If your team feels “stuck,” the problem might involve issues that are difficult to discuss — conflict between two team members, for example, or an underperforming employee. To address these issues head-on, leaders must learn the art of framing a conversation so people can organize their thoughts, feelings, and experiences to come to a solution. This article offers a five-step process around framing, and two examples of how it can help bring “undiscussables” into the light.
No one mentions the hostility and blatant conflict between two team members. A colleague softens the data to avoid delaying the launch date of a project. At the Monday team meeting, the leader doesn’t mention the fact that two team members were fired the week before.
These situations occur at many organizations, and they are hard to address because they are uncomfortable to raise and discuss. Since organizational theorist Chris Argyris’ coined the term “undiscussable” in 1980, numerous scholars have tackled the problem of issues that are too threatening, too uncomfortable, or too hidden to bring to the surface. These are the topics that can feel awkward or expose major issues, such as pay inequity, a team members’ underperformance, or competition between departments that threaten to derail a project.
As executive coaches and organizational leadership consultants, we tackle undiscussables with our clients daily. But it’s usually not the undiscussable itself that’s presented. Rather, our clients complain about its most common symptom: the feeling that things are “stuck.”
“Stuckness” leads, at the very least, to ineffective meetings that amount to no more than status updates and, at the very worst, to inaccurate decisions or failed projects. And stuckness comes with a steep price tag, costing organizations millions of dollars per year. When uncomfortable issues can’t be addressed, organizations end up tolerating toxic employees and underperformers. Recurring discussions or background tensions lead to squandered energy and interpersonal fatigue. And the lack of progress that results from undiscussables saps morale and motivation.
Nevertheless, organizations abound with — and indulge — undiscussables. We see two reasons for this. One, as Argyris points out, they serve a purpose: to help people avoid short-term conflicts, threats, and embarrassment. Second, as we contend, they exist because of a skill gap. And that missing skill is the skill of framing.
What Is Framing — and Why Don’t More Leaders Use It?
Framing means defining the issue and setting the container for the conversation. A frame helps people organize their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and ultimately, allows them to take action on the issue. We see framing as the Swiss army knife of leadership — it’s one of the most useful skills a leader can use, one that solves a variety of problems, including undiscussables.
If framing is such a valuable tool, why do so few leaders know of, or use, it? We see three reasons:
We don’t teach the skill of framing to leaders.
Framing is a communication skill used throughout history to persuade audiences, initiate change, rally people in moments of crisis, and set a compelling vision. Yet, while we expect leaders to be able to do this, we don’t teach them how to do it. The average executive we work with, especially those who lead a technical function such as finance, operations, IT, or even HR, have never even heard of framing.
We can’t frame what we can’t acknowledge.
Undiscussables are precisely what we’ve been conditioned to avoid. From an early age we’re taught that if we don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it. We’re trained to protect ourselves and others from social discomfort. Framing an undiscussable runs counter to this training.
Framing is thought to slow things down.
Leaders are incentivized to achieve results. Framing the elephant in the room is seen as tangential, time intensive, and a delay of progress. Yet, in fact, the biggest obstacle to progress are precisely the unspoken differences, obstructive behaviors and energy-draining moods that remain unaddressed.
