I’ve stepped into teams before where you can feel it almost immediately.

The leader is capable. The team is talented. On the surface, everything looks fine. But as the conversation unfolds, something is off. People are careful. They choose their words. Certain things don’t get said. You can sense there’s more under the surface, but no one is bringing it into the room.

At some point, the leader will pull me aside and say, “I feel like my team isn’t telling me something. I just don’t know what to do.”

They’re usually right. Because you can feel it, even when no one is saying it.

This is one of the most common forms of fragmentation I see on leadership teams. Everything looks aligned, but underneath, something isn’t being said.

If You Can Feel It, It’s Real

Most leaders assume this is a communication issue. They think the team needs to be more open, speak up more, or take advantage of an open-door policy. But that’s rarely the issue.

When a team is holding something back, it’s because something in the environment is telling them not to say it. And as hard as this is to hear, that environment is shaped by the leader.

This is where the work begins.

This Isn’t About the Team

The easiest answer is to blame the team. We tell ourselves they’re not strong communicators or that they just need more courage. But that line of thinking keeps you stuck, because it puts the responsibility somewhere you can’t control.

The shift happens when a leader asks a different question: “If they’re not saying it, what is it about how I’m showing up that makes not sharing the safer choice?”

That question changes everything. It moves the focus from trying to fix the team to examining your own impact on the environment they’re operating in.

Create the Conditions for Truth

Your job as a leader is not to pull the truth out of people. Your job is to create the kind of environment where truth can actually show up.

That requires a different posture. Not as the person with the answers or the one people report up to, but as someone who is there to serve the team and create the conditions for them to do their best work. People don’t hold back randomly. They hold back when it doesn’t feel safe, when it doesn’t feel useful, or when it doesn’t feel like it will be received well.

If you want truth, you have to pay attention to those conditions.

Make It Visible

If something feels off, don’t ignore it. Everyone already knows.

Say it out loud. Something as simple as, “Something doesn’t feel right. I’d like to understand what I might be missing and what I can do better as a leader,” can shift the tone of a conversation. It lowers the pressure in the room and signals that you’re willing to go first.

And going first matters more than anything in this situation.

Focus on Behavior

This is where most leaders go too broad. They try to “be more open” or “improve communication,” but those ideas are too vague to act on.

The real work is behavioral. A behavior is something someone could see or hear if they were in the room with you. It might be interrupting when someone disagrees, getting defensive too quickly, moving on before something is fully worked through, or unintentionally rewarding agreement over honesty.

These are the signals your team is reading, whether you realize it or not.

Choose One or Two Things to Change

Trying to fix everything at once doesn’t work. It’s far more effective to choose one or two behaviors that, if you changed them, would make it easier for people to speak up.

Then tell people what you’re working on. Let them know you’re trying to get better and that you need their help. That step is important, because it turns this from a private intention into a shared effort. You’re not just asking for truth in theory. You’re inviting it in a specific, observable way.

Get Real Feedback

If your team isn’t telling you something, you can’t rely on passive feedback. You have to go get it.

That might mean asking directly, “What’s one thing I could do differently that would help you or the team be more effective?” It might mean having someone else gather feedback anonymously, or using a structured assessment if that fits your environment (in my experience, making these behaviorally based is critical).

Don’t expect an answer right away. In fact, you may not get one at all the first time you ask. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to say. It means people are watching. They’re deciding whether it’s actually safe to be honest, and whether anything will change if they are.

That’s why consistency matters.

And the most important part is how you respond. When you do get feedback, don’t explain or justify. Don’t fix it in the moment. Just write it down and say thank you. That’s how you start to change the environment.

Invite Truth and Stay With It

An open-door policy doesn’t work for this. People don’t walk through open doors with hard truths. You have to initiate and invite it, regularly and intentionally.

Ask questions like, “What are we not saying that we need to?” or “What might I be missing?” and then pay close attention to how you respond when someone takes the risk to answer. That moment will determine whether it happens again.

And when something real does surface, don’t rush past it. Most teams get close to the real issue and then move on too quickly. That’s where alignment is either built or lost. Staying in the conversation, especially when it’s uncomfortable, is what allows the team to actually work through what matters.

Go First

Over time, you can create a team where people give each other this kind of feedback. But it won’t start there.

It starts with you. When you model openness, ownership, and a willingness to change, you make it possible for others to do the same.

