Discomfort is what the truth costs the person hearing it. Harm is what it costs them when you don't say it, or when you say it with pressure. When a team is behind and tired, the kind instinct is "now's not the time to push." This Sidebar takes one line from Tuesday's conversation with Bart Bailey, "I don't have any problem with discomfort. I do have a problem with harm," and goes all the way into it.

The same move shows up three times. Urgency is attention on the process; pressure is attention on the person, and it raises the error rate even on work you do every day. Teamwork is having somebody's back; collaboration is letting an idea you didn't have change your plan. Then three things to try this week, and one test for whether your hard conversations land as discomfort or as harm: do people speak up more afterward, or go quiet?

The full conversation: 0017, Fear Is Data, with Bart Bailey https://thelaggingteam.com/podcast/0017-fear-is-data

Bart Bailey (he/him): Owner, Courage to Care LLC · Author, It's in Our Bones

Go deeper:

Discomfort vs. harm

Amy C. Edmondson and Michaela J. Kerrissey, "What People Get Wrong About Psychological Safety," Harvard Business Review, May–June 2025 https://hbr.org/2025/05/what-people-get-wrong-about-psychological-safety

Julia Rozovsky, "The five keys to a successful Google team," Google re:Work, Nov. 17, 2015 (180+ teams; archived copy) https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdhhs/Google-and-Psychological-Safety_684425_7.pdf

Kim Scott on Radical Candor and ruinous empathy, Stanford GSB Insights, Sept. 5, 2023 https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/radical-candor-communication-shift-can-transform-your-career

Urgency vs. pressure

John P. Kotter, A Sense of Urgency (Harvard Business Press, 2008); excerpt: "Complacency and False Urgency Impede Change" (AMA) https://www.amanet.org/articles/complacency-and-false-urgency-impede-change/

Teresa M. Amabile, Constance N. Hadley and Steven J. Kramer, "Creativity Under the Gun," Harvard Business Review, Aug. 2002 (9,000+ daily diary entries) https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=12846

U.S. Department of Energy, Human Performance Improvement Handbook, Vol. 1 (DOE-HDBK-1028-2009) https://www.energy.gov/documents/doe-hdbk-1028-2009volume1pdf

Teamwork vs. collaboration

Anita Williams Woolley, Christopher F. Chabris, Alex Pentland, Nada Hashmi and Thomas W. Malone, "Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups," Science 330 (2010), 686–688 (699 people in 192 groups) https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1193147

Google re:Work, as above: "Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact."

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0018-the-courage-to-care&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=the-courage-to-care

Most leaders reach for fear when a team falls behind, and then call it urgency. Bart Bailey has led people where a mistake doesn't just cost a deadline. It costs somebody's safety, on a production line, a plate floor, or a crew restoring power after a storm. His read is that fear isn't a lever. It's data. When a team reports zero near misses, that isn't a clean record. It means fear is present, and people have stopped speaking up.

This conversation pulls apart three pairs that leaders blur. Urgency is healthy when it means more attention to the process, and dangerous when it means shortcuts, because the error rate goes up under pressure even in work you could do in your sleep. Teamwork is having somebody's back; collaboration is combining two ideas without diminishing either one. Discomfort is fine; harm is not. And Bart's question for any leader whose team is behind right now: what is your next step?

Go deeper:

Near misses and safety culture: National Safety Council, "Near Miss and Hazard Reporting," Position/Policy Statement #131 (2016) https://nsc.org/getattachment/89915b18-ca6e-430d-8eb6-583593cbc0ec/W-Near-Miss-Hazard-Reporting-131

Time pressure and the three performance modes: U.S. Department of Energy, Human Performance Improvement Handbook, Vol. 1 (DOE-HDBK-1028-2009) https://www.energy.gov/documents/doe-hdbk-1028-2009volume1pdf

Speaking up: Amy C. Edmondson and Michaela J. Kerrissey, "What People Get Wrong About Psychological Safety," Harvard Business Review, May–June 2025 https://hbr.org/2025/05/what-people-get-wrong-about-psychological-safety

The book Bart cites: Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands (Central Recovery Press, 2017) https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781942094470

Bart Bailey (he/him): Owner, Courage to Care LLC · Author, It's in Our Bones

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0017-fear-is-data&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=fear-is-data

Acknowledging and agreeing get used as if they mean the same thing. Acknowledging is about a situation: that could be true, let's check. Agreeing is about who you are: we're the behind team. This Sidebar takes one idea from Tuesday's conversation with Nicole Morris (she/her), that the first move when the label lands is to acknowledge it, and follows it all the way in.

Why "is it fair?" is the wrong argument while nobody checks whether it's true. Why the team busy proving it isn't behind has stopped checking whether it is. Why defensiveness is a rational move when admitting something sounds like a verdict. Why the Strong One is the leader least able to separate the two words. And why a team that's always behind is usually telling you something about its leadership.

And three things to do before you get back to work, none of which cost money or need permission: say "that could be true, let me check" out loud in the room, write down what you're checking, and turn one flat status statement into a question.

