Hi Reader,

A screen full of black rectangles with names in the middle. That's who I was speaking to last week: a training on how to handle challenging conversations... Not really a topic we can learn while we're only half there. And I said so, out loud, at the start. I pulled out all the tricks and it still took 45 minutes before a brave participant said what most of the room had been thinking:

"I really appreciate you and the content, but most of us didn't choose to be here. It's a mandatory training. We are overworked, under-resourced, and we know how to have these conversations. If only leadership knew how to respond."

To their surprise, I was grateful for the info. Something shifted, we could speak openly because it was ok for them not wanting to be there. With my co-host, we quickly adjusted the session in a way that it would bring at least some value for everyone.

It wasn't the first time I experienced a mismatch between my brief and the group's readiness.

My team and I have run sessions on psychological safety and only learned afterwards that the room stayed quiet because of who was sitting in it. We've run sessions to practice influencing skills while participants dropped in and out because of 'emergencies' they had to handle as project managers.

This week, I am noticing three recurring conditions that impact the effectiveness of any workshop

• If our nervous systems are in alert mode — which happens when we are stressed, overworked or burned out — we cannot take in anything new, let alone reflect on it.
• If there is no safety, nobody asks the question or offers the perspective that turns a training into collective sense-making. It took this group 45 minutes to speak out what the majority was thinking.
• And without some culture of communication and feedback, there are no words for what itches, so it shows up where it can: in muted microphones and switched-off cameras.

I am not suggesting three steps to prepare for workshops that work. All of it feeds into each other and holds each other up. A team that can say "we are overwhelmed" regulates better, and every honest sentence makes the next difficult conversation a little easier.

The irony isn't lost on me. I named my business workshops.work, and only now do I notice the tension in that name. Workshops don't work until the floor holds.

Last week we could adjust course quite quickly because the group gave us the mandate. Most weeks we don't. The brief is signed, the agenda is agreed, the floor is what it is — and at the end we get scored on the impact.

More than once, I have sensed from the first minute that it didn't hold. And I delivered anyway, because that's what I was hired for.

🎤 Waiting for you on the Unprofessionalism podcast:

I’ve known Thomas Lahnthaler for more than five years - as a podcast guest, NeverDoneBefore contributor, colleague and eventually good friend. In all that time, I’ve known him as someone remarkably unbothered by being called unprofessional.

In episode 032 of the Unprofessionalism podcast, I understood where that ease comes from. When Thomas deliberately breaks a rule, he has no problem being held accountable, even being called unprofessional. He chose it, so he's ready for whatever comes back. What puts him on alert is being called out on a rule he didn't know he was breaking.

So it was never that he doesn't care. He decides, every time, that the intention is worth the label.

After five years, this conversation helped me understand his way of working better than working with him ever did.

🎧 Click here to listen to the interview

📥 Download my 1-page summary

​UP_032_Summary.pdf​

📝 Unprofessionalism on Substack

I’ve started using Substack as a place for the ideas that don’t quite fit into a podcast episode or this weekly newsletter - observations from conversations, personal stories and thoughts I’m still working out.

My latest piece is about how I almost missed out on my wife-to-be because I was too busy being professional to have coffee with her. Which, in hindsight, would have been a rather expensive commitment to productivity.

Read it here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-209934759

That's it from my side. I hope to see you next week!

Myriam