Why Your Team Isn't Telling You the Truth
Your open-door policy isn't working. Here's the uncomfortable reality about why your team stays silent—and what you can do about it.
You've said it a hundred times: "My door is always open." You mean it. You want honest feedback. You've created Slack channels for anonymous input. You've scheduled regular one-on-ones. And still, your team isn't telling you what you actually need to hear.
The problem isn't your policy. It's the fundamental power dynamic you can't wish away.
The Invisible Economics of Truth-Telling
When your team member has information you need to hear, they run a calculation: What do I gain from speaking up? What do I risk?
The gains are abstract and delayed: "Maybe things improve." "Maybe I'm seen as valuable." "Maybe this helps long-term."
The risks are concrete and immediate: "I might look negative." "The boss might get defensive." "This could hurt my next review."
In that calculation, silence wins. Every time.
The Three Types of Silence I See
1. Self-Protective Silence
Your team has watched what happens when people speak up. Even if you don't punish honesty directly, they've noticed whose ideas get traction and whose don't. They've seen who gets promoted and who stays put. They're pattern-matching, and the pattern says: Don't rock the boat.
2. Cultural Silence
This is deeper. In some organizations, the unspoken rule is "make the boss look good." People aren't consciously hiding information—they've been socialized to see problems as complaints and complaints as disloyalty.
3. Complexity Silence
Sometimes your team wants to tell you what's wrong, but they can't articulate it without sounding like they're blaming individuals or pointing fingers. The issues are systemic, but the language available to them is personal. So they say nothing.
Why "Open Door" Policies Fail
An open door isn't enough when walking through it feels like career risk. Your team needs three things they likely don't have:
- Protection from consequences (real or perceived)
- Confidence that speaking up will lead to change
- Language to describe problems without sounding accusatory
You can't provide any of these from inside the power structure. You are the power structure.
What I've Learned by Being the Outsider
When I spend two weeks inside your business, people talk to me differently than they talk to you. Not because I'm magic, but because I'm irrelevant to their career trajectory.
I can't promote them. I can't fire them. I don't manage their workflow. I'm not competing for budget or territory. I'm just... there. Observing. Asking questions. And suddenly, the truth comes out.
Not as complaints. Not as accusations. Just as reality.
The Insight You're Missing
Here's what I hear consistently: "I've been trying to tell leadership this for months."
Not because you weren't listening. Because they weren't speaking in a way you could hear. Because the power dynamic made honesty too expensive.
What To Do About It
You can't eliminate the power dynamic. But you can acknowledge it. Stop asking for feedback in settings where honesty is career risk. Stop expecting vulnerability when you control consequences.
Instead, bring in someone who sits outside the hierarchy. Someone your team can tell the truth to without calculation. Someone who can translate what they're seeing into language that lands with you.
That's the work I do. I'm not a consultant who audits your processes or runs employee surveys. I'm the person who makes space for truth in an environment that structurally discourages it.
*Ready to hear what your team actually thinks? Let's create the conditions for honesty.*