FOR LEADERS AND TEAMS

Every Organization Has Friction.
Most of It Shouldn't Reach Your Desk.

The goal of Working Together isn't to make you better at stepping in. It's to build an organization where stepping in is rarely necessary — because your people have the skills and a shared system to work through the things that matter most.

Self-healing. Self-leading. Self-developing.

That's not an idealized version of your organization. It's a specific, buildable outcome — and working agreements are how you know it's happening.

WORKING AGREEMENTS

The Proof That Something Actually Changed.

A working agreement isn't a policy or a norm handed down from above. It's something people or teams produce together after working through an important matter — a decision, a problem, an opportunity, or a tension — with a shared system. It's specific. It's behavioral. And it holds because everyone had a hand in building it.

When working agreements accumulate over time, something larger happens. Trust builds. Communication becomes more skilled and more honest. People stop working around each other and start working with each other. That's what a positive working relationship actually means — not a cordial workplace, but one where skilled communication and constructive agreements make performance and job satisfaction rise together.

It's the difference between an issue that got handled and a systemic positive change to how people work going forward.

HOW WORKING AGREEMENTS GET FORMED

What This Looks Like in Practice.

Every working agreement starts the same way — with two or more people willing to work through something important together, then agreeing on a better way to work with each other to handle these issues in the future. The situations below show what that looks like in practice.

01
Cross-Functional Alignment
Two Leaders. One Critical Gap in How They Were Working.
The Situation
The VP of Marketing and the VP of Operations hadn't had a direct conversation in months. Every request between their departments traveled through intermediaries, arrived stripped of context, and generated a response that missed the point. Marketing was launching campaigns Operations couldn't support. Operations was making capacity decisions that blindsided Marketing.
What the Working Together system surfaced
After agreeing to speak, a different kind of conversation occurred because each VP completed the harder private work to think through and understand their own situation and the situation of the other VP BEFORE they engaged in conversation. Each came in prepared to respect and learn rather than to win and defend. Despite hearing things they didn't agree with, they stayed with each other's story until each had been totally heard.
The Working Agreement the system produced
“I'll include you in campaign planning at the 60-day mark — before commitments are made, not after. You'll flag capacity constraints to me by the 15th of each month so I can plan around them. When something changes on either side, we talk directly — same day.”
What changed
Two leaders who had been quietly working against each other started working as one system. Launches became executable. Constraints became visible early enough to solve.
02
Escalation Calibration
Everything Came Upstairs. Little Needed To.
The Situation
A director had a manager on her team who was talented and conscientious but constantly in her inbox. Every manager decision came upstairs before it moved. Both were exhausted by a dynamic neither had named.
What the Working Together system surfaced
The dynamic changed through a discussion where both the director and manager kept their communication in the style of inquiry and stayed away from styles that accused and defended.
The Working Agreement the system produced
“Decisions inside your job scope are yours to make. Bring me anything that touches budget, client relationships, or personnel outside your authority.”
What changed
The director's inbox stopped being a holding pattern for decisions the manager already knew how to make.
03
Shared Accountability
Three Owners. Four Missed Milestones. One Missing Conversation.
The Situation
An important company project led by three leaders from different departments had missed four milestones in seven months. Each diagnostic conversation skirted the real issue.
What the Working Together system surfaced
The conversation that changed things didn't start with what was going wrong. It started with what each person actually wanted — not from the others, but for them and for the work.
The Working Agreement the system produced
“At every project kick-off and major phase transition, each of us names our top three responsibilities and puts them in writing — visible to all three.”
What changed
The project hit its next three milestones. Not because the team worked harder — because they finally understood what each other needed.

Every issue worked through with skill produces a working agreement. Every working agreement changes how people and teams operate going forward. Over time, that's not just better collaboration. It's a healthier, higher-performing organization built one resolved issue at a time.

SIX CORE SKILL AREAS

What Your Team Learns to Do.

Every team is different. But the dynamics that stall them tend to follow the same patterns. Here are two more situations where Working Together consistently makes a measurable difference. 

Working Together is built around six interconnected skills — a complete system for how people communicate, understand each other, navigate decisions and problems, and resolve tensions. All six together make positive working relationships reliable, not dependent on the right people being in the room.

01

Communication Styles

The skill of identifying communication styles so you can create and maintain a constructive conversation.

