How I Train My Team to Raise The Red Flag BEFORE a Crisis Happens

Escalating concerns can be a tricky balancing act.

On one side an employee might raise too many concerns, too often. Think, the boy who cried wolf. People stopped listening, for good reason, and the wolf ate all of his sheep.

On the other side of the teeter-totter an employee might opt to say nothing thinking “I’ll solve this myself.”

Either extreme is obviously problematic

On the escalate-everything side, you end up with employees who lack independence and empowerment.

On the say-nothing side, you expose yourself and your organization to problems and mistakes that could have been avoided.

From my experience, teams that are stacked with top performers tend to lean the teeter-totter toward the say-nothing side of the spectrum. Top performers are self-starters and go-getters.

They want to solve problems and they don’t want to add burden on others. This often leads them to think, “I see the problem, but I’ll find a solution.” With newer employees, there’s also the concern of “I don’t want to look incompetent,” that causes them to not escalate concerns.

Unfortunately, this sometimes results in a problem becoming a crisis.

At Harmon Brothers, we have been working on ways to make sure our teeter-totter is balanced.

In the past year, our team has doubled to more than 30 employees. For the most part, it’s been amazing.

However, with growth, comes growing pains. And one of those growing pains was that many of our new team members were afraid to escalate concerns.

We had to figure out WHY and HOW this was happening so we could fix it.

So, we surveyed our team and asked “why” they didn’t escalate concerns. Here are some of the reasons they shared:

1. Tried to do it in the past, but wasn’t listened to.
2. Afraid that I’ll look incompetent
3. Don’t want to burden leadership
4. Don’t want to “cry wolf” too often
5. Boss is already stressed
6. Not wanting to overstep my bounds
7. Don’t want people to stress unnecessarily
8. Don’t want to look like we can’t resolve our own issues

This feedback helped us put together a simple 2-step system for escalating concerns.

First, in order to create an environment that encourages open communication, we needed to know when a concern is worthy of being designated as a “red flag.”

Second, we had to speak the same language to ensure that everyone was communicating clearly. It’s imperative that both the “escalator” of the red flag and the “receiver” of the message speak the same language.

WHEN to raise the red flag

We now have two simple questions printed out around our office to help employees understand when it’s appropriate to escalate concerns.

1. Do I have access to all the information needed to resolve this?

2. Am I confident I can resolve this without jeopardizing a project’s, objectives, timelines, or budgets?

If anyone on our team answers “no” to either question, it’s usually an indicator that raising the red-flag is appropriate.

Now that our team knows the WHEN to raise the red flag, they need to know how.

HOW to raise the red flag

Communication between team members was often unclear. Sometimes employees felt like they were appropriately expressing concern, but leaders didn’t interpret it the same way.

That’s why we now have a centralized language regarding HOW to raise the red flag.

Our team now escalates concerns with the following language:

• Bottleneck
• Conflicting Messages
• Clarity Needed
• Concern

Here are some exaples…..

BOTTLENECK: With all my current commitments I’m not going to be able to complete this on time. Can we discuss how to prioritize these competing commitments?

CONFLICTING MESSAGES: The client is telling me we should do X, but my boss told me to do Y. Which is it?

CLARITY NEEDED: I took this approach. Can you give me your feedback and tell me if I’m on the right track?

CONCERN: If we continue down this path I worry that _____ will happen. Can we discuss?

How should leaders respond to red flags?

Just as important as communicating concerns, is the skill set of listening to concerns so team members feel heard and problems actually get solved. As we started rolling this out to a few employees, some of these red flag messages were causing a defensive reaction.

Here are the steps we’ve outlined for leaders:

1. Reflect first, before defending
2. Assume the red flag comes with good intentions
3. Acknowledge the concern
4. Work to resolve the concern

Growing these skills have helped our team to know about problems before they turn into crises, and have created a company culture that achieves a balance of ownership and proper escalation of concerns.

We’re not perfect, yet. And probably never will be, but so far these strategies are helping.

If you’ve struggled with any of these problems, I encourage you to try these strategies. If implemented something different that’s been helpful for your company, tell me in the comments below.

To your success!

-Benton

Bio: Benton Crane is CEO of Harmon Brothers, the agency behind some of the internet’s most famous ad campaigns: Squatty Potty, Chatbooks, Purple, Lume, PooPourri, and many others. Benton and his team believe storytelling is the most effective form of communication and their mission is to Share Better Stories. Other articles you may enjoy after reading this one: Building a Huge Brand Doesn’t Happen Overnight, But You Should Still Try or Christopher Nolan Has Almost Convinced Me to Ditch My Phone

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.