46 Gustavo Razzetti: False harmony - why executive teams get stuck

Most leadership teams don’t lack intelligence or good intentions. What they lack is the courage — and the structure — to name what everyone already sees.In this episode of Growing Pains, Ewa Hutmacher is joined by Gustavo Razzetti — culture strategist, bestselling author, and CEO of Fearless Culture, for a candid conversation about false harmony: the quiet agreement that makes teams feel aligned while real issues remain untouched.We explore why leaders confuse politeness with alignment, how silence at the top is often misread as consent, and why teams don’t get stuck because they disagree — but because they stop believing that speaking up will change anything.Drawing on decades of work with executive teams across the world, Gustavo Razzetti shares why avoided conversations create hidden costs, how groupthink disguises itself as consensus, and what it actually takes to move from nice conversations to decisions that stick.A question to sit with: What does your team call “alignment”? What are you actually avoiding? Gustavo Razzetti is the bestselling author of Remote, Not Distant, Stretch for Change, and his forthcoming book, Forward Talk. He’s facilitated more than 1,500 workshops with leadership teams at Mars, Microsoft, Merck, the Inter-American Development Bank, and hundreds of organizations across the world. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewahutmacher.substack.com