02

Systems Thinking

The skill of seeing how decisions and solutions account for the whole picture, not just your part of it, and don't get derailed by people who get left out.

03

The Information Wheel

The skill of organizing each person's complete five-part picture of any issue without assumptions before moving toward solutions, so nothing important gets left out.

04

Attentive Listening

The skill of using a five-part listening cycle that engages with genuine curiosity and without judgement — so others feel understood and valued rather than evaluated or controlled.

05

The Skills Zone

The skill of identifying and managing yourself and others into the right conditions for a productive conversation to occur — before the conversation begins.

06

Mapping an Issue

The skill of working through any important matter using a shared, systematic process — so conversations produce decisions, agreements, and forward movement instead of posturing, stonewalling, and stalled effort.

WHAT THE ENGAGEMENT LOOKS LIKE

Here's What You're Signing Up For.

Working Together is not a workshop you attend — it's a journey you take. Structured, sequenced, and designed to build capability your team keeps long after it ends. The transformation starts with you, the leader. As the old expression goes, "A leader can take their team only as far as the leader can go." So you must lead the journey by going first, and then invite them to join you as one who has already completed the journey once.

This is transformation. And transformation always starts at the top.

Layered, Two-Phase Approach
CXO
Goes first — Foundation, then Activation
models the way
Senior Leadership Team
Enters Foundation while CXO is in Activation
models the way
Managers and Their Teams
Follow as the system cascades — layer by layer

Every layer moves through the same two-phase journey. Each phase builds on the one before it — and the leader who completes it first makes it possible for everyone who follows.

Before skill development begins, your team is oriented to the philosophy, vision, and goals of the engagement and the power and value of working agreements that build positive working relationships. From there, you move through all six core skill areas — Communication Styles, Thinking Systems, The Information Wheel, Attentive Listening, The Skills Zone, and Mapping an Issue.
Foundation can be delivered as a one-and-a-half day in-person workshop or through a structured format that combines in-person with virtual delivery. The content is the same regardless — all six skills, fully built, together.
This is where the new skills become capability — an enduring ability to build positive working relationships.
Activation is structured around eight coaching sessions over a single quarter — three consecutive sessions in the first month to build momentum, then bi-weekly through the end of the quarter. Each session applies the system directly to a real issue your team is navigating along with role play and practice. You address the actual matter and build the skill simultaneously.
Teams wishing to continue beyond the Activation phase continue with monthly sessions to focus more on addressing team issues using the skills rather than using the skills to address the issue — it's a matter of emphasis. Teams that take this optional path can expect even stronger retention and more durable change.
The engagement ends with a structured close-out session where the journey is reviewed, what was built is assessed, and commitments are made to each other and themselves on how they'll carry this forward.

FOR INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

The Same Journey. One Leader at a Time.

Working Together isn't only for teams. Many leaders come to this program for themselves — because they want to lead differently, communicate more skillfully, and build the kind of working relationships that make everything else in their organization work better. The transformation is the same. The journey is yours alone.

Individual leaders move through the same Foundation and Activation structure as teams — building all six core skills, working through real issues, and developing a shared system they can carry into every working relationship they have.

That's the difference between a program that fades and a capability that multiplies.

FOR INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

The Same Journey. One Leader at a Time.

Working Together isn't only for teams. Many leaders come to this program for themselves — because they want to lead differently, communicate more skillfully, and build the kind of working relationships that make everything else in their organization work better. The transformation is the same. The journey is yours alone.

Individual leaders move through the same Foundation and Activation structure as teams — building all six core skills, working through real issues, and developing a shared system they can carry into every working relationship they have.

Option 1

One-on-One

Work directly with a certified Working Together coach through both phases at a pace and schedule built around you.

Option 2

Senior Leader Cohort

Move through the same curriculum alongside a small cohort of senior leaders from different organizations — same depth, with the added dimension of peer learning across contexts.

For leaders who want to go further, Working Together can be the foundation for a broader executive coaching engagement — one that builds on the skills developed here and applies them to the full scope of your leadership development. Explore executive coaching →

Your Situation Is Specific.

Let’s Talk About It.

Every organization's friction looks a little different. A first conversation with us is just that — a conversation about what's happening in your organization, what you've already tried, and what you're hoping to build. From there, we can tell you honestly whether Working Together is the right fit and what applying it to your specific situation would look like. 

No pitch. No pressure. A real conversation about whether this makes sense for where you are.

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