Yesterday, May 1st, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus retired its elephant act, bowing to complaints from animal activists. My guess is that its use of bullhooks had for years been the “elephant in the room” no one at Ringling wanted to address. Its long-standing elephant acts were just too popular.
The big “elephants” in your organization will come in a variety of shapes. You may see all white faces around your leadership table despite your mission to serve minorities. Everyone may be tolerating an abusive leader’s behavior because he gets results. You may be renewing a leadership incentive system which has failed to reward excellence for a decade. But, no one is speaking up.
The “elephants” often involve sensitive personal nuances. This is especially true when another leader’s performance or behavior is the issue or the leader is vested in the program or process at issue. No one wants to risk his own job security by calling the question. The head of human resources, no matter how qualified, may be reluctant to intervene for just that reason. It’s just too easy to keep “kicking the can down the road.”
There is no cookie cutter approach. Gathering consensus behind the scenes with trusted colleagues who understand the issue and will support you and picking the right time, place and manner to raise the issue with other leaders will help. But, as a leader or leadership group member, it takes sensitivity and finesse – and, above all, courage - to meaningfully address the elephant in the room. But, if the matter is truly crucial to organizational success, you will be serving your organization – and yourself – well by doing what Ringling finally did, retiring that elephant.
May 2016