Great leadership, especially when coaching others, does not always come naturally. The way you normally interact may feel comfortable, but it is not always what a person or situation needs. Sometimes an abnormal approach works best. That’s why strong leaders think carefully about how they show up in coaching conversations. Even a small change in approach can make a big difference in how well a message is received. Take a few common situations. You might have someone on your team who lacks confidence. Anne, for example, is capable and thoughtful, but she often defers to more senior people. Your instinct might be to tell her to speak up. But that rarely works on its own. A better approach is to help Anne recognize her value. Point out where her thinking is strong and create low-pressure opportunities for her to present her ideas. In this case, you are not building competence; you are building confidence. That requires a different kind of conversation. Or consider a high performer like Martin, who keeps getting in his own way because of poor interpersonal skills. You may need to challenge his assumptions about what is acceptable behaviour. That can be uncomfortable, especially if you dislike confrontation or have already formed a negative opinion about his intentions. How will your coaching conversation style help Martin receive the message while also feeling your support?

Why Coaching Conversation Styles Matter

We all have a “go-to” interpersonal style, often shaped by what has worked for us in the past. But effective leaders are flexible. They adjust their approach based on the person in front of them and what they are trying to achieve. At the centre of that flexibility are conversations. As leadership expert Susan Scott says, “The conversation is the relationship.” If you want stronger relationships and better performance, you need to be more intentional about how you have conversations. Below is a useful assessment tool to help you reflect on conversations you may want to have with a person or a team. The tool looks at five behavioural dimensions.

Five Conversational Behaviours to Track

Adjust Your Natural Coaching Conversation Style

The tool below can help you adjust your conversational style for different situations.* STEP 1: Assess Your Natural Style STEP 2: Consider The Situation STEP 3: Compare And Adjust  

Think About Your Impact

As a coach, it is important to think about both your impact and your goals for the person you are coaching. It helps to ask yourself what you want the other person to gain from the conversation. Keep in mind that your natural tendencies often become stronger during important or stressful conversations. Before a high-stakes discussion, especially one connected to a person’s development, take time to reflect on your style using the scales above. You may decide to adjust your approach depending on your goal. Are you trying to teach a new skill? Mentor someone through office politics? Gain insight by listening and asking questions? Or confront a behaviour that needs to change? Different goals require different coaching conversation styles.

Learning From Difficult Conversations

In our workshops, we ask participants to think about a conversation that did not go well. We ask them to score themselves on each scale based on what happened in that conversation and how they behaved, and then reflect on what they might do differently if they had another chance. One participant chose a conversation that had quickly gone off track. The employee had failed to share important information that would have changed the project timeline. The employee was talented but junior, introverted, and not naturally expressive. They rarely shared ideas unless someone asked them directly. In this case, no one asked. What would have been the best coaching style for this employee? What numbers would you circle on the scales? And how closely would that approach match your natural style? The supervisor’s normal style was high control, fast-paced, highly expressive and somewhat critical, with lower levels of positive reinforcement. The supervisor entered the conversation feeling frustrated and reactive. His goal, he believed, was to understand why the employee remained silent and to coach them on the importance of sharing information and ideas with teammates, even when not asked. Those were important coaching goals. Unfortunately, because he was upset, the manager became highly controlling, highly expressive and highly critical during the discussion. Later, he realized he had handled the conversation poorly. Given this employee’s profile – talented, junior, introverted, and non-expressive – the manager needed to dial down his need for control, slow the conversation down, and build the employee’s self-awareness by asking clarifying questions. He should also have listened non-judgmentally, asked how he could help in the future, and worked on strategies for the employee to use when feeling this kind of pressure in a more senior group. The goal: help the employee see the value in speaking up for themselves and for the team. It was a great opportunity to teach leadership skills, recognize the knowledge the employee held, and build confidence. When you are working with a valuable employee over the long term, trust and respect matter. Difficult moments are often when those qualities are tested most. It helps to identify small, specific adjustments that can improve your effectiveness as a leader and coach while still getting the job done. Often, this requires conscious effort and clear focus during the conversation. This conversational scale can be a great assist in planning the conversation. Good conversations are the vehicle through which good coaching travels.

Key Takeaways:

  • Your default style isn’t always the right style. Comfort isn’t the goal; what the person or situation needs is.

  • Confidence and competence are built differently. A team member who lacks confidence doesn’t need to be told to speak up. They need low-pressure chances to be seen.

  • Five dimensions shape every coaching conversation: control, pace, energy, expression, and tone. Naming where you sit, and where the moment calls for you to sit, is what makes a conversation intentional.

  • Your natural style gets stronger under pressure, not weaker. It’s easy to default to your natual style in the exact moment that calls for the opposite.

  • The conversation is the relationship. Small, deliberate adjustments, not big gestures, build the trust that difficult moments test.

*Credit to Robin Pratt for the development of this tool drawn from the work of Sport Psychologist Robert Neidifer; Test for Attentional and Interpersonal Style

Meet our expert: Peggy Baumgartner, Chief Learning Officer

Peggy Baumgartner is an expert in developing top performers across business and sport. A master-level certified TAIS coach and Third Factor’s Chief Learning Officer, Peggy has spent 25+ years helping leaders and athletes build self-awareness and perform at their best — including four Olympic cycles with the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team. She teaches in executive programs at Queen’s Smith School of Business and UNC Kenan-Flagler, has published in Harvard Business Review, and leads the design of Third Factor’s flagship coaching programs.

“How Do I Keep My Team Focused and Engaged When Change Won’t Stop And We Are at Capacity?”

Some people think that when things get crazy busy, holding it together means looking invincible, projecting strength, and appearing like you can do it all. But that’s not authentic, and it doesn’t improve performance. If we want our people to be real and vulnerable in the face of uncertainty, we must model that behaviour. That means making it safe for people to share their real experiences. I once watched Third Factor founder Peter Jensen work with Canada’s Olympic synchronized swimming team. It was just prior to the Olympic Games, and this team had medal potential, so the media started to take notice. Suddenly, athletes who rarely saw cameras were surrounded by them. The coach used the opportunity to sit down with her athletes: “I don’t know about you, but with all this media presence, I’m feeling really nervous,” she told them. That one admission gave everyone else permission to say the same thing. And then she added: “This is going to feel like the Games. So what do we want to do with what we’re feeling?” During tough periods, we need to harness our emotions. That’s because people don’t change based on logic; they change based on emotion. As leaders, our job is to make it safe for real emotions to surface so we can work on them together and use the energy beneath our emotions to move forward. And to accomplish that, you need to focus on the relationships you have with your people.

