You say your door is always open. You ask "any concerns?" at the end of every meeting. And still, the bad news reaches you late — from the very people who smiled and said "all good."

This episode is about why. Meet Priya, a project lead in Singapore who warned her London manager about a doomed deadline three weeks early — and watched him miss it completely, because her warning didn't sound like a warning to him. Neither of them did anything wrong. The project failed anyway.

We unpack the two forces behind almost every "why did nobody tell me?" moment: the emperor problem (the higher you sit, the less you hear) and power distance (why correcting the boss costs some of your people far more than others — a price they feel through their own cultural norms, whether or not it's real on your team). Then, four simple moves you can start this week to make honest feedback cheap enough for everyone on your team to afford — not just the loud ones.

An open door removes a barrier. It doesn't remove the risk. Here's what to build instead.

Work with Brendan: If this is a live issue for your team right now, it's exactly the kind of thing I work through one-to-one with leaders — advisory, coaching and workshops. More at https://brendanthomasquinn.com

Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.

Music by Denis Pavlov / DPmusic via Pixabay.

Sources: Hastings & Meyer, No Rules Rules (2020) · Hofstede et al., Cultures and Organisations (2010) · Meyer, The Culture Map (2014)

Cultural Friction is hosted by Brendan Thomas Quinn who works with leaders and teams navigating cultural friction within teams that work together or are dispersed around the world — as an advisor, coach, and workshop facilitator, and as Adjunct Lecturer on an International Business Masters programme teaching Cross-Cultural Communication, Cultural Friction brings that same real-world, research-backed approach to your ears in 20 minutes.

Enjoying the show? A quick rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify genuinely helps other leaders find it.

And, if you have comments or would like to suggest future topics to be discussed, let us know, we'd love to hear from you.