Professional Work
Workplace Support
Some things at work need more than another meeting.
Confidential, neutral support for the people situations a manager shouldn't have to carry alone.
Two good people who can't seem to work together. Someone who's gone quiet, or whose work has started to slip, and no one's sure why. A tension everyone can feel and nobody wants to name. Situations like these don't fit inside a meeting, and they don't belong to one manager to solve alone.
That doesn't mean anything is wrong with your team. Every workplace has these. Some things are simply bigger than a status update, or they have been sitting too long, or they need someone the people involved can be completely honest with.
Let's Talk"It gave us a way to talk about tension without making it personal." HR Director, Company of 100+ Employees
What this is
The confidential, human side of the work, for the people situations a meeting or a manager can't resolve on their own. Sometimes that is support for one person. Sometimes it is two people who need help hearing each other. Sometimes it is a whole situation that has gone quiet without going away.
What it can look like
A confidential ear. Someone from outside the company an employee can actually talk to, when they are carrying something, or stuck on something, and don't know where to take it.
Mediation. When two people can't figure each other out, a neutral third person who helps them hear each other again, so they can get back to working together.
The conversation that keeps not happening. A facilitated version of the hard conversation that has been avoided, or that keeps going south when the same people attempt it alone.
Thinking room for leaders. A place for a manager or a leader to work through a stuck people-situation with someone who isn't in the middle of it.
Why it works from the outside
Even the best manager is in the middle of it. Even the best HR team sits inside the company. Some situations simply need a neutral outsider, someone with no stake and no reporting line, that people can be honest with in a way they can't always be internally.
This is the work I already do, every week. Half of my time is spent in confidential one-on-one conversations, helping people work through the things they can't say anywhere else. Bringing that into a workplace isn't a stretch for me. It's the same craft in a different room. And because I come from outside your company, people tend to tell me the thing they've been holding back.
That's usually the thing that moves the whole situation.
How it works
Some companies bring this in for a specific situation. Others fold it into a partnership: a regular check-in with each person on a smaller team, a standing session with leaders on a larger one. It is custom by company, ad hoc or ongoing, as much or as little as a situation actually needs.
What's possible
The person everyone quietly learned to work around is back in the flow of the team. Two people who couldn't work together can. Someone who was carrying something heavy has somewhere to turn.
And the situations that used to just sit there start finding their way through.
Let's talk it through
Tell me what's going on. I'll tell you whether I can help, and what it would look like.
Let's Talk