Building, maintaining, and deepening relationships

The deeper your connection with your team, the greater your influence. That relationship is the pipeline through which all communication flows. If that pipeline is clogged or doesn’t exist, it means that when you need strong communication the most, it won’t happen. Which brings me to energy. We often frame the feeling of being overwhelmed as a time management problem. And so we ask ourselves: Where do I find additional time? But many leaders are already great at time management, and that question won’t get you far. The better question is: Where can I find the energy? Pay attention as you move through your day. When does time seem to fly? What fills you up? What are your strengths? You will have far more energy working on things you feel you do well, and it’s remarkable how much gets done when energy is high and how little when it’s depleted. And this isn’t just about you. A big part of your job right now is making sure your people have the energy to do what they need to do. They need to believe in themselves and believe they have the trust and relationship with the person who matters most to them: their leader. And finally, when things do get hard, here is the one habit worth picking up: Stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. During hard times, the inner critic gets loud. This is so hard. I’m not on top of things. I can’t do this. The best performers don’t silence that voice by ignoring it. They pause and ask: Is it true? Yes, work is often hard. But does hard mean you’re not good at it? No. It might mean a task is new or difficult. It might mean you’re doing something no one has figured out yet. Get clear on what’s actually true and lead from there.

Sustainable leadership for the long haul

Leading through relentless change is genuinely hard. And somewhere in the middle of keeping your team focused, your strategy on track, and your organization moving, it is easy to forget that you are also a person who needs to take care of themselves. The most effective leaders right now are not the ones who have it all figured out. They are the ones who stay honest with themselves, invest in the relationships that matter, manage their energy with the same intention they bring to their calendar, and extend to themselves the same patience and encouragement they would offer anyone on their team. Change will keep coming. The question is not whether you can outrun it. The question is whether you are leading in a way that is sustainable for you and the people counting on you. Be kind to yourself. That is not soft advice. It is how you stay in the game.  
This question and answer are adapted from a webinar hosted by Queen’s Executive Education featuring a panel led by Dr. Laurence Ashworth (Chair of Queen’s Executive Education), and panelists Peggy Baumgartner (Chief Learning Officer, Third Factor), Dr. Julian Barling (Smith School of Business Professor and Borden Chair of Leadership), and Dr. Lobna Chérif (Royal Military College’s Chair in Resilience). To watch the full Queen’s Executive Education Webinar, click this link.

Key Takeaways:

  • Vulnerability is a leadership tool, not a weakness. When leaders model honesty about what they’re experiencing, they give their teams permission to do the same.

  • Overwhelm is an energy problem, not a time management problem. Ask where you can find energy, not where you can find more hours.

  • Relationships are your pipeline. The deeper your connection with your people, the more effectively communication flows when it matters most.

  • Stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. When the inner critic gets loud, pause and ask: is it true? Get clear on what’s actually true, and lead from there.

  • Sustainable leadership requires caring for yourself, not just your team. The leaders who last are the ones who manage their own energy with the same intention they bring to everything else.

Welcome to our summer reading list for 2026. The team at Third Factor has once again pulled together their favourite reads from the past year, and the range is as eclectic as ever. Whether you’re after a novel to lose yourself in, a memoir that shifts your perspective, or something practical you can put to work on Monday morning, there’s a recommendation here for you. As always, we’d love to hear what you think if you pick one up, and which titles you’d add to the list.

Peggy Baumgartner, Chief Learning Officer

Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

In this research-rich, highly readable book, Duhigg argues that every conversation is one of three things: a practical discussion about what something means, an emotional exchange about how we feel, or a social conversation about who we are to each other. Most miscommunications happen because people are having different conversations simultaneously without realizing it. You think you’re solving a problem. The other person needs to feel heard first. What I enjoyed about this book is that it shows us how to move beneath the surface topic to the more meaningful subject underneath. That’s where connection happens. And connection is where coaching happens, and change becomes possible. Duhigg does an amazing job by introducing research from neuroscience, psychology, FBI interrogation techniques, and marriage counselling to bring the topic to life. It’s an enjoyable read with some great insights you can apply at both work and home.

Alexis Dawson, Program Logistics & Materials Lead

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

My selection for the summer reading list is “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport. Newport argues that technology is genuinely useful, but some of the apps and platforms we use daily are built to distract us and consume as much of our time as possible. Digital minimalism is the philosophy that we should intentionally and aggressively curate our digital lives, favouring a small number of carefully chosen tools that strongly support the things we value, and letting go of everything else. He suggests a 30-day digital declutter – completely stepping away from optional technology, then reintroducing it slowly with fresh eyes. This is to reveal what was actually useful versus what was just habit, mindless, or quietly draining our time. With that reclaimed time, Newport encourages solitude, real-world connection with friends and family, and pursuing high-quality leisure that leaves you genuinely fulfilled. I haven’t completed the full declutter myself (yet), but the book still shifted how I think. I’ve nearly eliminated mindless scrolling and started being much more intentional about when and why I pick up my phone. It’s a worthwhile read for anyone looking to be a little more intentional about how they spend their time.

Carrie Drybrough, VP of Operations

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

“Pachinko” follows four generations of a Korean family, beginning in early 20th-century Korea and unfolding across decades in Japan. It’s a deeply human story about identity, sacrifice, belonging, and what we inherit from those who came before us. I selected it for my HMBC (see below) because most of the wartime history I’d encountered hadn’t centred on Korean or Japanese perspectives, and this book filled that gap. I especially recommend the audiobook. It’s narrated by Sandra Oh, who brings an authenticity and warmth to the story. As a Canadian, there’s something extra delightful about hearing a familiar voice carry these characters, and her rendering of the Korean and Japanese names and dialogue gives you a feel of the language that you can’t get from reading. (Side note: Some readers of our Third Factor newsletter might be interested in my Hockey Mom Book Club selections in the last year: Demon Copperhead, The Women, Homegoing, A Town Like Alice, The Nightingale, Fourth Wing, Pachinko, My Friends, Remarkably Bright Creatures.)

