Teams and collaboration
Collaboration as it is meant to be
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Teams and collaboration
A team is a living system in which task, relationship, history, power and technology continually influence one another. What is visible in meetings is always connected to what plays beneath the surface: who carries the tension, who waits, who rescues, who withdraws when it gets hard. Those patterns do not change through a team day; they change when the undercurrent becomes discussable and the structure makes the new behaviour possible.
What holds for teams also holds for collaboration between teams. Cross-boundary collaboration problems are rarely a matter of ill will; they are the result of structures and incentives that implicitly work against collaboration.
I guide teams from board level to operational level, and the collaboration between teams, in working on what is really at play. The aim is a team, and an organisation, that can correct itself.
Smart is not always smart collaboration. My management team is intelligent and committed. But we are not truly a team. We manage our own domains and then each go our own way.
Working hard to avoid the subject. There is tension in the team that everyone feels but no one names.
No shared task. We work in silos. As soon as the pressure rises, everyone falls back on their own interest.
"More ownership at every level. Less management attention needed, higher productivity, more enjoyment in the work." HR director, professional services
Psychodynamic. I work with the unconscious patterns every team has. Those patterns are not personal failings; they are system products that change when the system changes.
Systemic. I never take teams apart from their context. Sometimes the problem is not in the team itself, but in the place it holds within the organisation.
Human-AI. More and more team work is steered by dashboards, planning systems and AI tools. I help teams make explicit how technology shapes their collaboration.
Publications on this theme
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12 March 2026
The Meeting That Never Makes a DecisionThe same issue on the agenda six times. Each time more information requested, each time the decision postponed. Not because the information was missing, but because nobody wanted to own a decision that could turn out wrong.
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23 February 2026
Change the Playing Field with System Interventions 8/12In a room without fixed agreements, a strong personality can shape reality. In a room with rhythm and record-keeping, that same personality suddenly has to run on rails. Part eight of a series on dealing with a leader who bends rules.
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16 February 2026
Build an Allyship Map 7/12The system would prefer people who each think they are the only one. Shame does the rest. Shame creates silence. Silence becomes agreement. Part seven of a series on dealing with a leader who bends rules.
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12 February 2026
Silence Is Not the Absence of Leadership. It Is a Form of ItSilence exposes patterns. Who speaks, who stays in the background, where do gaps in the conversation fall? On silence as a full participant in every conversation that matters.
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5 February 2026
Training × Learning: The Quiet Engine of Lasting DevelopmentWe invest readily in training, yet performance falls back as soon as the pressure rises. Lasting development only emerges when training and learning move together in a single rhythm.
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2 February 2026
Move from One-on-One to Plural 5/12It feels more intimate, as if you are being trusted. As if you are special. But whoever speaks alone can also be isolated alone. Part five of a series on dealing with a leader who bends rules.