This month's conversations with managers kept circling back to the same place: signals that were already there before the departure, before the crisis, before the team stopped moving. Small ones. A meeting that went too smoothly. A top performer who stopped asking questions. A leader who did everything himself because it was faster that way. In this edition, I share what I observed, and what it might mean for your team right now. Expert Advice The meeting ran perfectly. Every

La boîte à idées était vide. C'était un signal à lire, pas un problème à punir. Un nouveau membre du comité de direction voulait changer la culture du département. Il a installé une boîte à idées sur le plateau. Physique. Accessible à tous. Deux semaines plus tard, elle était vide. La direction a engueulé tout le monde. Les idées sont arrivées. Des idées bateau que personne ne défendait, qui disaient en creux : on a compris ce que vous attendez de nous. Les gens ne participai

Il a arrêté de poser des questions en réunion. Trois mois plus tard, il est parti. Il y a 15 ans, j'étais ce collaborateur-là. Motivé. Solide. Et puis, sans explication, mon chef a arrêté de m'inclure dans les réunions. Plus de copie sur les décisions. Plus de place dans la salle. Ce moment-là m'a fait regarder ailleurs. Cette exclusion silencieuse, sans raison donnée. À partir du moment où j'ai commencé à regarder, c'était terminé. Mon chef aurait pu changer d'attitude le le

Over the past few weeks, I have been working extensively with managers and executives who are faced with a common paradox: their teams are working extremely hard, but the results do not always keep pace. In many organisations, the instinctive response is to add more monitoring, more processes, more control. Yet the difficulties observed are rarely purely operational. They often stem from deeper human dynamics: a lack of alignment, a lack of frank conversations, unclear respon

Over the past month, a consistent pattern has emerged across the teams and leaders I have worked with. Many teams are highly committed, busy, and technically capable. Yet despite this, progress often feels slower than expected, and performance requires sustained effort to maintain. What initially appears to be a performance issue is, in many cases, something else. More often than not, the underlying challenge lies in how the team is set up to work together. In this edition, I

“So… what are we not saying?” Silence. The team had been talking for 30 minutes. Everything sounded aligned. Clear. Smooth. Too smooth. So I asked: “What are we not saying?” At first, nothing. Then one person spoke. “I don’t think this will work.” Another added: “I was not convinced either.” And suddenly… The real conversation started. Not comfortable. Not polished. But real. That is when things began to move. Because before that moment,the team was not aligned. It was just p