The Real Question

If your team isn’t telling you something, the question isn’t what they’re holding back. It’s what they’re experiencing from you that makes holding back the safer choice.

The moment that changes, the conversation changes. And when the conversation changes, teams start to move forward again.

Invitation

I see this pattern a lot when I step into leadership teams.

If you’ve felt it in your team, I’d be curious: where do you think people might be holding something back right now? And what do you think they’re reacting to?

Or where do conversations start, but don’t quite get finished? I’d be interested to hear what you’re seeing.

I’m in the middle of facilitating retreats this month, and I’m hearing a similar theme: “We’re under a lot of pressure. Things are changing. And we’re feeling it.”

This is when collaboration matters more than ever. The natural inclination is to retreat into my own work. But real collaboration, the kind I call Uncommon Collaboration, helps all of us handle reality better.

Here are seven practical ways you can lead collaboration in your team, especially under pressure:

1. Make the pressure visible

Don’t let everyone carry it privately. Ask:

• “What’s putting the most pressure on you right now?”
• “What’s taking more energy than it should?”

You’ll get better collaboration the moment people feel seen.

2. Clarify what matters most right now

Pressure creates noise. Collaboration improves when priorities are clear. Your team needs to know:

• What we own
• What matters most right now

“If we only get one thing right this week, this is it.”

3. Slow the conversation down

Pressure speeds people up. Create intentional space to slow down just enough to think together. Even a short pause without devices can change the quality of the conversation.

4. Make it safe to say what needs to be said

You don’t have time to circle back on decisions or chase the wrong problem. You need people to speak up.

That means not reacting when truth shows up, saying “thank you” to feedback, and staying curious when something doesn’t land. It also means inviting dissent early by asking, “What are we missing?” or “Who sees this differently?”

5. Ask for help out loud

Everyone carries too much under pressure, especially leaders. Everything changes when leaders model it: “Here’s where I’m stuck. I need your help.”

6. Stay in the conversation when it gets uncomfortable

Most teams exit conversations too early. That’s where collaboration breaks.

Lean into the uncomfortable instead of moving past it. Otherwise, it turns into side conversations and lost alignment.

7. Reinforce a belief in people and the path forward

Everyone has had a moment where they stopped believing in themselves after a mistake, setback, or tough season. One of the most powerful things you can do under pressure is remind people what they’re capable of and what they’ve already done.

Pressure doesn’t break collaboration, it reveals it.

The teams that move forward aren’t the ones without pressure. They’re the ones who choose how they show up inside it.

 

 

There are moments when a leader, colleague, or direct report says something that doesn’t come out quite right.

Examples:

• Someone speaks up in a meeting with an unpopular opinion.
• A leader finally says what needs to be said, and it comes out a little sideways.
• A colleague from another office seemingly steps on your toes.

What happens next is what matters.

Here’s what usually happens:

• Someone gets defensive
• Someone shuts down
• The team moves on quickly
• The real issue never gets worked through

There was a conversation that was close… and then it slipped away.

This is where many teams struggle. Not just with saying something real, but with what happens next after that.

The antidote? Grace.

Grace is the ability to stay in the conversation without punishing how it was said.

It says, “That didn’t come out perfectly,” or “That doesn’t seem quite right, but let’s stay with it.”

Here are some things we could say in the moment:

• “Say more about that”
• “I don’t think that came out how you meant it, can you try again?”
• “There’s something important in there, let’s not lose it”
• “Let’s stay with this for a minute”

The hardest part is letting go of our initial reaction, our instant judgment, and everything the past is telling us in that moment.

If teams don’t practice Grace, they stop staying in the conversation. And when that happens, the conversations that move things forward never get finished.

Uncommon Collaboration is not about having more conversations. It’s about finishing the ones that matter.

 

When teams feel “off,” we usually audit the strategy or work on communication. We look at the KPIs. We buy a new project management tool.

But usually, the problem starts much deeper. The team has become guarded. When a team is guarded, they stop passing what others need.

So most teams don’t need more meetings, tools, or alignment exercises right away. Those matter. But they don’t work if people aren’t consistently giving each other a few simple things they need.

Here are two of them:

1. Presence: actually being in someone else’s world, without your own agenda
2. Truth: saying and inviting what needs to be said, with care

This is harder right now. There is a lot of uncertainty, pressure, overwhelm, and change. If a team is going to feel like a cohesive group working through that together, it takes real intention, not just talking about it.

