Introduction

Of course, you know what an elephant is. Big, gray beast, long trunk, and large ears. They like peanuts, have a reputation for not forgetting anything and being afraid of mice.

To be clear, no one wants those real-life pachyderms to go unfed.

There’s another kind of elephant that you’re probably aware of too. It looks like avoidance of addressing a known conflict that creates a harmful barrier to success. It’s big. It’s there. It might be hanging out in the conference room under someone’s chair, or even sprawled across the table. Everyone is aware of this elephant in the room, and no one’s talking about it.

In fact, no one on your team is talking much at all. At least not about anything that matters. Your team is discouraged, disconnected, and disenchanted. No one challenges ideas to get to better solutions or discusses the difficulties they encounter on a project. They all say everything is fine…until it isn’t, and you’re stuck trying to solve problems that could have been avoided with better communication. Your most productive team lead gave notice last week. You’re finding it hard to drag yourself into work in the morning. Something is getting in the way of your team’s success, and it feels like everyone is spinning and getting nowhere. You’d fix it if you could, but you have no idea how to begin. I get it. I’ve been there too. Now, I coach executives and teams through these issues, and I’m here to help you too.

A Reformed Avoider

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been passionate about solving problems and disrupting the status quo. I was especially fearless when it came to rules or expectations from authority that felt limiting. I was only ten years old when I was told that girls couldn’t serve in the church as altar boys. I kept asking, “Why not?” and volunteering, never getting a chance or a reasonable explanation, until one fateful day when a fellow altar boy didn’t show up. I was there with my robes on, ready to step in with a smile. Still one of my (and my parents’) proudest moments growing up.

While I had many moments of speaking up and pushing against the boundaries of authority, that same courage didn’t extend to my personal relationships. It’s much easier to have courage when you have nothing to lose, but when it came to my most precious connections, I was a masterful avoider and smoother-over.*

*Smoother-over, by the way, is a very technical term for someone who works hard to remove the discomfort in a situation by any means possible while not solving the issue at hand.

The impact of my avoidance was put on full display when I started dating Nick, the man who eventually became my husband. Before my relationship with Nick began, my avoidant tactics served to protect me and didn’t impact others (or so I thought), but after meeting Nick, I learned that you can’t hide in relationships. If you try to hide, you won’t just avoid the conflict; you’ll avoid trust and connection as well.

Nick and I had a consistent point of disagreement around how we spent time in our social lives. I resisted talking about it by employing my masterful avoidance skills. I would use classic moves like changing the subject (“What did