Karyn Garossino, Associate Trainer

Greenwood by Michael Christie

I turn to fiction as an escape; however, I don’t veer far from reality. In fact, I love a book that touches my heart, makes me reflect and shines a light on humanity – something I’m deeply interested in understanding better. Greenwood by Michael Christie was a bull’s-eye for me. At its core, this is a book about our interconnectedness with one another, with nature and across time. With beautiful descriptive writing about our West Coast, this is a family saga that highlights different personalities and priorities, commitments and secrets, loves and loyalties, protection and consumption. From a successful lumberman in the 1930’s to a world almost devoid of trees, our relationship to nature is explored. This is a story of Canada and how important our relative perspectives are. This is a story of resilience, and more importantly, one of hope.

Christopher Gentile, Director Strategic Partnerships & Accounts

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris

I stumbled upon David Sedaris through podcasts, and his wit, sharpness and self-awareness quickly made him a favourite. “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls” is a collection of essays that is laugh-out-loud funny, blended with sharp reflections on everyday life. He has a unique ability to turn ordinary experiences like travel mishaps, family dynamics and cultural quirks into moments that are both entertaining and surprisingly moving. His storytelling is the kind that makes you want to read passages out loud to whoever’s around you, and it’s easy to pick up for a quick chapter while still walking away with something that sticks. This collection has a nice balance between humour and heart. It’s great for plane reading, when you have only a bit of time and want a quick read that gives you a good chuckle. It’s also perfect for a lazy summer afternoon by the pool. It’s a great pick for anyone who has ever found humour to be the best way through life. Sedaris’s stories have a way of delivering genuine laughs and they offer the perfect break from reality.

Dane Jensen, CEO

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

“Thunderstruck” is one of those fantastic non-fiction books that reads like a gripping thriller while educating at the same time. It is simultaneously a fascinating narrative history of Marconi’s invention of wireless radio and a character study of one of history’s more unlikely murder suspects – an unassuming doctor at the heart of a case that gripped an England still in the shadow of Jack the Ripper. These two seemingly unrelated stories come together on a ship steaming across the Atlantic with both a wanted fugitive and a wireless radio on board. Gripping and enlightening stuff.

Peter Jensen, Founder

Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride by Joe Siple

This book is about love, kindness, and hope. It is a simple, easy read that will have you laughing out loud in places. It’s about a 100-year-old former baseball player who befriends a young boy in need of a heart transplant and helps him fulfill his list of five wishes. It is a heartwarming story, and you will fall in love with the characters. It definitely qualifies as a great summer read. You may get dragged away from it for short periods of time, but I assure you, it will pull you back.

Monique Kavelaars, Director, Assessments & Team Coaching

TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves by Alison Wood Brooks

I picked up “Talk” thinking it would give me a few new tools for my coaching toolkit. What I didn’t expect was how often I’d catch myself thinking about it at the dinner table and in the middle of tough conversations I’d been putting off. Alison Wood Brooks is a Harvard Business School professor whose research has been published in journals like Psychological Science, but the book itself reads like a smart friend telling you what she’s figured out. She organizes everything around a simple framework: Topics, Asking, Levity, and Kindness. Each one sounds obvious until you actually try to do it well. The section on asking follow-up questions stuck with me the most. It turns out the small move of asking one more question is one of the most powerful ways to make someone feel heard, and most of us do it far less than we think. If your work or your relationships depend on the quality of your conversations, this is a warm, useful, and quietly humbling read for the summer.

Lori Quinn, Senior Account Executive

Sonny Boy by Al Pacino

If you’re looking for the perfect companion for a long summer drive or some well-deserved downtime, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook written and narrated by Al Pacino himself. It feels like you’re sitting next to one of the greatest stage and screen actors while he just talks to you. What makes “Sonny Boy” especially compelling as an audiobook is its storytelling texture. Whether you’re a lifelong Pacino fan or simply someone who appreciates a beautifully told life story, “Sonny Boy” is a listen that will stay with you long after the final chapter, especially if you can find the time to relax, listen and let him do the talking.

Sandra Stark, Partner

Start without me by Garry Jannetti

Incredibly irreverent and very funny. Authored by a great comedy writer. Janetti shares his opinions, experiences, and life’s irritants in a hilarious series of vignettes from his own life. All true. To quote one reviewer: “…it is the literary equivalent of a night out with your funniest friend that you wish would never end.” Unfortunately, it is a quick read. Razor-sharp wit, pithy and profane – just some of the adjectives used to describe it. All the readers in my family read it. All loved it.

Garry Watanabe, Senior Principal, Performance and Leadership

Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by David Epstein

Ever since encountering Eliyahu Goldratt’s classic “The Goal,” I’ve been fascinated by the idea that bottlenecks aren’t problems to be solved, but rather, leverage points hiding in plain sight. Recent disruptions – the Strait of Hormuz, microchip shortages, the scramble for data centre energy – have put constraints back at the centre of every strategic conversation. Epstein flips the conventional wisdom. Instead of viewing constraints as obstacles to eliminate, he argues that the right constraints drive focus, creativity, and breakthrough. Dr. Seuss wrote one of the most beloved children’s books of all time after accepting a bet to use just 50 words. Freedom, as it turns out, can be the enemy of great work. And sometimes, effective leadership isn’t about removing all the friction. It’s about knowing which constraints to leave in place. If that tension feels familiar, this book is worth your time.

Chris Farris Zabaneh, Associate Trainer

Palestine on a Plate by Joudie Kalla

Summer’s a great time to try new things and while you’re enjoying other selections on this reading list, I’d recommend also exploring the rich history of culture and flavours of my father’s home – Palestine. Try something seasonal like Hindbeh – dandelion greens you can gather from your yard prepared with with caramelized onions and sumac; fattoush – a bright cucumber and tomato salad with toasted za’atar bread; or Palestine’s national dish, the hearty, savoury sumac chicken Mussakhran. You won’t be disappointed! And please support your local independent bookstore where you can.

