Hey there,
Some weeks ask a little more of us than others.
More focus. More decisions. More emotional energy. And when that happens, even the most thoughtful, well-intentioned teams can find themselves working slightly differently to how they’d choose to if things felt calmer.
That’s what’s been on my mind this week.
Earlier this week, I ran an all-company session with an agency team on collaboration.
It wasn’t about performance targets or doing more. It was a very human session, focused on what actually gets in the way of collaboration when work is live, deadlines are tight and everyone is juggling competing priorities.
I asked them a simple question.
What do you do for good collaboration?
There were loads of great answers.
But when I followed up by asking whether they did those things all of the time, some of the time, or none of the time, the answer was unanimous.
Some of the time.
Because projects get busy.
Time gets squeezed.
Priorities collide.
And when that happens, something very predictable occurs.
When time is tight and demands are high, our nervous system switches into efficiency mode.
Efficiency mode is brilliant at helping us move fast.
But it comes with trade-offs.
It reduces:
- curiosity
- checking
- nuance
And it increases:
- assumption
- silence
- solo problem-solving
In other words, the brain starts prioritising speed over shared understanding.
That’s not a character flaw.
It’s a human pattern.
In the session, we explored three common ways collaboration quietly breaks down under pressure:
- assuming alignment rather than checking
- staying quiet unless something feels seriously wrong
- working things through alone for longer than we should
From the brain’s point of view, all three make sense.
They reduce friction in the moment.
The problem is they store risk for later.
Misalignment rarely shows up straight away.
It tends to appear further down the line as rework, tension, last-minute decisions or that familiar feeling of “how did we end up here?”
What made the biggest difference in the room wasn’t big structural change.
It was small, practical tweaks that recognised how the nervous system behaves when things speed up.
Things like:
- checking alignment earlier rather than assuming
- naming uncertainty sooner, before pressure peaks
- bringing one or two people into thinking earlier, before decisions harden
Not more meetings.
Not more people involved all the time.
Just earlier visibility at key moments.
These small moments cost a little time upfront.
However, they save a huge amount of energy in the long run.
Better collaboration isn’t about trying harder or caring more.
It’s about understanding what the nervous system does under load and designing work that supports it.
Because collaboration doesn’t usually break down because people don’t care.
It breaks down because good people are carrying too much alone, for too long.
As you head into next week, here’s a gentle question to sit with.
Where could a small moment of earlier clarity, visibility or shared thinking make things easier, for you and for others?
Cate
Hey there,
Some weeks ask a little more of us than others.
More focus. More decisions. More emotional energy. And when that happens, even the most thoughtful, well-intentioned teams can find themselves working slightly differently to how they’d choose to if things felt calmer.
That’s what’s been on my mind this week.
Earlier this week, I ran an all-company session with an agency team on collaboration.
It wasn’t about performance targets or doing more. It was a very human session, focused on what actually gets in the way of collaboration when work is live, deadlines are tight and everyone is juggling competing priorities.
I asked them a simple question.
What do you do for good collaboration?
There were loads of great answers.
But when I followed up by asking whether they did those things all of the time, some of the time, or none of the time, the answer was unanimous.
Some of the time.
Because projects get busy.
Time gets squeezed.
Priorities collide.
And when that happens, something very predictable occurs.
When time is tight and demands are high, our nervous system switches into efficiency mode.
Efficiency mode is brilliant at helping us move fast.
But it comes with trade-offs.
It reduces:
- curiosity
- checking
- nuance
And it increases:
- assumption
- silence
- solo problem-solving
In other words, the brain starts prioritising speed over shared understanding.
That’s not a character flaw.
It’s a human pattern.
In the session, we explored three common ways collaboration quietly breaks down under pressure:
- assuming alignment rather than checking
- staying quiet unless something feels seriously wrong
- working things through alone for longer than we should
From the brain’s point of view, all three make sense.
They reduce friction in the moment.
The problem is they store risk for later.
Misalignment rarely shows up straight away.
It tends to appear further down the line as rework, tension, last-minute decisions or that familiar feeling of “how did we end up here?”
What made the biggest difference in the room wasn’t big structural change.
It was small, practical tweaks that recognised how the nervous system behaves when things speed up.
Things like:
- checking alignment earlier rather than assuming
- naming uncertainty sooner, before pressure peaks
- bringing one or two people into thinking earlier, before decisions harden
Not more meetings.
Not more people involved all the time.
Just earlier visibility at key moments.
These small moments cost a little time upfront.
However, they save a huge amount of energy in the long run.
Better collaboration isn’t about trying harder or caring more.
It’s about understanding what the nervous system does under load and designing work that supports it.
Because collaboration doesn’t usually break down because people don’t care.
It breaks down because good people are carrying too much alone, for too long.
As you head into next week, here’s a gentle question to sit with.
Where could a small moment of earlier clarity, visibility or shared thinking make things easier, for you and for others?
Cate
