Dear Reader,

Do you know this voice in your head second guessing your behaviour in the last meeting??

Last week, I joined my first team meeting with a new collaborator. I knew they were good with boundaries, the kind of person who states clearly what doesn't work for them. So I showed up as myself. I added ideas, asked questions, even challenged one of theirs.

The meeting went well. We got things done.

And then I left the call and my monkey-mind kicked in.

Did I take up too much space? Was I too much? Could I have been more curious? Listen more? It was our first time working together!!!

I actually started drafting a message to check in. 'Hey, I hope I wasn't overstepping in the meeting...'

Then I stopped.

Because I realised: This is what psychological safety feels like in action.

We challenged each other's ideas. Nobody got defensive. Nobody took it personally. If I had overstepped, they would have told me. That's what I knew about them. That's why I felt safe enough to show up fully in the first place.

In the end, my ideas were implemented. The collaboration works.

So here is the learning: We don't need years to develop psychological safety on a team. We don't need climbing parks or deep knowledge of each other's childhoods.

What we need is the trust that if something is wrong, we'll tell each other.

That's it. That simple agreement saves us from so much overthinking. It saves us from staying quiet when we have something to say. It saves us from sending those anxious check-in messages at 10pm.

When you know someone will speak up if you've crossed a line, you can stop managing their feelings in your head. You can stop filling in the blanks with worst-case scenarios. You can just... show up.

And when they know the same about you, they can do the same.

My wish is that more teams would trade careful and polite for direct and candid so that 'that doesn't work for me' becomes a normal sentence instead of a confrontation. How much creative capacity would we have left if we didn't have to read between the lines because there's nothing between the lines 🤷‍♀️

🎙 Meanwhile, on the podcast…

If a facilitator goes unseen, are they any less present?

This is the beautiful paradox of facilitation: as we grow more adept in our craft, our presence in the room becomes less noticeable – less needed – because we’ve subtly set the magic of facilitation into motion.

Master of his craft Vinay Kumar knows this only too well. When you relinquish control, place your trust in the group, and set the stage for emergence to unfold, the space begins to hold itself – sometimes in unexpected ways. Join us as we go meta on facilitation and Vinay shares the stories and life lessons he’s learnt with generous warmth and wisdom.

Find out about:

• How to become the invisible facilitator that lets go of control and trusts the group
• The polarity of facilitation: why you have to do facilitation to become facilitation
• What makes a professional facilitator, when everyone can call themselves one?
• The impact of sustained, collaborative facilitation that lasts beyond the first workshop
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🎧 Click here to listen to the interview

📥 Check out my 1-page summary

WW_Episode_343-summary.pdf

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👀 Watch the unedited interview on Youtube​

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🚧 Behind the scenes

From January 2026, the workshops work podcast will become the Unprofessionalism podcast and you can help me shape it in two ways:

1. Share your feedforward with me via this short Google Form. I have already learned that it shall be shorter and keep the 1-page summary (pomised!)
2. If you can think of a anecdote when being unprofessional turned out to be the smartest move you (or someone around you) ever made, share it with me here: https://unprofessionalism.com

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That’s it from my side! I hope you enjoy the content and find inspiration in the stories and the podcast. I wish you a week of saying what’s true: kindly and clearly. I'll see you next week.

Myriam

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