Working environments

Some questions need distance.

There are situations in which another conversation in the meeting room no longer moves things forward.

The arguments are familiar.
So are the positions.
Workshops may already have been held, measures agreed and new structures developed.

And yet little changes.

Not because intelligence, experience or goodwill are lacking, but because people and organisations eventually begin to view their own reality only from within the settings in which it arose.

In the office, we remain part of our roles.

The managing director remains the managing director.
The leader remains responsible.
The expert defends their solution.
The team moves within familiar patterns.

Even when everyone involved wants something to change.

Sometimes development therefore does not need a new answer first.
It needs a different setting.

Setting changes perception

A different setting does not solve problems.

But it changes how we see them.

When we leave familiar surroundings, we lose our usual points of reference for a moment. Processes, roles and routines recede into the background. Conversations unfold differently. Pauses take on meaning. Things that are overlooked in everyday life become perceptible again.

This can happen outdoors.

In a workshop.
On a path.
Beside a fire.
In silence.
Or in a place that initially seems to have nothing at all to do with the question at hand.

What matters is not whether a setting is spectacular.

What matters is what it enables.

The workshop

In a workshop, complexity cannot be moderated away.

Something works – or it does not.

You begin to dismantle it. You look more closely. You discover wear, earlier repairs, incorrect connections and parts whose significance only becomes visible once the whole is no longer standing intact in front of you.

That is when understanding begins.

Not every part needs replacing.
Not every mark is damage.
Not everything old is obsolete.
And not every quick solution will last.

Bringing an old machine back to life requires patience, attention, respect for what is already there and a willingness to discard your own assumption when it proves wrong.

Organisations are not machines.

But here too, it is worth resisting the urge to work too quickly on the visible symptom.

Sometimes you have to understand how things are connected before you pull at them.

The path

On a path, there is no presentation to hide behind.

You walk side by side.

Not opposite one another.

That changes conversations.

Thoughts are allowed to remain unfinished. Silence does not have to be filled immediately. Some answers only emerge after a few miles – and some questions lose their hold along the way.

A path also demands decisions.

Carry on or turn back.
Keep the pace or change it.
Accept help or find a solution yourself.

On a long journey, responsibility cannot be delegated. When a tyre bursts, the weather turns or the planned route no longer works, an organisational chart is no help.

What matters then is what is actually available.

Experience.
Improvisation.
Composure.
And the confidence to take the next sensible step even without complete certainty.

Open space

In wide open spaces, proportions change.

What fills everything in everyday life becomes smaller. Not insignificant – but easier to place in perspective.

In the mountains, in the desert or beneath an open sky, it becomes tangible that control is always limited. We can prepare, plan and take responsibility. But we cannot force every development.

That experience is uncomfortable.

And liberating.

Leadership does not mean having everything under control.

It also means remaining able to act amid uncertainty. Providing direction without pretending to know every answer. And recognising when resolve is required – and when the system first needs attention.

The encounter

Sometimes it is not a place that changes our view.

It is a person.

Someone whose lived reality is barely comparable with our own. An encounter in which our usual measures of success, ownership or status suddenly lose their taken-for-granted authority.

On my travels, I have met people who possessed almost nothing materially and yet did not meet me as people in need.

They met me with dignity.

Not as a theoretical concept, but visibly in their bearing, their hospitality and their pride in what they had created.

Encounters like these correct our perspective.

They remind us not to reduce people to their function, their performance or their current circumstances.

Not in organisations either.

Resistance may carry experience.
Withdrawal may carry disappointment.
A conflict may be an attempt to protect something important.

Anyone who only wants to correct behaviour may overlook what it means.

Silence

Silence initially feels unfamiliar to many people.

In everyday life, almost every empty space is filled: with tasks, conversations, messages, information and decisions.

Yet some questions cannot be answered under time pressure.

Silence does not provide ready-made solutions.

It simply removes the noise for a moment.

What then becomes visible is not always comfortable.

But it is often true.

Not an adventure programme

I do not work outdoors, in a workshop or in unusual places because change needs to be staged.

Nor does anyone have to climb a mountain, cross a desert or drive alone through South Africa to make a good decision.

The setting follows the task.

Sometimes a quiet conversation in a protected room is exactly right. Sometimes movement is needed. Sometimes a table on which something can be made visible. Sometimes distance from the organisation. And sometimes a deliberate step into surroundings where familiar roles carry less weight for a few hours.

The place is not an end in itself.

It is part of the process.