Status Over Truth→Make Truth CheapThe root
- Symptoms
- Bad news arrives late. Status stays green until it can’t. The room waits for the senior voice.
- Practices
- The Speak-Last Rule · Own-It-First · Amber Is Allowed
Communication & team dynamics consulting
Teams don’t fail from a lack of process. They fail when status matters more than truth.
Consulting on communication and team dynamics for small-business and mid-market leaders. We name the seven patterns that quietly break teams and put practices in place that fix them.
A short conversation to see if this work fits your team. No pitch theater.
The framework
Name the pattern. Install the practice.
Every team problem below starts as a behavior you can see. Call them the seven deadly sins of business if you like: seven predictable patterns in how teams communicate, own work, and execute. Each has a remedy and practices you can run this week. A pattern describes how the team is working. It is never a label for a person.
Credit Scarcity→Shared Wins
- Symptoms
- Handoffs turn political. Credit gets rationed. People stop helping adjacent wins.
- Practices
- Name Their Win · Specific Credit, Upward · Help Them Win
Heat Over Clarity→Composed Candor
- Symptoms
- Escalations feel like ambushes. Delays come with a villain. The real talk happens after the meeting.
- Practices
- The Overnight Draft · Cause Before Culprit · Steelman First
Control Hoarding→Distributed Authority
- Symptoms
- Work stops when one person is out. Tasks get delegated, but decisions don’t.
- Practices
- Give One Away Weekly · Decision Rights, Written · Go Where the Work Is
Busy Avoidance→Hard-Thing Discipline
- Symptoms
- Calendars are full while the one decision that matters waits “until next week.”
- Practices
- One Hard Thing First · Close Before You Open · The 48-Hour Rule
Priority Overload→Capacity Discipline
- Symptoms
- Everything is P1. The roadmap only grows. Quality quietly slips.
- Practices
- Trade, Don’t Add · The Not-Now List
Shiny-Object Drift→Follow-Through Focus
- Symptoms
- New tools and initiatives start before the last ones land, and the team waits out the enthusiasm.
- Practices
- The 90-Day Commitment Rule · Close Before You Open
Which one is running your room?
Most teams feel two or three at once. The free 50-question assessment points to your top one or two, and a discovery call is where we decide which one to work on first.
Take the assessment →Pattern: what’s happeningSymptoms: what the team seesRemedy: the fixPractices: what to do this weekHow the framework works →
How it works
From what’s breaking to what to practice first
1
Discovery call
We map what’s breaking communication on your team: the patterns, the pressure points, and which of the seven patterns is costing you the most. Bring your assessment results if you have them.
2
Diagnosis → practice
You leave with a plain-language read of the dynamics and one or two concrete practices worth putting in place first. No binder of theory.
3
Optional deeper work
If it’s a fit, we design the next engagement around your real complexity: leadership conversations, cohort work, or a focused reset. If it isn’t, you’ll know quickly.
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About Adam
Consulting, not a keynote.
Adam Herb helps small-business and mid-market leaders repair communication and team dynamics when collaboration starts to cost more than it creates.
His background spans IT delivery, leadership and training & development, and complex project and vendor environments: work where ownership gets fuzzy, meetings multiply, and outcomes still have to land.
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Ready to talk?
Come ready with one live tension on your team. That’s enough.