# This Is How Organisations Heal | Phil Lewis | TEDxUWS

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhdqiItCPe4
Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/WhdqiItCPe4
Generated: 2026-03-11T16:33:39.918+00:00

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## Quick Overview

Organisations heal by recognizing and actively addressing the "elephant in the room"—the collective negative energy or unaddressed problems that people avoid discussing, which the speaker Phil Lewis suggests manifests as poor team energy, decreased client satisfaction, and high turnover, contrasting this with the positive energy of good performance.

**Key Points:**
- The speaker identifies three types of injury in organizations: the "elephant" (avoided problems), the "hangover" (unaddressed negative feelings), and the "porcelain figure" (easy-to-break high-performer).
- A study from Harvard suggested that 15 minutes of reflection time per day can improve team performance by 23%.
- The CEO who was being coached by Lewis had an issue where his lead operations guy, who was not visionary, was hindering progress.
- Poor energy in an organization (like that leading to burnout) is not because people are machines, but because they are organisms reacting to their environment.
- Lewis suggests that when energy is low, it is because the people and the organization have sustained an injury they have not acknowledged or healed.
- The speaker advocates for stopping the avoidance of difficult conversations (the elephant/hangover) and actively working to shift bad energy into good energy.

![Screenshot at 02:44: Speaker Phil Lewis gesturing to illustrate the concept of the "elephant in the room"—the difficult, avoided issues that negatively affect organizational energy and performance.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/WhdqiItCPe4/00-02-44.jpg)

**Context:** Phil Lewis presents at TEDxUWS about organizational health, using the metaphor of the "elephant in the room" to describe avoided problems that negatively impact workplace energy and performance. He shares personal anecdotes, including coaching a CEO whose operations lead was hindering progress, to illustrate how unaddressed issues—which he categorizes into three types of organizational injury—create a toxic environment characterized by low morale and high turnover.

## Detailed Analysis

Phil Lewis argues that poor organizational energy, leading to issues like burnout and high turnover, stems from unacknowledged problems he metaphorically terms the "elephant in the room." He contrasts the negative energy felt during meetings where people are avoiding difficult conversations with the positive energy associated with high performance. Lewis outlines three types of organizational injury: the 'elephant' (unaddressed issues), the 'hangover' (lingering negative feelings), and the 'porcelain figure' (a high-performer who is too fragile to handle conflict). He recounts a personal coaching experience with a CEO whose progress was stalled by a non-visionary operations lead. Lewis cites a Harvard study suggesting that just 15 minutes of daily reflection time can improve team performance by 23%. The core message is that organizations must stop treating people like machines and start acknowledging and addressing these difficult conversations and patterns to shift the collective energy from bad to good.

### The Problem of Avoidance

- People often avoid difficult conversations about politics, succession, or failures, leading to bad energy and poor performance metrics like burnout.

### Three Types of Organizational Injury

- Lewis identifies the 'elephant' (avoided issues), the 'hangover' (lingering negative feelings), and the 'porcelain figure' (fragile high-performers) as key obstacles to healing.

### The Cost of Silence

- The CEO's company was losing £12 million in three minutes due to these unaddressed issues, illustrating the tangible cost of avoiding uncomfortable truths.

### The Solution

- A simple suggestion is to dedicate 15 minutes a day to discuss one difficult topic, or to take 15 minutes to write down what needs to change, thereby shifting bad energy toward good energy.

![Screenshot at 00:02: Introduction slide displaying the TEDxUWS branding, indicating an independently organized TED event.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/WhdqiItCPe4/00-00-02.jpg)
![Screenshot at 02:54: Speaker Phil Lewis using hand gestures to emphasize the concept of the "elephant" or problem that people avoid discussing in the workplace.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/WhdqiItCPe4/00-02-54.jpg)
![Screenshot at 04:48: Speaker gesturing to illustrate the size of the problem—the "elephant"—that is being ignored within the organization.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/WhdqiItCPe4/00-04-48.jpg)
![Screenshot at 13:56: Speaker asking the audience to consider the first question regarding what he, as a leader, avoided discussing with his team.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/WhdqiItCPe4/00-13-56.jpg)