The work beneath the work

Over the past few months, I have been in conversation about navigating moments of transition and reflecting on the tension between doing and being.

Many of those conversations have been with boards, councils, and leadership teams working through questions about direction, roles, and priorities — the kinds of questions that don’t always have tidy answers.

When people talk about facilitation in those spaces, the focus often lands on the mechanics of the work. The structure of how conversations unfold. The activities we use and the outcomes we produce.

And, the longer I do this work, the more I notice something else that fundamentally shapes what happens in the room. Before we decide what a group will do together, there’s another layer: how people arrive, how they listen and how they hold complexity with one another.

The work beneath the work.

Retreats that move work forward

In January, we published a new blog series about retreats — what they’re actually for, and how we design them in response to a range of topics.

In the second post of the series, we take a closer look at board and council retreats — spaces designed to help governance groups step back from regular meeting rhythms and focus on the work that’s hard to do when agendas are full:

• orientation for new members

• clarifying roles between governance and operations

• building shared understanding of priorities, risks and opportunities

• strengthening how a board works together when perspectives differ and decisions are complex

The tension between doing and being shows up clearly in governance work.

Boards and councils carry the responsibility of making decisions, setting direction, and ensuring accountability. Much of that work happens through agendas, reports, and formal motions — the visible “doing”.

Strong governance is shaped just as much by how people are together in those moments. How differences are explored, competing priorities are held, and how members listen to one another.

A well-designed board retreat creates space for that layer of the work — the “being”. The part that’s harder to address when meetings are focused on moving through the agenda or checking things off a list.

The impact can extend well beyond the retreat day itself. Boards leave with clearer roles and decision boundaries. Conversations become more focused and less reactive. And perhaps, most importantly, members feel grounded in their role and more confident navigating complexity together.

You can read the second post in the series here:

Conversations in progress

Alongside the Tilia blog (where we share examples and insights from our client work) I’ve also been writing more personal reflections on Substack through a series called Conversations in Progress.

Those pieces are a little different in tone. They’re less about documenting the work we do and more about thinking out loud about the questions that sit underneath it: how people navigate complexity together, what leadership looks like in uncertain moments, and what it means to stay human in the middle of all that.

One recent reflection explores something I’ve come to think of as state before script.

In facilitation, especially in governance conversations, the energy of the room matters. Whether people feel rushed or grounded. Whether disagreement can be explored openly. Whether uncertainty is treated as a problem to fix or as information to work with.

You can have the most carefully designed agenda in the world, but if the room feels tense or performative, people feel that too.

Conversely, when a room feels steady, curious, and human, even imperfect conversations can unlock something meaningful.

So before I step into a room, I often sit with a few questions:

• Who am I in service to?

• How do I want people to experience this conversation?

• What kind of space are we creating together?

Because long after the agenda is forgotten, people tend to remember how the room felt — and whether they felt respected, heard, and able to contribute.

If you’re curious to explore that reflection further, you can find it in Conversations in Progress here:

Conversation starters

If you’re preparing for an upcoming meeting, retreat, or decision point, here are a few questions you might carry into the room:

• What state are we bringing into this conversation?

• What would it look like to be fully present, not just productive?

• What assumptions or tensions might be shaping this discussion beneath the surface?

• What kind of experience do we want people to leave this conversation with?

• How might we make space for curiosity alongside the need to move things forward?

Sometimes the most important shift in a conversation isn’t what gets decided — it’s how people show up together while figuring it out.

If this is the year to do the work differently…

… to create space for deeper thinking, more honest conversation, or clearer direction — here are a few ways we can support your team.

Strategy Sessions
If this year, you find yourself at a crossroads (clarifying direction, revisiting priorities, or aligning around values and ways of working), we offer focused strategy sessions designed to create clarity and momentum without rushing the thinking.

Community Engagement Design & Facilitation
If you’re rolling out a plan, policy, or shift in direction, we can help you design an engagement process that surfaces meaningful input — so what you build reflects the voices of those it impacts. Thoughtful questions. Structured dialogue. Honest insight you can actually use.

Retreat & Facilitation Support
We facilitate using approaches like Technology of Participation, Liberating Structures, and LEGO® Serious Play — always tailored to your group, your history, and the complexity of the decisions you’re navigating. The goal isn’t activity for its own sake. It’s to encourage contribution that moves your work forward.

1:1 or Small Group Coaching
If you’re preparing to lead change, navigating tension, or simply need a steady sounding board to stress-test ideas before they go live, this is often where the work begins.

A final thought

Much of the work we do in organizations is focused on what’s visible: decisions made, plans approved, actions taken.

But beneath all of that is something critical that shapes whether those efforts actually move us forward — how we listen, how we hold difference, how willing we are to stay present with complexity rather than rushing past it.

The longer I do this work, the more I’m convinced that good governance, good leadership, and good facilitation all share that same foundation.

Not just doing the work.
But being together well while we do it.

Wherever your conversations are taking you this season — around a board table, in a leadership meeting, or in the quieter moments of reflection in between — I hope there’s space to pay attention to that layer of the work too.

Keep asking good questions,

Lindsay