You’ve probably heard the advice:
​“Praise in public, criticize in private.”

This well known quote, popularized by Vince Lombardi and Ken Blanchard, has led to a significant misunderstanding about accountability in teams. For many teams it sends an unintended message: Any form of accountability, candor and conflict are best addressed privately.

When all critical feedback is kept behind closed doors, teams miss out on some of the most powerful moments for team learning, alignment and growth.​

Most leadership teams are working hard. They’re engaged, responsive, and constantly solving problems. But despite all that effort, persistent issues continue to linger, making it hard to break through to the next level or build a workplace people genuinely love being part of.

It’s not for lack of trying. Leaders are addressing challenges, filling gaps, putting out fires. But still…culture feels off. Collaboration breaks down. Momentum stalls.

If this sounds familiar, the core issue might not be your people. It could be the systems they’re working in.

Summer is just around the corner.

Some of us are already picturing the vacations we’ve been planning for months.Others are wondering how they’re going to keep their kids busy for 10 weeks and still get their job done. For the record, Joe and I are guilty on both accounts :)

No matter your summer plans, one thing is true: it’s a season where teams easily lose focus.

Meetings get pushed. Priorities drift. Momentum slows. Before you know it, you're playing catch-up heading into the fall. So here’s the question: Will you let summer just happen, or will you proactively plan for it?

At Union Square Hospitality Group, led by Danny Meyer, hospitality isn’t just a front-of-house priority, it’s a shared commitment woven through the entire organization- evident in all their restaurants.

• Chefs, servers, and support staff are equally responsible for the guest experience

• Team members are encouraged to notice and act on gaps - even when it’s not “their job”

• Ideas for improvement, whether it’s a menu tweak or operational shift, can come from anyone

• Financial health is discussed openly to build awareness and ownership

• Culture is something everyone contributes to, not left to just a few.

• And when things go wrong, the team responds- learning, adjusting and improving…. Together​

When Amy Edmondson was a PhD student at Harvard, she set out to study how effective teamwork influenced patient safety in hospitals. Her hypothesis was simple: the best teams would make the fewest mistakes.​

But when the data came back, it showed the opposite.
​The highest-performing teams were reporting more errors.

Her first reaction? Panic. Something had to be wrong.

But then she paused. And instead of dismissing the data, she got curious. She asked a different question:

What if those teams weren’t making more mistakes but rather they were just more willing to talk about them?

I’ve been sitting with this quote from Steve Denning lately. It’s one I keep coming back to and one I find many of the teams we work with need to hear:

“There are those who believe that creativity is about getting rid of structure, systems, and processes and letting a thousand flowers bloom. I believe structure is necessary because structure and creativity have the same parentage. It is structure that enables creativity... Without structure, there is nothing for creativity to get leverage upon.”

Too often, we talk about structure like it’s the enemy of creativity or something that boxes us in, holds us back, or limits the full expression of our ideas.

But what if we’ve been thinking about it wrong?

​What if structure isn’t what stifles creativity, but rather what makes it possible in the first place?

Meet Didi, a leader who gives everything she has to her team until there’s nothing left to give.

In Episode 6 of Netflix’s The Man on the Inside, we watch as Didi, the director of a retirement community in San Francisco, moves through a relentless day. One staff member after another comes to her with problems they’ve been conditioned to believe only she can solve:

• The restaurant is out of salt shakers.

• The Wi-Fi is down.

• The leader of the resident council is demanding her time.

• The Activity Coordinator wants to catch up.

Then, just as she’s handling it all, the real weight of leadership crashes down. One of the residents in their retirement community has passed away.

Didi steps up like a superhero, juggling every crisis, every request, every responsibility alone. After informing the entire team about the death of the resident, she crawls under her desk, puts on ocean sounds, and shuts the world out. Under her desk is a picture of her deceased mom (which seems to comfort her), so we get the idea this is something she does regularly to cope with stress.​