Hey Friend,

Here's a real reflection from a real leader I coached recently. We were talking about expectations and trust on their team, and they shared something like:

I had three major questions for this leader that we talked through over the course of an hour:

1. What makes you trust people? How do you objectively know if a person is trustworthy or has earned your trust?
2. To what extent have you defined what a "rotting fish" is in your context? How sure are you that people know what it takes to be (and continue to be) awesome?
3. What is causing the fish to stink?

To all three questions, the initial answer was, "I don't know" or "hmm, I need to think about that."

Which is what I hear alllllllll the time from leaders.

We don't know what trust entails, so we don't know why it breaks or what to do when it does.

We haven't made expectations explicit, so people don't know how to stay "on top."

And we rarely stop to consider that we ourselves and the environment we have created are usually complicit in the fish beginning to stink.

I am very familiar with this pattern. Previous versions of me would smell something off, immediately start doubting my own instincts, go looking for evidence that everything was fine, and then do nothing until the stink had seeped into the carpet and there was no good option left. I'd wait so long to address something that by the time I did, the damage was already done, and the conversation was ten times harder than it needed to be.

Perhaps this sounds familar?

Over the course of my career and life, I've learned that the rotting fish problem is almost never about the fish, and almost always about three things that most leaders and organizations aren't very good at:

Concretely and objectively defining trust. Because if you can't clearly name what earns, builds, or breaks trust in your relationship with someone or in your organizational context, people are left to guess, and some people will guess wrong. We really like our Trust Factor framework, but also appreciate Brené Brown's BRAVING Inventory. Take your pick.

Making expectations explicit before they're violated. Because even all-stars need to know what they are being evaluated against, and what will happen should they not measure up.

Looking honestly at the environment. Because we so often conclude that the fish is the problem without asking what in the water, aquarium, or larger world might be causing or exacerbating the stink.

By the end of our conversation, this leader had begun to answer all three questions and had a plan for what to do next. Which is what I want for you, too!

Let's go a little deeper on that third point about the environment. Based on my experience working with hundreds of organizations and leaders, it is very clear to me that the environment problem almost always precedes a stinking fish. It actually starts during the honeymoon, when we are enraptured and convinced that this [thing] will solve all our problems. We don't want to interrupt the awesomeness with hard and complex conversations about expectations, trust, accountability, and what happens when things go wrong.

Then, the [thing] inevitably turns out to be imperfect, human, low-quality, or not as expected, and we don't have an environment primed to keep fish healthy, happy, and swimming.

It's important to remember that the honeymoon period doesn't just happen in relation to people. You've probably felt it with a new job, city, relationship, or opportunity that felt like the answer to EVERYTHING... until it didn't. We are wired to begin from a place of hope and possibility, to see what we want to see, and to look away from what complicates the picture or pollutes the water.

But the honeymoon isn't the problem. The problem is that we often haven't built the structures, clarity, systems, mental models, and trust needed to close the gap between "this is the best thing ever" and "something is starting to smell.

The good news is that the gap is very much closeable, and closing it is exactly the work I find myself doing most right now.

This fall, I'll be keynoting at the Vermont Afterschool Conference on the Anatomy of Trust and presenting at the Annual Nonprofit Conference on building feedback-competent leaders and teams. I'm also facilitating a team retreat on conflict competence, leading a session on managing defensiveness after feedback, and spending time with a cohort of Missouri education leaders on leading without martyrdom.

The common denominator across all of these engagements is the same: making the implicit explicit.

About what trust means.

About what we expect from each other.

About what we expect from the work

About what we're willing to name, address, and change.

About changing the chemistry of the water and making a sustainable environment for all.

If any of this feels relevant to you and your context, I'd love to help. Book a connection call or just hit reply.

Cheering you on always,

Marissa

PS - If you're ready to go deep into some of these concepts, including compassionate accountability, emotional integrity, and building the kind of culture where expectations are clear and people feel safe, there are still a couple of days left to join our 7-month Compassionate Accountability Cohort. Learn more at https://bit.ly/compassionate-accountability-cohort-26.
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