Come to Me When You're Knee-Deep, Not When You're Drowning

"Don't come to me when you're drowning. Come to me when you're knee-deep."

It's something I say to my nursing team a lot.

If you're already drowning, of course I still want you to come to me. But if you can see things starting to build, tell me then. There are usually more options while we still have time.

It's about timing.

In the emergency department, if a nurse can see their workload becoming unmanageable, I'd much rather hear about it early. When someone tells me sooner, I might be able to move a resource, ask someone else to help or change what we're prioritising. Once it has already escalated, my options are usually much more limited.

Or, as I tend to put it: let's start fixing things before shit hits the fan.

This article is mostly for managers, supervisors and team leaders, because the way you respond has a lot to do with whether people speak up early. But if you're the one sitting on a concern right now, there's something in here for you too.

Why does raising concerns early matter?

Because the same problem usually has more solutions earlier.

Take a lunch break. If a staff member can see at 11am that they're going to struggle to get their break, and they tell their team leader, there's time to organise cover. Someone can be moved. A task can wait.

If they tell the team leader at 3pm that they haven't had a break, it's a different conversation. Now it's about catching up on something that's already been missed.

It works the same way outside healthcare. If an important email reply looks like it'll take a few days, telling your manager on day one gives the team time to start on a Plan B. Waiting until day four to say nothing has happened just means four days are gone.

Nothing about the problem changed. What changed was the time left to do something about it.

When problems only surface once they've escalated, leaders can end up stuck in crisis mode. I've written about why that's a hard place to lead from in When to Manage, When to Lead.

What does knee-deep look like at work?

Knee-deep is when you can see where something is heading, but there's still room to change it.

Why don't people speak up earlier?

From what I see, it's usually not laziness or poor judgement. It's something more human. People might:

• worry they'll look like they aren't coping
• not want to add to a busy manager's load
• think they need a solution before they say anything
• not be sure it's really a problem yet
• remember how it went last time they said something

Feeling embarrassed, or not wanting to be a burden, is normal. But staying quiet can give a small problem room to grow.

Research on self-censorship at work points to two common reasons people hold back: fear of what might happen, and a belief that speaking up won't change anything. I touched on this in last week's piece on how to start a difficult conversation at work.

What happened last time someone spoke up is something leaders have a lot of influence over.

Raising a concern is useful information

Some people hold back because they don't want to sound like they're complaining. Others think they need to be certain first, or have the fix ready.

You don't need to be certain, and you don't need the fix.

Raising a concern gives someone information they may not have yet. That's true whether it's about something that might go wrong this afternoon or something that's already happened. A complaint about last week's roster, or a handover that fell apart, can still point to a real problem that needs action.

And you don't need a solution before you ask for help. Sometimes you'll have an idea. Sometimes you won't. Sometimes the right answer is for a manager to step in, because they have the authority, resources or wider view that you don't. That's part of the job.

If you're the one raising it, simple language helps:

• "Heads up, I can see my afternoon getting tight."
• "I'm not sure this is a problem yet, but I wanted to flag it."
• "I haven't heard back from them. Can we talk about a Plan B?"
• "I need some help with this."

For managers: your response decides whether they speak up next time

You can tell your team your door is always open. People learn whether that's true by what happens when they walk through it.

In a study of more than 3,000 restaurant employees, researchers James Detert and Ethan Burris found that managerial openness was more consistently linked to staff speaking up than a broader, inspirational leadership style. It's one study in one industry. But it matches something plenty of us see at work: how you respond matters more than what you say about being approachable.

Asking for help works in a similar way, which I explored in Why Are Employees Afraid to Ask for Help at Work?

When the concern turns out to be minor

Sometimes someone raises a concern and it turns out to be fine. When that happens, I still thank them.

People have different levels of experience, knowledge and confidence. Sometimes they just need another person's perspective to know whether what they're seeing matters.

If they get a sigh, an eye roll or "that's nothing", they learn something too. Next time, they might hesitate. And next time might be the one that really matters.

Your response to a small concern can decide whether you hear about the big one.

What to say, and what to try instead

A few responses worth trying:

• "Thanks for telling me now."
• "What would help right now?"
• "Even if it turns out to be nothing, I'd rather know."

And a few common responses worth swapping:

That last one matters. Criticise the timing, and the lesson people take away may not be "raise it earlier". It might be "don't raise it at all". You can still talk about timing. Just do it once the problem's been dealt with, and calmly.

Be honest about the limits, then close the loop

Raising something early doesn't guarantee a fix. Sometimes you'll be able to step in and sort it. Sometimes you'll work it out together. Sometimes there's no one to move and nothing to swap.

Be honest either way. "Here's what I can do, and here's what I can't" is still useful. So is "I can't get you extra help right now, but let's work out what can wait."

Then close the loop. Agree when you'll check back in, and let them know what happened. It helps show them that raising it was worth it.

How to encourage your team to speak up earlier

Waiting for people to come to you puts all the effort on them. You can make it easier by asking.

One question worth trying at a huddle, handover or team check-in:

"What's starting to get tight?"

It's specific enough to get real answers, and low-stakes enough that people may not feel like they're admitting failure. "Anything heading our way we should know about?" works too.

Asked regularly, it can help early raising feel normal. It's also one of the signs worth watching for after a team culture workshop: concerns getting raised earlier, while they're still small.

When it can't wait

A check-in question is for emerging concerns. Immediate safety concerns and serious risks are different. If someone could be harmed, or something serious is happening right now, escalate it straight away through the right channel or your workplace's reporting process. Don't wait for the next huddle.

Keep the conversation going

Want something to use with your team this week? Download Before It Becomes a Problem, a free two-page manager's guide with phrases that invite early concerns, what to say when someone raises one, and a short reflection. No email required.

If you'd like your team to practise these conversations together, that's part of my Speak Up, Set Limits, Build Trust workshop. For longer-term development, there's also my Human Skills training for Melbourne businesses. Get in touch and we can talk about what would suit your team.