One Question: What have we made difficult for people to tell us?

That's a very different question from asking, “What aren't our employees telling us?”

In this One Question episode, Mary Ricketts, President & CEO of Turning Point Training & Development, challenges CEOs and executive leadership teams to turn the question back on themselves.

Employees and leaders don't stop sharing difficult information for no reason. Over time, they learn what happens when they challenge a decision, raise a concern, question a strategy, admit something isn't working, or tell leadership something they don't want to hear.

And sometimes the result is an organization where the executive team believes everything is fine—while everyone underneath them knows it isn't.

Mary explores the difference between having an open-door policy and creating a leadership culture where people actually believe it's safe and worthwhile to walk through that door.

Then she leaves your executive team with two questions:

What have we made difficult for people to tell us?

And:

What do we do when someone tells us something we don't want to hear?

Take those questions to your next executive leadership meeting.

Then pay attention to the silence.

One Question is a short executive leadership series from Mary Ricketts and Turning Point Training & Development designed to put the questions leaders don't always ask—but should—directly on the executive table.

Learn more about Turning Point's leadership diagnostics, executive team development and executive coaching at tptrainingcenter.com.

If everyone on your executive team agrees with the CEO all the time, that may not be alignment. It may be a warning sign.

In this Executive Brief, Mary Ricketts, President & CEO of Turning Point Training & Development, challenges CEOs and senior leaders to examine what really happens when someone disagrees at the executive table.

Strong executive teams aren't built around constant agreement. They're built around leaders who are willing to challenge assumptions, raise concerns, identify risks and tell the CEO what they may not want to hear—before a decision becomes an organizational problem.

In this brief, Mary explores:

• Why silence should never automatically be interpreted as agreement
• How CEOs can unintentionally train executives to stop challenging them
• The difference between healthy disagreement and disloyalty
• Why the “real meeting” sometimes happens after the executive meeting
• Three questions CEOs can use to invite stronger executive-level thinking

The question for your executive team isn't: “Do they agree with me?”

It's:

“Have I built an executive team that's willing to tell me when they don't?”

Because healthy executive teams don't protect CEOs from disagreement.

They protect organizations from unchallenged thinking.

Learn more about Turning Point Training & Development's leadership diagnostics, executive team development and executive coaching at tptrainingcenter.com.

Would your employees describe your leadership team the same way you would?

Don't answer too quickly.

There is often a gap between the leadership team executives believe they're running and the leadership employees actually experience. And that gap can show up in places leaders don't immediately recognize: slow decisions, unclear expectations, weak accountability, leadership silos, workarounds, poor execution and employees who have learned when it's safer to stay quiet.

In this episode of The Leadership Risks Nobody Talks About, Mary Ricketts, President & CEO of Turning Point Training & Development, challenges executives to look beyond intentions and ask a harder question:

What is it actually like to be led inside your organization?

Mary explores why dysfunction can quietly become part of an organization's workflow, why silence should never automatically be interpreted as agreement, and why organizations should diagnose leadership problems before prescribing another training program.

You'll also hear five areas every executive team should examine: clarity, alignment, accountability, leadership readiness and psychological safety.

From Mary's Bookshelf:
The Fearless Organization — Amy C. Edmondson
The Advantage — Patrick Lencioni
Multipliers — Liz Wiseman

If this episode leaves you wondering whether your leaders and employees would describe your leadership organization the same way, don't ignore the question.

Learn more about Turning Point Training & Development and our leadership diagnostic, executive team development and executive coaching work at tptrainingcenter.com.