Silence--why? Part Four: Teflon

So, your team is desperately trying to overcome a customer issue and you really need all hands on deck, but you don't hear back from two of your team members. The rest of the group functions well, but the people missing in action could really help. Yet all you hear is silence. That could mean:

1. They don't care
2. They feel they're too busy to respond
3. They are afraid to do anything at all

This silence is often used for another purpose: to allow that person to be avoid the responsibility for the failure, but to be able to jump in and share the glory of the success, if either of those situations happen.

The invisible team members in that case, ares Teflon, nothing sticks to them. And quite often a busy team will not address that with Mr. Teflon because they are too busy doing his job to do that.

Solution: Jump in. Be transparent. Not Teflon.

Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond
www.labov.com