Without presence, people don’t feel seen or understood.
Without truth, teams don’t deal with the real issues or make the right decisions.

When both are there, the dynamic shifts. People feel seen and challenged, cared for and called up.

As a leader, it’s worth asking:

Where could I give more presence?
Where could I invite more truth?

Two simple ways to start:

1) The 5-Minute Curiosity Drop-In

Pick one person today and give them five intentional minutes.

No agenda, no fixing, no multitasking. Just step into their world.

You might ask:

• “What’s taking most of your energy right now?”
• “Where are things feeling heavy or stuck?”
• “What’s something you wish was going differently?”

Don’t solve it. Don’t redirect it. Don’t make it about you. Just listen.

That’s presence.

When everything is a Teams message or a 15-minute sync, leadership becomes a series of transactions. Transactions don’t build loyalty. Presence does.

2) A Truth Invitation

If you want more truth on your team, you have to invite it.

Try one of these questions, one-on-one:

• “What’s something I might be missing right now?”
• “Where do you see this differently than I do?”
• “If you were in my seat, what would you be paying attention to?”

Don’t expect an answer right away. Just ask consistently.

And when they answer, don’t defend or explain. Just say, “Thank you for telling me.”

That’s what makes it safe to tell the truth again.

Truth isn’t about being harsh, and it’s not about avoiding things to be nice. It’s about reducing “time to reality.”

A guarded team burns energy on self-protection. A team rooted in truth puts that energy back into collaboration and results.

Most teams don’t need a big reset. They need more moments like this.

Small, consistent passes of presence and truth.

That’s how guarded teams start to open up.
That’s how teams start to feel like they’re moving forward together again.

 

Your meetings might be too polite.

Most of us were taught to be polite, respectful, and not rock the boat. And it might be creating faux collaboration on your team.

Some of the most fragmented teams I’ve seen have the most polite meetings. On the surface, everything looks fine:

• Everyone is respectful.
• No one interrupts.
• People nod.
• Updates are shared.

The meeting ends.

And then the real conversation happens: in the hallway, in a side conversation, in a follow-up call.

I’m not suggesting we stop being respectful or start being rude. I’m saying politeness can hide fragmentation. Because fragmentation rarely shows up as conflict. It shows up as what people don’t say.

• They don’t say they disagree.
• They don’t say what they really think.
• They don’t say something isn’t working.

This fractures culture instead of creating true collaboration.

This doesn’t fix itself. It’s the leader’s responsibility to create an environment where disagreement, debate, and speaking up are expected.

Try one of these:

1. Before moving on, go around the table and ask each person for their view. No interruptions.
2. Ask everyone to write down their concerns, then have each person read theirs out loud.
3. Say, “We need a dissenting opinion,” and ask someone to challenge the thinking.

Most importantly, when someone speaks up, respond with gratitude and curiosity:

“Thank you.”

“Tell me more.”

If you don’t, you won’t hear it again.

This is how teams move from polite coordination to Uncommon Collaboration—where clarity increases, decisions improve, and momentum builds as a team.

Last week, I talked about the subtle ways that high-performing teams and organizations still feel fragmented.

Perhaps you can relate. Work is getting done. Everyone is busy. Meetings are polite. People nod and agree. And then we all go back to our own work.

Yet it doesn’t quite feel like we’re moving forward together toward the same goal.

Of course, sometimes this is more overt, with obvious friction, which is actually easier, because it’s staring you in the face. More often, fragmentation is subtle, beneath the surface.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about fragmentation and what causes it. Usually, it comes down to one thing: guardedness. People start protecting and withholding what others need from them.

They withhold:

• Information the rest of the team needs
• Presence when the team is under fire
• Responsibility when others are ready to step up
• Honest truth that would help the team succeed
• Grace when someone lets them down
• Encouragement and credit when others deserve it

It’s not a flaw. Guardedness is a very human response to the pressure and change that most teams and organizations are experiencing these days.

We’re just protecting our sense of competence, credibility, and control. We want to feel safe.

The problem, of course, is that this builds up invisible walls on the team. Often, we’re not intentionally building up walls, but it’s the natural result of people on the team becoming more guarded.

While I’ll share the broader solution next week, here’s a simple way to start loosening guardedness on a team.

