🚩 Why Candor Is Your Secret Weapon

I once took over a team everyone praised as top talent.

Smart people. Great resumes. Smooth meetings.

But underneath?

Low trust. Slow decisions.

Silent disagreements that turned into costly rework.

Everyone nodded in meetings, then vented in the hallway.

Issues festered because no one wanted to ruffle feathers.

On paper, we looked aligned.

In practice, we wasted time fixing preventable mistakes.

That’s when I decided to run things differently.

No more sugarcoating. No more hallway whispers.

Straight talk.

Open fights in the room, so we didn’t fight behind each other’s backs later.

Here’s how we did it.

1/ Demand Real Debate, Not Polite Nods

Politeness kills teams faster than chaos.

We made it normal to challenge each other directly, respectfully, fast.

Meetings stopped being echo chambers.

People argued ideas, not egos.

Better ideas survived. Bad ones died early.

Try this:

Next meeting, pick someone to play devil’s advocate.

Rotate it. Make it safe to question the consensus.

Reward the person who spots the flaw before the customer does.

2/ Be Relentlessly Clear, No Mixed Signals

I stopped hoping people got the hint.

We spelled out exactly what good looked like.

If someone missed the mark, they heard it immediately.

No waiting for annual reviews.

One direct correction saved hours of guesswork later.

Try this:

When giving feedback, cut the fluff.

Say what worked. Say what didn’t.

Agree on how to fix it, right there in the moment.

3/ Make Candor a Habit, Not a Surprise

We didn’t just preach honesty, we baked it into our routines.

Weekly stand-ups started with

What’s working? What’s not? Who needs help?

If something went wrong, we fixed the system, not the person.

No blame games, just open eyes and fast pivots.

Try this:

At your next team check-in, ask

What are we pretending is fine that really isn’t?

Listen. Act. Repeat every week.

Here’s the bottom line

A talented team without candor moves like a sports car with the brakes on.

With candor, they move fast, trust each other, and don’t waste time cleaning up polite lies.

Ask yourself:

Where is your team too polite?

What truth are you avoiding because it’s uncomfortable?

What problem could one honest conversation solve this week?

This week, have the talk you’ve been ducking.

Cut the polite silence.

Say what needs to be said, clearly, kindly, and directly.

I want to hear how it changes your team.

Join my upcoming lightning sessions:

Lightning Lessons are short, free, live workshops with tactical tips & tools delivered via Zoom.

Handling project conflict with the CLEAR Framework
June 26th
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July 16th
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Go Deeper With My Live Course

Maven just named my AI-Enhanced Project Management and Leadership Accelerator one of their Top 100 courses!

Cohort 4 is in session (and sold out).
Cohort 5 is now accepting enrollments.

This is where AI meets real-world project leadership.
And this course shows you how to do both.

The next cohort starts on September 15th.

Learn more here.

Until next time,

Justin

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