Kill The Elephants In The Room Before They Kill You.

Earlier this year I wrote about the need to tackle organizational debt, which I described as “the accumulation of changes that leaders…

Earlier this year I wrote about the need to tackle organizational debt, which I described as “the accumulation of changes that leaders should have made but didn’t.” But why do leaders shy away from pushing for the most important changes? Why do people sitting around a table keep their doubts to themselves? Much of the hesitation boils down to conflict avoidance and always trying to keep everyone happy.

A common mistake I observe in leaders of teams big and small is to aspire for peace as a default. You should be challenging peace as a default. Create an environment where people can withstand a fight and engage in friction as it arises. Rather than passively surf the whims of peoples’ hesitations to take action, bring the conflict to the surface with questions like:

• “Let’s debate this out — what is the worst thing that will happen if we launch a bit early? Is scrambling a little bit after launch really worse than punting the project for additional months?”

• “Who exactly claims we’re not re…