Try this question at the beginning of your next leadership meeting:

What’s one thing that’s taking more energy than expected right now?

Go around the table.

One sentence each, without discussion or fixing.

The “no-fixing” rule is key. It lets people speak without feeling like they’ve just handed someone a problem to solve.

People might mention a project concern, pressure they’re under, a staffing challenge, or even something outside of work that is affecting their focus.

When people feel guarded, they protect what they have.

The goal isn’t to solve anything in that moment. It’s simply to create a small moment of openness.

Guarded teams protect what they’re carrying. Healthy teams begin to share it.

Fragmentation rarely disappears because of one big conversation.

It changes when teams experience small moments where people feel safe enough to lower the walls a little.

Later, I’ll share a simple framework I’ve been using with leadership teams to help them consistently pass what their colleagues need.

 

 

High-performing teams can still feel fragmented.

Goals are met. People are capable. The organization is functioning. Stuff is getting done. Everyone is busy. But it doesn’t quite feel like we’re moving forward together.

The signs are subtle:

• Decisions take longer
• Energy fades after meetings
• People stop contributing ideas
• Side conversations replace meaningful team conversations
• Little squabbles consume leadership energy
• Topics are revisited over and over

It’s not dysfunction. It’s fragmentation.

When pressure increases, people naturally narrow their focus to their own area. Over time, capable people start protecting instead of practicing collaboration.

Nothing is exploding. Momentum just quietly slows down and energy subtly fades.

If this resonates, here’s a simple way to test this with your team:

Ask this question in your next leadership meeting: “Where are we making progress… but not together?”

The conversation that follows will tell you a lot. That’s where Uncommon Collaboration begins.

 

 

Your team is smart, capable, and driven. So why does it still feel fragmented?

Most leadership teams I work with are capable. They care about results. They’re solving real problems. They’re working incredibly hard.

And yet it still feels fragmented.

It’s not a lack of talent or skill. It’s divided attention.

In many executive meetings, people are physically in the room and mentally somewhere else.

• Thinking about the latest fire
• Preparing their response instead of listening
• Carrying tension from an earlier conversation
• Clearing email between agenda items

No one intends to fragment a team, but divided attention quietly does it.

When presence is thin, alignment weakens. When alignment weakens, execution slows. Over time, even high-performing teams start to feel disconnected.

Not because they lack skill. Because they lack shared attention.

Try This This Week

At the start of your next leadership meeting, ask:

“Before we begin, what’s pulling your attention away from this room right now?”

One sentence each. No discussion. No fixing. Just people naming it.

It takes three minutes and changes the room:

• It clears mental clutter
• It normalizes the pressure everyone is feeling
• It increases focus
• It gives people permission to fully show up
• It signals that being fully present matters

Alignment begins with attention, not strategy.

Fragmentation isn’t always about priorities. Sometimes it’s about presence.

Passing your presence is where Uncommon Collaboration starts. And presence is always a choice.

 

 

Lately, I’ve been hearing the same story from leadership teams: Everyone gathers for the weekly meeting. Each person shares what they’re working on. Everyone nods. The meeting ends.

And very little actually moves forward.

If divisions or groups are struggling to collaborate, I’ll bet the weekly leadership meeting is part of the problem.

Collaboration doesn’t just happen between meetings. It has to happen inside them. If your main leadership forum isn’t driving clarity, decisions, and forward motion, it can become a reporting exercise instead of a momentum builder.

Last month, I sat in on a meeting after we adjusted the structure. It was a very different vibe. You could feel the difference. After speaking to and coaching teams across industries, here are six practical keys to create Uncommon Collaboration in your meetings.

If you want to change the vibe and effectiveness of your meetings, read on.

1. Report on objectives, not everyone’s activity.

Somewhere along the way, teams adopted a default structure: “Go around the table and tell us what you’re working on.”

It feels responsible. It sounds thorough. But it’s usually not very helpful.

It doesn’t matter what everyone is busy with. What matters is whether your most important objectives are moving forward.

Shift the conversation from activity to outcomes. Instead of reporting on tasks, review the handful of objectives that truly matter right now.

2. Rate each objective green, yellow, or red.

If your team owns monthly financial reports, onboarding targets, compliance deadlines, or customer response times, together rate how those objectives are actually going.

Green: On track.
Yellow: At risk.
Red: Off track.

