll be judged, criticised, ostracised or punished during the session … or afterwards.
3. Before you start, encourage everyone to say what they need from their teammates to feel psychologically safe in that session.
4. Point out that you can be confident none of the issues being raised belong just to one or two team members, that everyone in the room is responsible in some way, therefore there can be no blaming or scapegoating.
5. If in any doubt, bring in a psychologically trained facilitator to guide you through each technique.