(highlight:: I have a hunch that maybe one of the things that is different about the place that I work, is that we don’t need to have those conversations at the pub: we have them at work. Those conversations are the work.
Having spent the last couple of years working in an organisation that values this kind of emotional expression, I now reinterpret those conversations in a completely new light. Hiding within each of those frustrations is a process improvement, a breakthrough in thinking, a strategic realignment, an organisational innovation, a new role description waiting to happen.
But to uncover the nugget of gold, you need to make space to hear the negative emotion. You need to be allowed to have feelings at work! This means rejecting the notion of “professionalism” as a mask you put on when you walk into the office. It means creating a space where everyone is safe to bring their whole selves to work. A space where people can be present.)
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- conflict, conflict avoidance, professionalism, workplace culture, psychological safety, organizational culture, organizational development,

(highlight:: When you come to my office I will give you a quick tour of the space: here is the kitchen, the bathroom is there, those people are working on such-and-such, our meeting is in this room… It’s all part of the work of orienting and preparing people to collaborate.
A settling practice that we employ in almost every single meeting is the “check in”. People arrive, find their seats, and quiet down. Then the host will trigger the “check in” round with a simple question: What brings you to this meeting? or How are you? or What’s on your mind?
Laptops close. We take turns to answer. One by one, each of us speaks, and each of us is heard. Now all our voices are in the room, we are present, and we are ready to work.)
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- meetings, group settling, check-in, group sharing, rapport,

(highlight:: An effective collaborative organisation is just a series of productive encounters: a group of people comes together to exchange information and agree next actions, then they break off to do the work, then they come back together again.
On and on, like respiration.
Inhale, exhale.
Converge, diverge.)
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(highlight:: Inside that legal container, we’ve evolved a bunch of processes. I’m not going to name all of them in this article, but I can leave some hints: rhythm, noticing, talking, listening, supporting, improvising, acknowledgement, visibility, perspective taking, turn taking, praising, reflecting, manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga, creating space, holding space, sharing power, ritual making…
It’s hard to put this stuff in words because so much of it emerges from an oral culture, as opposed to a literate culture. Capturing it in a shareable form is one of our big challenges at the moment. There’s a few scratchings in this handbook that might help.)
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Once again, this is a vexed issue, because there is no such thing as a perfectly inclusive space. If you try to include everyone, you’ll include people whose behaviour excludes others. Community is defined by its boundaries, so the question becomes, where do we want to draw our boundaries? What behaviours do we want to include? If someone is getting close to a border, how do we want to treat them?
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