Many websites use affiliate links to make money when you buy something from them – we don’t. Feel free to follow the links provided on Amazon or pick up the book you want from your favourite local bookseller. A senior leader recently told me he wanted better collaboration in his organization. He said his people often found working together exhausting. He asked me for advice. Specifically, how could collaboration be made more “comfortable” when there seemed to be so much tension, conflict and competing priorities on the team? Before I could answer, he suggested that maybe collaboration would be easier if the person on the other side of the table were more open, more interested in alignment and more willing to see other people’s perspectives. Two thoughts came to mind. First, at Third Factor, we just completed a research project on collaboration. One finding stood out: 95 per cent of people believe they are better at collaboration than others. Almost no one thinks they are the problem. Second, the best collaborators I’ve worked with don’t try to make the process easy. They strive to make it effective. And there’s a big difference. I recently asked Olympic ice dancer, coach and commentator Tracy Wilson how she approaches collaboration under pressure. Her response: “Breakdowns are when you break through.”

“95 per cent of people believe they are better at collaboration than others. Almost no one thinks they are the problem.”

The people she most enjoys working with challenge each other, hold different views and are willing to have tough conversations. Working through those moments brings people together rather than pulling them apart, she says. In other words, great collaboration isn’t about avoiding tension or making things feel smooth. It’s about how people handle the tension that’s already there. The difference between good and great collaborators shows up in what they focus on – especially when things get hard.

Do We Have the Right People?

When collaboration becomes challenging, leaders often ask themselves, “Do we have the right team mix? The right skills and personalities? Are roles clear?” These seem like fair questions, but research suggests they don’t tell us much. In 2012, Google ran one of the most rigorous team studies ever conducted. Project Aristotle studied 180 teams to determine which mix of people produced the best results. The outcome: there was no clear link between team composition and performance. It didn’t matter whether people had similar or different personalities, or whether they were friends or strangers. None of it predicted success. Google concluded that who is on a team matters far less than how the team works together. That shifts the question from Who do we have? to What happens between them? After more than a year of research, Project Aristotle found that group norms – not individual talent or personality – drive team effectiveness. Two norms matter most. The first is psychological safety. Team members need to feel safe to speak up, take risks, admit mistakes and challenge ideas without fear of embarrassment or punishment. Without it, individual intelligence never becomes collective intelligence because people stay silent. The second is conversational equity. Put simply, everyone gets to speak. Meetings don’t default to the loudest or most senior voice. Instead, people notice who hasn’t spoken and invite them in. High-performance collaboration, it turns out, depends on who speaks, who listens and what happens when things go wrong – not who’s in the room.

From “I” Gaps to “We” Gaps

This is where Third Factor’s survey of 164 leaders adds something useful. When we asked strong collaborators what skills they wanted to build, they pointed to skills that connect people – listening more deeply, creating clarity, building alignment and understanding others’ needs. They focused on the space between people. We called these “We gaps.” When we asked weaker collaborators the same question, their focus shifted inward. They wanted to speak up more, present ideas more clearly, build confidence and overcome shyness. These were “I gaps.”

“The person in “We gap” mode is curious about what hasn’t been said. They track the energy in the room and notice who hasn’t spoken. When they do speak, they ask questions that bring others in, not questions that make them look smart.”

You’ve likely seen both in meetings. The person in “I gap” mode quietly rehearses what they’ll say while someone else is talking. They’re focused on their own next move. The person in “We gap” mode is curious about what hasn’t been said. They track the energy in the room and notice who hasn’t spoken. When they do speak, they ask questions that bring others in, not questions that make them look smart. This distinction is at the heart of what makes a great collaborator. It’s not about having the most to say, it’s about paying attention to what the group needs.

What Great Collaborators Do Differently

The shift from “I gaps” to “We gaps” separates great collaborators from good ones. When teams struggle, strong collaborators don’t look for more influence for themselves. They work to strengthen the relationships, systems and habits that help the group perform. To see how this plays out, I often think back to Tracy Wilson. She told me about two Olympic skating champions she coaches. At the end of practice, neither leaves right away. Instead, they stay and fill in the ice divots together. These are athletes at the peak of individual performance, each competing for the same gold medal. Still, they choose to take care of each other and their shared environment. As Tracy explains, top performers push, inspire and learn from each other. They believe that they were better because of each other, because this is the culture that has been created. Great collaborators think the same way. They spot pressure points early and work together to address them before they grow. Another coach I spoke with made a similar point. Mel Davidson, one of Canada’s most decorated hockey coaches, helped the national women’s team win four Olympic gold medals and one silver medal. One of the tough challenges her teams face is final cuts. Olympic Hockey teams rely on alternates – players who put their lives on hold, do all the work required to be ready for the Olympics, but unless a teammate gets hurt, will not play and will not win a medal. Early on, Mel told players what she expected from alternates. The message didn’t land. So she changed her approach. Long before final cuts, she brought the team together and asked: What do you expect from alternates? How should they act? She stopped asking players to meet her standard and asked them to define their own. And it worked. By shifting from “What do I expect of you?” to “What do we expect of each other?” the team did the work together. Mel created the conditions to build a shared clarity on expectations. [Note: This dynamic of creating accountability through shared expectations can be further explored in Great Leaders Make Accountability Feel Like a Team Sport].

Trust Accelerates Everything

Scott Vicary is a senior executive I’ve worked with for nearly 20 years. Every time he steps into a new role, he runs a team kickoff focused on alignment and trust. What sets him apart is that he doesn’t hand the team a set of values. He asks them to create it together. As he told me, “They need to feel like they own it. They created it. They’ve got some sort of piece of it they can take with them. When the team creates the values and approach, they carry weight. When they’re handed down, they’re just words.” Scott is also clear about what gets in the way. At a recent meeting, he said, “Just because you have roles that require other people to do things for you doesn’t mean those people will simply listen and comply. The only way we are going to drive innovation and change is if we build relationships based on trust and respect. Without trust and respect, there is no mutually willing effort. And without mutually willing effort, nothing truly innovative gets done.” Scott embodies what makes a great collaborator in senior leadership: he doesn’t treat trust as a soft idea. He treats it as the operating system for everything else.

“That shift doesn’t happen by accident. It occurs when leaders focus on what happens between people, rather than on how individuals perform.”

