I had a wonderful 24 hours last week: a private dinner held at Evelyn Partners, followed by the Women in Football BeInspired conference. They involved a lot of conversations with people I don’t work with, a blend of friendly faces and new ones.
At some point, I caught myself talking about the people I work with.
And before my colleagues start panic-reading this, there wasn’t any moaning. I was talking about them with something that sounded like admiration. About the confidence the team has developed in themselves and one another over 2026. About the culture and the camaraderie that’s developed, about the trust, the respect, and the meaningful challenge between people who genuinely like each other.
I found myself saying some cliche line like, “there’s something special brewing”.
Then this week I’ve realised I’ve been sharing those views with relative strangers, yet I’m not sure I’ve said any of it to my colleagues recently.
Why that happens
It isn’t that I’m actively withholding it, but I think it’s that we’re always in the current thing, or already starting the next one. There’s always a search to be engrossed in, clients needing time, a deadline that moved up. So appreciation is the one item on the list with no due date, so it gets deferred and just quietly pushed into a week that never arrives, yet my wife and kids hear it all over dinner.
The daft part is that this should be the easy thing to do. The criticism you’ve never said out loud at least has a rational reason for staying unsaid… it can be awkward, it carries risk, you’re worried about getting it wrong. Admiration or praise has no real excuse, we just don’t prioritise it.
Question 003
What have you said about your team that you’ve never said to them?
It might be the frustration you’ll share at a conference after-party but never in your 1:1. Or it might be like mine, the good thing. The “honestly, they’re bloody brilliant!” that you’ve somehow forgotten to say recently.
Both are the same failure.
Something true, that is said everywhere except where it would matter the most.
So give it a go.
Try it on your own to start by working out what it was, and who should have heard it. Let them know but don’t focus on perfection, just make sure it’s said. A phone call on the way to training in the morning tomorrow, or share it in-person over coffee later today when you’re in the gym together.
Then for your team, my advice is don’t make it an in-person shared exercise. I would just send them this, tell them yours, and let them handle their own. Just nudge them to do it in the next 48 hours.
And if it’s more constructive feedback, it’s worth reminding that deserves more privacy, a bit more preparation and a probably door that closes.
I’ve made a start, but I can always do a better job of sharing my appreciation. So thank you to those that have subscribed to these ramblings and told me about how you’re implementing with your teams.
Let me know if this one helped, and see you next week.