Confronting unspoken problems – often referred to as ‘elephants in the room – early in your club’s strategic planning and governance discussions is essential for genuine progress and effective problem-solving.
Picture this: It’s 1999, and I’m facilitating a planning session for an AFL club in Palmwoods. We’d spent a full weekend brainstorming, strategising, and building an exciting vision for their future. Everyone was buzzing, filled with enthusiasm and great ideas. However, as the session neared its close at 3 PM on Sunday afternoon, an old life member piped up.
He said, “Michael, it’s been a lovely weekend… but unfortunately everything that we’ve come up with isn’t going to work because of…” and then he pointed directly to the elephant in the room – a major, unspoken issue that everyone knew about but had actively avoided discussing. That single, unaddressed concern had the power to derail all the positive energy and meticulous planning that had just taken place. It demonstrated that no matter how brilliant your ideas are, or how much effort you pour into planning, if a fundamental, underlying problem isn’t tackled, it will eventually sabotage your efforts.
Even more tricky, sometimes, these ‘elephants’ aren’t just abstract issues. They can even be specific individuals whose resistance or actions are holding the club back, making people hesitant to bring them up. So, yeah. The elephant can be a person!
The powerful lesson from that Palmwoods experience, and one we consistently advocate for, is to proactively identify and address the elephants in the room from the very beginning of any club discussion or strategic planning process.
Here’s how:
1. Don’t wait
- Instead of letting uncomfortable truths fester and potentially derail future efforts, tackle them upfront. Make it a deliberate part of your club’s culture to surface the big issues.
2. Foster an environment of openness
- Encourage honest dialogue. This means asking discerning, open-ended questions like “How are things going?” which often quickly reveal underlying challenges. It also means creating a safe place where volunteers and committee members feel confident to speak up without fear of reprisal, even if the topic is sensitive or involves a strong personality.
3. Challenge ‘roadblock thinking’
- Confront the common excuses that stifle progress, such as, “We do it like that because that’s how we’ve always done it,” or “We tried that once, it didn’t work,” or even worse, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. By questioning the ‘why’ behind current practices, you can uncover long-standing inefficiencies or outdated approaches that need re-evaluation.
4. Recognise problem identification as the first step to a solution
- As soon as an ‘elephant’ is openly acknowledged, it transforms from an insurmountable obstacle into a problem that can be worked towards solving. This allows the club to put practical steps in place to overcome challenges, rather than being perpetually stuck.
Courageously bring the ‘elephants in the room’ into the light. Clubs that do transform potential roadblocks into pathways for sustainable growth and a truly shared, flourishing future.
Don’t let unspoken issues dictate your club’s destiny – speak up, plan smartly and watch your club knock it out of the park!
Michael Connelly once had an elephant spoil a perfectly good Sunday afternoon. Now, he gets them talking before kick-off.
Follow me anytime @nfpmichael