When collaboration breaks down, Scott focuses on the space between people, not the people themselves. He asks team members to put themselves in each other’s shoes and assume others are acting in the group’s best interest. In his experience, most issues start to resolve when people do this. After a recent kickoff, Scott sent a note that captured the “We gap” in plain terms: “Our success doesn’t rely only on our plans or expertise – it depends on how well we work with the groups around us. Trust accelerates everything.” He also defined what trust looks like: be clear, be consistent, communicate openly – especially when things get hard – assume positive intent and listen carefully under pressure. Scott shared one moment that stuck with him. After a series of wins, one of his managers was invited to breakfast with the board and asked what drove the results. The manager didn’t list his achievements. He said, “I have the support of my leadership and the support of all my peers.” Scott called that a small piece of gold. It shows what’s possible when people shift from mine to ours. That shift doesn’t happen by accident. It occurs when leaders focus on what happens between people, rather than on how individuals perform. The gap between good and great collaboration isn’t filled by better team members or by making things more comfortable. It’s filled by people who pay attention to what happens between them. That’s a shift we can all make.

Key Takeaways:

  • You’re probably not as collaborative as you think. 95% of people believe they collaborate better than others. Almost no one thinks they’re the problem.
  • Who’s in the room matters less than what happens between them. Team composition doesn’t predict success, group norms do. Psychological safety and conversational equity drive high performance.
  • Great collaborators focus on “We gaps,” not “I gaps.” They pay attention to what the group needs — who hasn’t spoken, what’s unsaid, where tension is building — not their own next move.
  • Effective collaboration isn’t comfortable, it’s purposeful. Great collaborators don’t avoid tension. They work through it, and that’s what builds stronger teams.
  • Trust is the operating system, not a soft add-on. Clarity, consistency, and positive intent — focused on the space between people — accelerate everything else.

Meet our expert: Tracy Wilson, Olympic Figure Skater, Broadcaster & Third Factor Sport Advisor

Tracy Wilson how to support someone after failure?
Tracy Wilson is an Olympic bronze medallist and one of Canada’s most respected figure skating coaches and broadcasters. Alongside her late partner Rob McCall, she won seven consecutive national titles and made history as the first Canadian ice dancers to reach the Olympic podium. Following her competitive career, Tracy coached world-class athletes including Olympic champions Yuzuru Hanyu and Javier Fernández, and became a trusted voice for audiences on CBC, NBC, and TSN. As a member of the Third Factor Sport Advisory Board, she brings invaluable perspective on the mindset and methods that help athletes thrive under pressure.

“How do you support someone after failure, especially when the stakes are high and the moment has already passed?”

Knowing how to support someone after failure is one of the hardest things a coach, leader, or mentor has to do. There is no rewind button. The moment has passed, the result is set, and the person in front of you is somewhere between devastated and numb. What do you do?
At the recent Third Factor Client Appreciation Dinner in Toronto, Tracy Wilson was asked how she handles an athlete who has just fallen apart in a big moment. Her answer was honest, grounded in decades of experience in high-performance sport, and it applies just as much in the boardroom as it does on the ice.
Here are six principles drawn from that conversation.

01. There is no one right way to respond

The first thing Tracy will tell you is that there is no script for this. Knowing how to support someone after failure starts with understanding who is in front of you and where they are emotionally before doing or saying anything else.
She acknowledges the complexity directly: “It does depend on the athlete. And at my age, watching what I’ve watched, sometimes these big failures can turn you around and get you going in a better direction. You learn things about yourself. If you can hang in there, it can shoot you right up.”
But she is equally clear-eyed about how difficult it is to communicate that truth in the moment. The insight that failure can become fuel is real, it just can’t always be delivered right away. The job isn’t to rush in with a lesson. It’s to figure out what this person needs, right now.

02. Be present

In the immediate aftermath of a big failure, Tracy’s instinct is not to talk, it’s to listen. Or simply to be there.
“So then it’s really hearing them out. Asking questions, or actually being okay just to sit. And sometimes I have moments where you’re sitting with somebody and it is super uncomfortable, and you’re just focusing on your breath, because you just want to be there. You just want to be a calm presence.”
That phrase, “a calm presence” is worth pausing on. The temptation for coaches, leaders, and mentors is to fill silence with solutions. But in the immediate wake of failure, what most people need is not a fix. They need to feel that someone is with them in it.

03. Help them find what else is true

Once the initial storm has passed, people often start telling themselves a catastrophic story: it’s over, I blew it, I’ll never recover. Tracy’s most consistent move is to gently challenge that narrative. Failure has a way of narrowing our vision, and part of a coach’s or leader’s job is to widen it again.
She pointed to a specific example: someone close to her who failed a major school medical exam by a single point and was convinced his path to medicine was over. Tracy’s role was to help him find a more complete picture of reality.
“It was just trying to help somebody find the truth, because oftentimes it’s exaggerated. When they said to themselves, “This is the worst thing. I can never do this now. It’s over.” And all I am really helping them find is what else is true.”
That simple question, “what else is true?” doesn’t dismiss the failure or minimize the pain. It creates a little space around the story, space where possibility can re-enter. It helps them remember what else is true about themselves: “I am knowledgeable. I am tenacious. I really care about this. I work really hard.” It works just as well in a performance review debrief as it does rinkside.

04. Use hindsight and your own failures

One of Tracy’s most effective tools is perspective: using the person’s own past, and her own.
“The other thing I try to remind them of is hindsight. Have you seen this completely different in the past? And then I try to use examples of past failures I’ve had.”
There is something disarming about a coach or leader who has failed. It signals that failure is not disqualifying but part of the path. When Tracy draws on her own failings, she is not being humble. She is demonstrating that high performance and setback co-exist in every serious career – in sport and in business alike.

05. Help break the spin

After a setback, people tend to replay it over and over. That loop can be hard to break. For anyone caught in that circular thinking, Tracy often recommends something simple.
“Sometimes journalling helps, just to sort of write it down. For me, that would get the spinning out.”
The goal isn’t deep reflection or insight, it’s simply to externalize what’s churning internally so it stops consuming all available bandwidth. For leaders supporting a team member after a setback, even encouraging someone to write down what happened can be enough to shift them out of the spiral.

06. Hold the belief for them

Ultimately, Tracy’s message to anyone supporting someone after failure is one of belief in their resilience, even when they can’t access it themselves.
“You’re stronger than you know. Hang in there, and you’re gonna get to the good stuff.”
Alongside that: question the negativity. Ask whether the catastrophic narrative is actually true. Ask what else is true. Hold both. And when the person in front of you can’t find their own footing yet, your job is to stand on solid ground for them.    

