My wife recently experienced vertigo. This condition is characterized by intense dizziness that gives an inaccurate perception of motion to the brain—it can make you feel like the room is spinning, or like you are spinning. A mild case makes balance difficult, with motion of any kind exacerbating the problem. A more aggressive case makes movement difficult or even impossible. It’s scary stuff. Fortunately, my wife recovered.
After researching vertigo and its impact on people, I believe it can occur on a team or in an organization as well.
Inside your head and mine are, among many items, a left and a right inner ear. One of their functions is to send information to the brain about motion, direction, and other factors that allow us to maintain balance while moving. Ever wonder why your foot and ankle make micro-movements when you stand, walk, run, jump, or make a movement of any sort? Thank those inner ears for sending a steady stream of data to your brain that results in corrective counter-measures to keep you on your feet.
And you wanted to give all the credit to those workout shoes you overpaid for, right?
Vertigo has a few possible root causes. It can occur when one inner ear tells the brain that a certain movement took place and the other inner ear says something different happened. The brain, erroneously, believes adjustments need to be made. Why would an inner ear tell a lie?
Or, vertigo can happen when motion takes place and one inner ear reports the correct information but the other inner ear sends no signals at all. The brain will believe the data coming to it, which is only half correct. Why would an inner ear give the silent treatment?
How does the brain distinguish between these two trusted sources? And how could it possibly know what to do if an inner ear won’t speak up? Or tell the truth?
Obviously, the above descriptions are not medical explanations. But they describe well conditions that teams and organizations often experience.
Imagine for a moment that a team is like a body, with the brain functioning like the team’s leader. The inner ears are people on the team who keep the leader informed. The brain is only as good as the data it receives. The same holds true for a leader.
The intricate communication system designed to keep us balanced and maintain an accurate perspective is the same system that causes incapacitation when it receives faulty information. No, the room is not spinning. No, you aren’t falling down. Yes, you can keep going forward. Better stop and regroup. Bad information leads to bad decisions, especially when there’s no way to determine what’s right or real. Eventually, the only choice to make is either slow down or completely shut down. This is equally true for people and for teams.
Is your group experiencing any of the symptoms of group vertigo?
- Two different perspectives exist—and are expressed—regarding the current reality.
- One person shares information about a problem or issue that involves another person, but the second person isn’t saying a word. Is there a problem, or not?
- With every initiative, one area consistently reports inflated information to look good (attendance comes to mind as an example), which makes it difficult to evaluate success.
- You sense instability, or organizational wobble, but find it hard to reliably make an adjustment because you don’t know what information source to trust as accurate.
- Someone on the team stretches the truth, fabricates out of self-interest, or flat-out lies to you.
- Someone in a position of trust withholds information from you.
(Note: Before forming a default opinion that people should be fired whenever anything on this list happens, first consider why you feel that way. The leadership gurus who staunchly advocate low tolerance and quick dismissals in their conference talks typically have people who handle any firing in their own organization for them. Sorry, had to be said.)
Exaggerated situations? Not really. In fact, they’re all compressed descriptors of situations I’ve faced in leadership. Similar to an inner ear issue, it doesn’t take an extreme amount of bad, wrong, or imbalanced information—for whatever the reasons—to create vertigo. Allow it to continue, and a crash becomes inevitable. However, just terminating people isn’t always the answer.
Instead, the challenge for a leader is to ensure that healthy, consistent, accurate, share-the-full-story communication takes place. Encourage it. Model it. Insist on it. Name it. Talk about it. Especially with and for and around the people who you trust to share important information.
Treatments exist for vertigo. One variety calls for a series of head twists and turns to correct the fluid position within the inner ear. So twist and turn the team. Three key maneuvers include:
1. Have a variety of people and perspectives share information about initiativies—that all hear. Then encourage questions. It’s good to hear different perspectives. Listen to just one, and the others go quiet.
2. When something doesn’t seem right, ask multiple people the same questions and then share the answers you gather with the team. This isn’t an exercise in coming to a group consensus, rather it is about letting everyone know that it good and right and healthy to challenge information. Solid, accurate information withstands scrutiny.
3. Challenge people to go beyond simply sharing information; ask them to also share a solution or recommendation. After all, it’s a low leadership skill to identify problems; it’s a high leadership skill to articulate viable solutions. Ask for both. A person will, ironically, increase the quality of comments when they must also offer suggestions—that will carry their name as the originator.
4. If a team member goes quiet, ask why. If a team member withholds information, ask why. Communication flow is the life line for any team.
On any team or organization involved in worthwhile work, reasons abound for headaches and dizziness. How well the team shares information need not be one of them.
David Staal, senior editor for Building Church Leaders and a mentor to a second grader, serves as the president of Kids Hope USA, a national non-profit organization that partners local churches with elementary schools to provide mentors for at-risk students. He also served ten years in leadership for a local church. David is the author of Lessons Kids Need to Learn (Zondervan, 2012) and Words Kids Need to Hear (Zondervan, 2008). He lives in Grand Haven, MI, with his wife Becky. His son Scott and daughter Erin attend Valparaiso University.