Don’t overcomplicate it. Your team already knows the truth.

Rate them quickly. No long explanations or discussion yet. Just clarity.

3. Only spend time on yellow and red.

Your team’s time is valuable.

If something is green, you don’t need a 10-minute update. If something is red but already has a clear plan, you may not need discussion either.

What deserves the team’s time?

• When a decision must be made
• When tradeoffs are required
• When coordination across divisions is needed
• When something is stuck

Look at the yellow and red items and decide which ones actually require this group, today. Then discuss them one at a time.

4. Separate tactical from the strategic.

We’ve all seen this happen. Someone raises a big idea or a strategic question. Suddenly, 30 minutes disappear on a topic that isn’t connected to this team’s priorities.

Create a visible “Strategic Parking Lot.”

When a strategic or ad-hoc idea surfaces:

• Capture it.
• Don’t debate it.
• Move on.

At the end of the meeting, decide whether it actually needs a separate session and who should be in that room.

Most won’t.

This simple discipline protects your tactical meeting and keeps it focused.

5. Track decisions and action items in real time.

When a decision is made, write it down. When someone commits to action, write it down.

Not in someone’s notebook, but where everyone can see it.

This seems simple. Many teams don’t do it.

A week later, people remember the decision slightly differently. Or no one is quite sure who owned what. It’s a quick way to lose momentum.

6. Finish the meeting intentionally.

Don’t just stand up and leave. Before you close:

1. Review the decisions. Did we agree on what we just decided?
2. Review action items. Who owns what, and by when?
3. Clarify communication. Who needs to know what from this meeting?
4. Schedule: Which ad-hoc or strategic meetings do we need?
5. Ask: What worked well today?
6. Ask: What would make the next meeting better?

Five minutes of discipline here can save hours of confusion later.

 

Meetings are where alignment and momentum either strengthens or erodes.

Fixing meetings is one piece of fixing collaboration across divisions.

Many of these principles were shaped by studying under Patrick Lencioni, putting them into practice with teams, and refining them through my own experience.

I’ve put together a simple meeting template that walks teams through this structure. If it would be helpful, just email me and I’ll send it over.

 

I keep hearing versions of this:

“We meet, we agree, then retreat back to our own roles.” Or “We have brilliant people who don’t want to collaborate.” Or “I wish my people would stop getting so upset and escalating when it feels like someone is stepping on their toes.”

It’s not just frustration. It’s leaders carrying more tension personally, because they’re the ones expected to hold it all together when collaboration slips.

While better methods, clearer strategy, and improved communication matter, what I see most often isn’t a lack of skill or structure. It’s something human underneath it all.

It begins to shift when we decide to see, believe, and behave differently toward each other.

The Starting Point is Grace

And it starts with grace, because we’ve all been hurt, disappointed, or let down in the past.

Grace breaks the cycle of withholding. It interrupts the reflex to protect or attack instead of engaging.

By grace, I don’t mean being soft or graceful. I’m talking about something much harder.

Grace isn’t pretending the past didn’t happen.

It isn’t minimizing pain or excusing behavior.

Grace is keeping the past from running the future.

And sometimes that means releasing the score even when we are justified in reacting.

The Grace Toll

When we withhold grace from others, it costs something. I call it the Grace Toll:

• Mistakes never quite die.
• People get labeled.
• We keep score.
• Grudges get dragged into every meeting.
• Old stories show up in new conversations.

Several years ago, I was working with a leadership team who felt disjointed, guarded, and disconnected. I couldn’t figure out why, at first. Then, in the middle of a meeting, a past wrong came rushing back like it had just happened that morning. The lid blew off.

That team didn’t have a communication problem. Something from the past was still shaping how they showed up. And until they extended grace to each other, nothing would change.

Once grace entered the room, conversations moved forward instead of circling the past.

The Choice

This isn’t about ignoring accountability. It’s about removing the invisible friction that keeps teams from moving forward.

Where might grace be needed right now, so that something better can move forward?

What would happen if everyone on your team, your organization, decided to give grace to each other:

• When mistakes are made
• When that unclear email comes in
• When something doesn’t feel right

When grace becomes a practiced behavior, not a personality trait, teams stop carrying the past into every decision. That’s where Uncommon Collaboration™ begins. And where clarity, trust, and momentum can finally take hold.