Key Takeaways:

  • There is no script. How to support someone after failure depends on who they are and where they are in the moment. Read the person before reaching for the playbook.
  • Presence over prescription. In the immediate aftermath of failure, a calm, quiet presence is often more valuable than advice. Being comfortable sitting in discomfort is a leadership skill.
  • Ask “what else is true?” Failure narrows vision. The role of a coach or leader is to gently widen it again – not by dismissing the pain, but by creating space for a more complete picture.
  • Draw on your own failures. When leaders and coaches share their own setbacks, they signal that failure is survivable and that the path forward is real.
  • Help break the spin. Writing things down can interrupt the circular thinking that often follows a high-stakes failure.
  • Hold the belief for them. Sometimes people can’t access their own resilience. That’s when a coach or leader holds it for them, until they can hold it themselves.

Meet our expert: Christopher Farris Zabaneh, Associate Trainer

Christopher Farris Zabaneh is a consultant and coach with deep expertise in leadership and communication. As an Associate Trainer for Third Factor, Chris delivers the 3×4 Coaching and Building Resilience programs for organizations including Acuity, CX Rail, RBC, and IGM Financial. With a background spanning mechanical engineering, improv, and executive coaching, Chris brings a rare combination of precision and presence to how leaders communicate and develop others.

“Why does my team say they understand, but then do something different?”

In almost every coaching program I run, someone raises the same issue: they direct their team members to do something – a task, a project, or something else. Everyone listens and nods. Then they go off and do something completely different from what was asked. They said they understood, but clearly they didn’t. Why does this happen? As leaders, we tend to assume the mistake belongs to the team. They didn’t execute correctly. But in many cases, the real problem is how the message was delivered and, therefore, understood. You could say it was lost in translation. Linguists have a term for this: “pragmatic misunderstanding.” It’s what happens when people interpret the same words differently based on context, assumptions, and experience. One reason this often happens is that, early in our careers, we start adopting “corporate speak.” We’re told to “be more strategic,” “show better judgment,” “support the team on this one,” or – one of my favourites – “get buy-in.” These phrases feel meaningful. They seem to carry weight. But they’re also vague, and they certainly don’t tell anyone what to do. So how can we solve pragmatic misunderstandings and offer clear direction that people will understand and follow every time? In the rest of this column, I’ll explain the mistakes leaders often make when conveying a message to the team, and how to avoid them.

The Concept-to-Behaviour Gap

Try this in your next team meeting: Ask everyone to write down their definition of the word “efficient.” Then have them read their answers out loud. If you’re lucky, a few responses will match. Usually, though, you’ll get almost as many different (albeit sometimes related) answers as you have people. That’s not a language problem – it’s a shared-meaning problem. This gap shows up often in office communications: in how leaders give direction, offer feedback, and coach people through performance issues. When we speak in concepts, we’re essentially asking people to match our exact interpretation – or to correctly guess what we mean. Some will guess right. Others won’t. And when they miss, we tend to label it a performance issue (their fault) when it’s really a communications issue (our problem).

What Clear Communication Looks Like

How can we start improving communication? Consider these concept-heavy phrases that managers use all the time, alongside what they should say: “I need you to try harder on this project” becomes “I need you to block uninterrupted hours for this work and check in with me by Thursday if you think we’re going to miss the target.” “Be more patient with this person” becomes “When they bring you a problem, ask them two questions to understand where they’re coming from before you talk about solutions.” “I need your support on this one” becomes “I need you to share your position in the leadership meeting on Tuesday and back the recommendation when questions come in.” See how vague statements and corporate-speak can easily be misinterpreted? And how clear direction leaves almost no room for confusion? We know what we mean when we’re giving directions. But others may not. In each of the examples above, the intent is the same, but only the second version of each is clear and observable. You’re no longer asking people to interpret what you said. You’re showing them what to do.

Define What You Mean In The Next Sentence

You don’t need to eliminate concepts from your communication entirely. They can be a useful starting point because they signal intent. The issue is stopping there. If you use a concept, follow it with specifics. A simple test can help determine if you’re being precise enough: Imagine three people with notepads listening to what you said. Would they all write down the same thing? If the answer is no, or even maybe, you’re not specific enough yet. Shifting from concept to behaviour takes practice, especially if you’ve been operating in corporate-speak for years. For example, telling an employee to “share your draft with the team for input before you finalize it” rather than asking them to “be more collaborative” can feel uncomfortable. You may feel like you’re over-explaining or being too direct. But you’re not. You’re being clear. The good news: Over time, this approach cuts confusion, reduces the need to redo work, and improves performance. It also sets a standard for your employees to follow. When people hear specific, observable language consistently from you, they will start to use it themselves. That’s when real clarity takes hold – and when what you mean and what you say is what gets done.

Key Takeaways:

  • Most communication-clarity problems in teams stem from concept-heavy language and assumed behaviours, not team performance issues.
  • Concepts like “be more strategic” or “I need your support” require interpretation. Actionable behaviours don’t.
  • It’s okay to speak in concepts as long as you follow them with specific, observable behaviour changes.
  • The gap between what you think you said and what your team heard is usually invisible. Ask questions to clarify their understanding.
  • When you consistently model specific, behavioural language, your team will start using it too.