The full conversation with Nicole Morris, "What Are You Carrying Into It?": https://thelaggingteam.com/podcast/0015-what-are-you-carrying-into-it

Nicole Morris (she/her): Founder, Labels Be Gone™ · Author, It's Not Me, It's You: Take Their Labels Off · Host, The Permission Slip. https://permissionfromwho.com

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0016-admitting-it-isnt-agreeing-with-it&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=admitting-it-isnt-agreeing-with-it

A team gets called behind long before anybody proves it, and once that word lands, people start working like it's true. Nicole Morris has spent more than twenty years in corporate leadership, strategy and transformation, much of it running large implementations, and she has watched what teams and leaders carry into a room before anyone says a word.

Why behind means something different in every room. Why the Strong One is the most expensive leader to work under. Why a team that is always behind is usually telling you something about its leadership. What lagging teams are actually waiting for permission to do. And why the first move, when the label lands, is to acknowledge it could be true, then check.

Full disclosure: Nicole is Devon's wife. Then it's an interview like any other.

Nicole Morris (she/her): Founder, Labels Be Gone™ · Author, It's Not Me, It's You: Take Their Labels Off · Host, The Permission Slip. https://permissionfromwho.com

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0015-what-are-you-carrying-into-it&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=what-are-you-carrying-into-it

Commitment and compliance get used as if they mean the same thing. Commitment persists when nobody is paying for it. Compliance persists exactly as long as the reward does. This Sidebar takes one idea from Tuesday's conversation with Jeff Burstein (he/him), that when a team that was improving slows down, something in its environment changed, and follows it all the way in.

Why "we didn't get real buy-in" is the wrong argument. Why commitment and compliance look identical on a dashboard right up until the reward moves. Why the team is where a problem shows up and almost never why it happened. And why done is not holding: the declaration is the moment the tending ends.

And three things to do Monday, none of which cost money or need permission: build a two-column timeline, read one person's objectives against what you're asking them to do, and name one thing you declared done, then find out who is still holding it.

The full conversation with Jeff Burstein, "It Never Sticks": https://thelaggingteam.com/podcast/0013-it-never-sticks

Jeff Burstein (he/him): Founder, Advanced Enterprise Agility and L-EAF.org · Co-founder, L-EAF Lab. https://www.L-EAF.org

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0014-nothing-changed-but-the-reward&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=nothing-changed-but-the-reward

A transformation can look done and be gone six months later. The deck was fine. The team drifted back to the old way of working, and the signs showed up there months before anyone upstairs wrote them down.

Jeff Burstein has spent more than 20 years coaching enterprise transformations. His argument: when a team that was improving slows down, the question is rarely what the team is doing differently. Something in the environment changed: a new rule, a new policy, a reward that no longer supports the way the team works. And no change in mindset ever simply sticks. You let it go, and the pen comes back to your hand.

Along the way: why people come before process and tools, what velocity is for and what happens when a leader demands it doubled, rote work versus knowledge work, why breakdown comes before breakthrough, and what to tell a leader whose team is behind right now.

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0013-it-never-sticks&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=it-never-sticks

Jeff Burstein (he/him) is an innovator, founder, consultant and enterprise transformation coach. He is the founder of Advanced Enterprise Agility and L-EAF.org and a co-founder of L-EAF Lab.

L-EAF: https://www.L-EAF.org

L-EAF Lab: https://www.L-EAFLab.org

Advanced Enterprise Agility: https://www.AdvancedEnterpriseAgility.com

L-EAF on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/L-EAF

Informed and included get used as if they mean the same thing. Informed means a decision reaches you. Included means you were there while it could still go a different way. This Sidebar takes one line from Tuesday's conversation with Melanie Shires (she/her), accountable for work she wasn't invited to help shape, and follows it all the way in.

Why "the new leader just needs to communicate more" is the wrong argument. Why a well-informed team can still be behind. Why title and standing move independently, and only one of them is written down. And why shielding a team doesn't spare it: the consequences land anyway, with the cause taken out.

And three things to do Monday, none of which cost money or need permission: name the last decision that changed your team's work and who was in the room, move one person from informed to included, and say the cause out loud once.

The full conversation with Melanie Shires: https://thelaggingteam.com/podcast/0011-new-boss-same-team

Melanie's free Inner Authority Alignment Assessment is on her website: https://www.positivelymelanie.com/

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0012-in-the-loop-is-not-in-the-room&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=in-the-loop-is-not-in-the-room

A new boss walks in and nothing changes on paper. Same title, same duties, same team. But the agreements the team was operating under quietly evaporate, and nobody says a word.

Melanie Shires has sat in both chairs. She kept her title as a marketing director while losing her place in the conversations that shaped her work, accountable for work she was no longer invited to help shape. And she has been the new executive walking into a culture built long before she arrived. Her argument: a change in external authority shows how much of your footing was borrowed from it, and you can assess what is happening around you without putting everything you know about yourself on trial.

Along the way: what the team experiences while its leader works through it, why high achievers' boundaries dissolve instead of stretching, the glass balls and rubber balls every leader is juggling, the first agreement a new leader should make with a team, and where protecting people turns into keeping them in the dark. For any leader sandwiched between the people they lead and the people they report to.

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0011-new-boss-same-team&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=new-boss-same-team

Melanie Shires (she/her) is the founder of Positively Melanie and M Studio and the creator of the Inner Authority™ Framework. Her free Inner Authority Alignment Assessment is on her website.

Positively Melanie: https://www.positivelymelanie.com/Melanie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieshires/