It’s week one of my new adventure as a performance consultant for a university soccer team. We are still in the honeymoon phase, and folks are still enthusiastic and receptive to all the changes we are implementing. 

One key in the early stages of a culture change is clear and transparent communication from the leadership. It is critical to raise the expectations right from the start when trying to build a high-performance culture. 

During this critical outset of change, I’m reminded that there are a few key challenges to communicating that require special attention.

One of the issues I’m running into is the reluctance of folks to deliver the tough and critical feedback. Sometimes, as leaders, we want to be warm and fuzzy and leave all doors open for people, as opposed to, delivering the hard truth. This approach does not engender trust across our culture. In our attempt to be kind and avoid hurting people's feelings, we have, in fact, been unkind. Withholding authentic, genuine feedback may keep an individual stuck pursuing an unachievable goal rather than motivate them to pursue a different path.

IT'S UNKIND TO BE DISINGENUOUS. KINDNESS IS SOMETIMES SHARING A HARD MESSAGE CLEARLY.

At the same time, other team members will notice your approach and conclude that you are never going to make the tough, but critical, moves and wonder whether you are giving them a line, as well. While you have sidestepped an uncomfortable conversation and possibly maintained a friendship, you have let the team down; and, they know it. Folks will expect you to continue in this way and lose hope for change which, in turn, fuels apathy.

As I deliver feedback, I always want to remind my team members that receiving critical feedback is a good thing and means your leader sees you as capable of raising your performance to even higher standards. I have always been of the mindset that the absence of tough, demanding feedback means that the leader/coach has abandoned hope that this team member has the capacity to learn and to improve their performance. We need to position ourselves to be open and receptive to taking a nugget or two from somebody who is invested in our success. It doesn’t mean you have to accept everything, but we have to be open.

I was reminded this past week that there is always a cultural component to communication. When I was delivering some very critical feedback to a group of players last week, I noticed one player with a defensive posture. His body language spoke loudly: ‘Don’t talk to me. I’m not interested in hearing what you have to say.’ I must admit, I could I feel myself getting frustrated and worked up. I had to take a moment to take a deep breath and collect myself.  

This was a teachable moment. As leaders we have the responsibility to embrace the teachable moments with our team. This is how we build a high-performance culture. 

I took him aside, and laid it out to him: “When you have crossed arms and are not looking at me in the eye, I interpret that as you not caring. When your expression is a scowl, I think you are uninterested and don't want to hear what I have to say. Is that your intention?” Imagine my surprise when he assured me the opposite was true. This student athlete was genuinely interested and cared about what I had to say. 

When working in diverse teams, there are two things we should reflect on:

1) We need to recognize that feedback could be interpreted differently based on culture; and,

2) It’s our responsibility to verify and validate the meta messages that we are receiving to be sure we are interpreting them correctly before we react.

Otherwise, we could go down the wrong path and create irreparable harm. Take the time to check your assumptions and biases when communicating.

When embarking on change, communicate frequently—both to the group at large, and with individuals.

I checked in often this past week. I’m only a week into the job, and I’ve got to engender trust. Not only did I hold an all-hands meeting and send out group messages, I also sent a quick text message here, had a small chat there, and gave a statement of affirmation to affirm the behaviours that I want to reinforce. I saved lots of time in my calendar for open-door office availability, as well, so that individuals who might not be comfortably raising their hand in the group settings knew they could find me to bring forward a question, concern or suggestion.

Most importantly, be careful to guard against thinking that a building a high performance culture is only aligned with delivering critical feedback. Take care to notice and remark on, both privately and publicly, the strengths and efforts of your team members.

People need to know they matter and belong in order to be open and receptive to the change that we are leading.