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This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, where we unpack both iconic and under-the-radar Olympic and Paralympic moments. In this feature, Monique Kavelaars, Director of Assessments & Team Coaching, reflects on lessons from the 2020 Tokyo Games, held at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. — The plane to Tokyo was silent. Back home in Canada, the Olympics would look the way they always do on polished TV broadcasts: sweeping shots of stadiums, stunning skylines, and close-ups of athletes at their best. But inside the aircraft carrying Canadian athletes to the Games, the feeling was entirely different. There was no buzz. No joking. No shared anticipation. Just quiet. And with it, a growing awareness among everyone on board: These Olympics would not feel like the Games we had all imagined. Normally, the Games are saturated with energy. The host city transforms. Flags line the streets. The weight and pride of representing your country hits the moment you step off the plane. Tokyo was different. These were the Games of 2021, delayed by a year due to the pandemic. The virus was still sweeping the world, and strict health protocols shaped every aspect of the experience. Athletes could arrive only days before their event and had to leave within 48 hours of competing. Movement was restricted. Social spaces were controlled. Spectators were absent. The usual swirl of family, friends, fans, and media simply wasn’t there. What emerged instead was an intimacy that was both unexpected and unsettling. For some athletes, the lack of external stimulation helped. Fewer distractions. Less noise. A clearer path to focus. For others – especially those in individual or multi-day events – the absence of atmosphere created a quiet, persistent question: Is this really the Olympics? At night, the stillness would occasionally break. Teams gathered inside their country residences, setting up projectors to watch events they would normally attend in person. When Italy’s Marcell Jacobs won the men’s 100 metres, the Italian residence erupted. No cameras captured it. The sounds of the celebration instead echoed through the village. The next day, that energy spilled into shared spaces in a way that rarely happens during the usual chaos of the Games. Athletes had to deal with a lot of downtime. With fewer ways to decompress – no exploring the city, no meals with family, no spontaneous celebrations – athletes were left mostly with their thoughts. For those processing a performance, especially one that didn’t go as planned, that isolation could feel heavy. Normally, there is movement, distraction, and connection. In Tokyo, there was often just a quiet walk back to a room. Coaches and federations worked hard to create some sense of normal. In many cases, their support was remarkable. But the conditions were far from ideal. All this raises a deeper question that extends far beyond sport: What do you do when the conditions you prepared for no longer exist? The lessons from Tokyo go well beyond the athletes to offices and boardrooms.

Lesson #1: Perfect Conditions Are a Myth

One of the clearest lessons from Tokyo is that “perfect conditions” are largely an illusion. Athletes spend years preparing, yet competition is always uncertain. They never know exactly how their body will respond, how opponents will perform, or what the environment will deliver on the day that matters most. Tokyo made that impossible to ignore. There were no guarantees. No familiar routines. No comforting rituals. Daily COVID testing became part of life. Every morning meant spitting in a tube and waiting. Stories circulated of athletes testing positive and being sent to the “fever clinic.” Each time, the village would ripple with silent worry. And still, athletes showed up to compete. I remember one athlete in an individual event whose entire Olympic experience lasted nine minutes. One performance. First round. Done. This was not the Games she had imagined. Within 48 hours, she was on a plane home. When we spoke, she was heartbroken. Not just about the result, but about the experience she missed. She couldn’t explore Tokyo. She couldn’t soak up the atmosphere and carry it forward into the next four-year cycle. “I don’t want to go yet,” she said. “I still want to feel the Olympics.” That moment captured the emotional whiplash of Tokyo. Years of preparation compressed into minutes, followed by an abrupt exit from a city she barely saw. And yet, she stepped in knowing this might happen. That willingness to enter uncertainty is the essence of sport. It also mirrors leadership and business more than we wish to admit. At work, we try to control what we can: plans, timelines, strategies, forecasts. We design “ideal conditions” in our heads and on our slides. But at some point, courage becomes simpler than that. We need to ask: What is mine to control right now? Then commit to that fully, even when the picture is incomplete. The bar shifts from “I will only perform if conditions are perfect” to “I will perform under the conditions that actually exist.” Listen to Monique describe how perfect conditions are a myth:

Lesson #2: Self-Awareness Is a Performance Skill

When the external environment changes, self-awareness becomes non-negotiable. It becomes a performance skill. Many athletes rely on specific conditions to bring out their best. Some feed off the energy of a crowd. Others depend on routines and rituals. Others draw strength from the presence of family or familiar faces. In Tokyo, much of that disappeared. Athletes were forced to ask new questions: These weren’t theoretical questions. You could see them play out in ordinary moments, like the dining hall. One day, news spread that a Dutch rower had tested positive. Soon after, their delegation began eating in a cordoned-off section tucked into a corner, behind additional glass partitions. They were in the same room as everyone else, yet unmistakably separated. The signal wasn’t just “they have COVID.” It was the uncertainty of not knowing who might be next. Everyone shared the same building, the same air. Suddenly, the invisible risk became visible. For some athletes, it triggered anxiety. For others, it sharpened focus. Either way, it demanded awareness – and more questions: The same holds true for leaders. In times of disruption, copying what works for others rarely works for us. The best coaches in Tokyo understood this. They protected individual performance needs rather than imposing a single approach on everyone. Self-awareness isn’t introspection for its own sake. It’s knowing what you need to sustain performance when familiar supports disappear – and being honest enough to ask for, or build, those conditions. Listen to Monique describe how self-awareness is a performance skill:

Lesson #3: Presence Calms the System

In Tokyo, just arriving felt like an achievement. Between testing protocols, travel restrictions, health concerns, and constant logistical hurdles, getting to the Games was a maze. For many athletes, coaches, and staff, stepping into the village carried real emotional weight. Thinking too far ahead—to medals, expectations, outcomes – only amplified anxiety. Presence became more than a mindset. It became a stabilizer. Staying anchored to the next task, the next decision, the next controllable action helped athletes manage fear, disappointment, and even success. Because even success was disorienting. Celebrations were brief. Support systems were limited. Within two days of competing, many athletes were back home, sitting on a familiar couch, trying to process an experience that ended almost as quickly as it began. Uncertainty didn’t end with competition. It followed them home. The parallel to today’s work environment is hard to miss. Markets shift. Plans change. AI is reshaping roles and workflows in ways we can see but not yet fully understand. Conditions are moving faster than our slide decks. The leaders who navigate this best aren’t the ones who eliminate uncertainty. They’re the ones who stay present inside it. Presence doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It means acknowledging what’s hard, then returning to a simple question: Given everything going on, what matters most right now? Listen to Monique describe how presence can help focus attention:

Beyond Tokyo: Adapting When the Script Changes

The Tokyo Games offered a powerful reminder: resilience isn’t about grinding endlessly. It’s about adapting intelligently when the script changes. It starts with acceptance. Some conditions are out of your control. The first step is to separate what you can’t influence from what you can – and invest your energy there. It also requires honest self-recognition: Finally, presence is a discipline. Returning attention to what matters now – not what you wish were different – creates space for better decisions and better performance. The dining hall in Tokyo captured this paradox perfectly. Athletes moved through masked, partitioned spaces. Delegations like the Dutch, seated behind glass after a positive case, were a constant reminder that uncertainty was everywhere. It was strange. At times chaotic. And undeniably real. Performance didn’t stop because conditions weren’t perfect. It adapted. And that may be the most enduring lesson of all.  

