I have been doing a lot of work in the area of helping people connect. I’ve become fascinated with how deep conversations can run if you let them.

I was doing some work with a team who told me they felt like they were going in circles. There wasn’t anything unusual about the team. The company they worked for is successful.

However, the team felt they were on a treadmill and were unable to escape some problems. No matter what they tried, they kept coming back to the same problems.

Go deeper

The problem is this team needed to deepen their conversations. They were spending a lot of time talking about the symptoms rather than the problems.

When you see a problem repeatedly, it is a sign you are looking at symptoms and perceived problems.

I once worked with a leadership team who were struggling to help their teams succeed. They found the problem once they looked beyond the symptoms. This leadership team was competing with each other on individual goals.

They were not spending enough time collaborating to achieve overall goals. They were afraid to look like failures in front of each other.

When they found this truth, they started to operate as a team by increasing personal safety.

Dig deeper. Look beyond the symptoms. Use vulnerability to change the conversation.

You’ve got this.