A short YouTube segment in which Chad Silverstein reflects on how poor or delayed communication creates unnecessary conflict in organizations. He argues leaders must communicate clearly, create psychological safety for open dialogue, challenge assumptions, and establish routines (e.g., ending meetings with three curious questions) to surface concerns and reduce misunderstandings.
Chapters
It is crazy when you think about it. You have conflict that's born out of silence. You have a situation that happens. You've got someone who says something, sends a message, makes a phone call. You hear something from someone and then you kind of sit on it, you reflect, you get pissed off, and you start to kind of go dark with it in your head. You assume things, and a lot of times they're not true. And I think the lack of communication and the lack of being able to just deal with something as soon as it comes up early and often, you know, it creates conflict when you don't need to have conflict. So I think there's a reason why people run from it and hide from it, because they. They don't. It doesn't feel good when you have conflict with people. But the worst part is when you have conflict and there's not really conflict, either because something was sent the wrong way or misunderstood or however you interpreted it. So I think clearing it up and having trust to be able to call people out and tell you the truth when you need to hear it based on whatever it is that's being said or sent, really important. And I think you got, again, assume less. It's a great message. It's a thread that's been kind of throughout this entire journey. We. We tend to think we know and we don't. And it's a leader's job, and it's their responsibility to make sure that they communicate. Communicate clear, concise, and direct and give people an open forum and a safe place to be able to communicate and. And challenge back. One of the disciplines we built at my company was we would end our meetings with three curious questions and they could ask whatever they want. And sometimes we sat and we waited until people asked. We know the questions are there, we just know people are too scared to ask them. So we build this discipline over time, then more people felt comfortable doing it, so you got to work at it.