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This article is part of Third Factor’s Story Behind the Story series, in which we unpack the stories behind both iconic and under-the-radar Olympic and Paralympic moments. In this feature, Olympian and Third Factor Associate Trainer Karyn Garossino discusses the importance of control and how it shaped her approach to competing at the Olympics. –

“In high-performance sport, and in fact much of all high performance, consistency is the holy grail.”

–Karyn Garossino

From the outside, Karyn and Rod Garossino’s ice dancing performance at the 1988 Calgary Olympics looked like a hometown dream. A brother and sister from rural Alberta. Competing for Canada. An Olympics on home ice. Five flawless performances on the biggest stage in sport. What people saw was excellence. What they did not see was how hard it was to stay steady enough to deliver it. For Karyn, the Olympics were shaped by two moments she could never have predicted. One came before the competition even began, while athletes waited to enter the opening ceremonies. The other came standing at centre ice, when a roaring hometown crowd would not stop cheering. Together, these moments revealed something essential about high performance: preparation matters, but so does an ability to adapt when things do not go as planned.

From Carstairs to the Olympic Stage

Karyn and her brother Rod grew up in Carstairs, Alberta, where skating was simply part of Prairie life. What started as a love of the sport became a serious pursuit, supported by strong coaching, family commitment, and years of disciplined training. In 1981, the pair won junior ice dance gold at the Canadian National Skating Championships, and throughout the decade, they competed at the highest level in Canadian, international and World Championships. Then Calgary won the bid to host the 1988 Olympic Games. Suddenly, the idea of competing at a hometown Games became real. As that moment got closer, so did the pressure. Like many athletes facing a once-in-a-lifetime moment, Karyn prepared not only physically but mentally for what it would feel like to perform under a global spotlight.

Different Fabric. Same Cloth.

One of Karyn’s most vivid Olympic memories came before the competition started. Athletes from around the world gathered in a staging area ahead of the opening ceremonies. Each team was dressed in its country’s colours. But as the wait stretched on, things got a little playful: jackets were briefly traded, hats and scarves were exchanged, and the differences between teams started to fade.

“We were wearing different fabric, but were cut from the same cloth.”

What Karyn felt in that moment was a deep sense of connection and the awe of belonging to the historic Olympic movement. These athletes represented different nations, but they shared similarities – years of sacrifice, discipline, routine, and the pursuit of excellence. In her words, “we were wearing different fabric, but were cut from the same cloth.” One by one the nations left to join the ceremonies saving the host country to march in last. Then Team Canada entered the stadium. The sound of 85,000 people thundered through the building. In that instant, she realized something else: This was not just her Olympics, or even just the athletes’ Olympics It was our Games. The moment belonged to everyone who had made it possible: athletes, coaches, families, volunteers, organizers, sponsors, and an entire country. What she expected to feel as an individual competitor became something much bigger: the incredible honour of wearing red and white and representing the extraordinary collective effort of a nation.

The Crowd Wouldn’t Stop Cheering

If the opening ceremonies created awe, the competition brought a different kind of pressure. When Karyn and Rod were announced onto centre ice, the crowd erupted. That part was expected. What was not was that the cheering didn’t stop. Normally, once skaters take their position, the arena quiets and the music begins. But this audience kept cheering, waving flags, and feeding even more energy into the building. The music could not start until the arena settled, so Karyn and Rod stood in position and waited. And waited. For a brief instant, they felt the weight of what was happening. They exchanged a smile and a shared realization: Oh my God, we’re at the Olympics. It was a deeply human moment. But it was also risky. Because even positive energy can get in the way of performance. The challenge was not only handling fear or adversity. It was managing excitement, emotion, and the significance of the moment. Karyn knew they had to get back to what they had trained for. They turned to breathwork, a skill they had practised for years to steady themselves under pressure. Within three exhales, they were back in form. Their activation level dropped. Their focus returned. Their physiology settled. The crowd eventually quieted, the music began, and they performed brilliantly. They achieved a 12th-place Olympic finish. The next year, they would win gold at the senior Canadian Championships. Looking back, what lessons did Karyn learn from her Olympic experience that are helpful to anyone facing high-performance situations? Here, she helps us understand three practical takeaways:

Lesson #1: Consistency Is Built Before the Moment

Karyn describes consistency as the holy grail of high performance: the ability to deliver what you are capable of in any condition, not just ideal ones. That consistency was built long before the moment arrived. Karyn and Rod prepared not only their skating but also their mindset. Through imagery and planning, they anticipated the noise, emotion, and pressure of the Games so they would not be overwhelmed. That is a critical lesson for any high achiever – whether in sports or business. The goal is not to hope everything goes perfectly. It is to be ready when it doesn’t. Consistency is not about controlling the environment. It is about training how to respond to it. Listen to Karyn describe how consistency is built before the moment:

Lesson #2: Control What You Can Control

One of Karyn’s clearest lessons from Calgary is simple: high performers must learn to distinguish between what they can control and what they cannot. She could not control the crowd. She could not make the audience quiet down. She could not change the scale of the moment. What she could control was her own internal state. That distinction matters because pressure grows when we fixate on things we cannot change. Recovery begins when we return to what we can manage: our breathing, our attention, our preparation, and our next move. In that moment on the ice, the solution for Karyn was not to fight the environment. It was to return to the training that brought her to the Games. Listen to Karyn distinguish what you can control and what you cannot:

Lesson #3: Breathwork Is a Performance Skill

Karyn is clear that the breathing exercise she used in Calgary was not improvised. She had practised it for years. Its purpose was to manage the body when the outside world became overwhelming. Slow, controlled breathing gave her a direct way to regulate her physiology and recover focus. Her method was simple: breathe low and breathe slow. Under pressure, breathing rises high into the chest and speeds up. But when breathing starts lower in the body, from the diaphragm, and the exhale lasts longer than the inhale, the body begins to relax. That matters because physiology drives performance. If your body is overstimulated, thinking narrows and execution suffers. When your physiology settles, your trained skill improves. In Calgary, three breaths were enough because Karyn and Rod’s skills were already there. That is what makes breathwork so powerful: it is not just a calming technique; it is a trained performance tool. Listen to Karyn provide insight into how breathwork is a performance skill:

Practical Tool: Return to Centre in Three Breaths

When pressure rises unexpectedly, use this simple reset: This is not about becoming calm for its own sake. It is about executing what you’re capable of and meeting the moment with excellence.  

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