Elephant in the Room

Eliminate ‘elephant philosophy’ from your workplace.

The Elephant in the room could be things like:

  • Difficult personalities
  • Dysfunctional relationships
  • Rules that are ignored by some
  • Inefficient processes
  • Poor managers
  • People who take advantage of others
  • Good ideas being ignored
  • Tip toeing
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We often see these elephants! Those uncomfortable, awkward and emotionally charged circumstances that everyone is aware of but no one is addressing.

You can try to dance around it, pretend it’s not there, but it’s just a matter of time before someone brings it up.  You need to be prepared to answer for those elephants–instead of stumbling through a lame response that makes you sound like a total patsy along with depleting your credibility.
Participants will learn:

  • The value of identifying and categorizing “elephants in the room.”
  • How to avoid being the elephant in the room.
  • Ways to gracefully broach the situation with others.
  • Methods for eliminating team dysfunction.
  • Team building/leveraging techniques.
  • Best ways to assert yourself for the greater good of others.
  • Leadership effectiveness skills.
  • Issues to identify and eliminate about your own behavior:
                    –  Loud talking
                    –  Annoying habits
                    –  Germ infestation in your work area
                    –  Food smells that infiltrate the work area
                    –  Inappropriate phone/ email etiquette
                    –  Etc.

Ignoring the Elephant will not help your situation.  Left to their own devices elephants start prancing around, they get irritated and become irrepressible.  The right way to handle elephants is to talk about it openly.

Cortel trainers are gifted at dealing with the “elephants in the room” syndrome.  When working with teams and groups we bring “the elephants” into the open in a constructive and respectful way.

Until elephants are addressed, a team cannot achieve its highest level of success.  We look for elephants, recognize them, break down the barriers, constructively work through the issues, and teach them how to continue to deal constructively with potential elephants.