Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm specializing in retaining, engaging, and developing talent.

You know, I do a lot of things in my day job, and I also moonlight as a soccer mom.

And if I'm honest, sometimes it feels like the soccer mom gig is harder than the running the business part.

I show up on the sidelines to cheer for my kiddos, and I cheer.

I show support.

These are all good things, right?

But some of what I hear coming out of the mouths of the other parents,

let's just say I hear things that are mostly quick and definitely dirty, but not so much

appropriate for the quick and dirty tips network, if you know what I mean. Riled up parents are the

worst. But if you try to call them out in their behavior, they'll tell you they're just cheering for

their kids. This is how you show support. This is a thing that happens in the workplace, too.

I see it often where we let bad behavior hide behind some virtuous label, and then no one can

touch it, right? Collaboration, debate, empowerment. I mean, these are all things we're supposed

to strive for, right? Things that should make it rain gold stars on us. But even the most

virtuous behaviors can turn rotten if left unchecked. Today, let's chat about how these good guys

can turn bad and what you can do if you're seeing this play out in action. Let's start with

collaboration because everyone loves collaboration. It's a great way to get everybody involved and

invested, to get all the best ideas on the table, to capture all the pockets of expertise around

the company. And executed well, collaboration does many of these things, but also it's hard to execute

well. Often, our intent to collaborate ends up getting us stuck in the mud. We want

everybody to weigh in on the decision, which means it ends up taking forever. Or we find ourselves

being called into way too many projects and meetings in the name of collaboration when really we

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