What Makes Groups Work: The ManifestoPeople walk into the same meeting carrying different assumptions about what matters and what it costs to speak up. Most of that never gets named. It just shows up as hesitation, side conversations, or decisions that take longer than they should.
Most executive teams run into their own version of the same challenges. Maybe decisions don’t hold. Maybe somebody’s checked out and everyone knows it. Maybe the meetings are polite and efficient and the real conversations happen afterward in the parking lot. Maybe the strategy is clear but nobody’s actually bought in.
The specifics are different every time. But underneath, it’s usually the same thing: the group has more information and more context than it’s actually putting to use. The gap between what people know and what gets said out loud is where the cost lives.
I know that room because I’ve sat in it. I spent three years as Head of People at Venus Aerospace during a period of rapid growth, working alongside an exec team under real pressure to make high-stakes decisions fast. I learned something there that changed how I work:
When you’re inside the system, you stop seeing it clearly. The perspective that matters most often comes from someone who isn’t in it.
I interview each member of the team beforehand. What’s working. What conversations keep getting avoided. Where energy is going that isn’t producing anything. By the time we sit down together, I’ve already heard the patterns nobody says out loud in a group setting.
Then we go after it with everything on the table.
The conversations that keep getting pushed. The operating habits nobody’s questioned. The gap between how talented these people are individually and how they’re actually functioning together. And the part most facilitators skip: each person getting honest about what they’re carrying in. Old wins they’re protecting. Assumptions running on autopilot. Habits that used to work and don’t anymore.
Everything above sounds heavy. It’s not. It’s actually fun because I am not interested in work that isn’t fun. That means jokes that at least one person will think are funny (even if that person is me).
The conversation that needed to happen will have happened. Not referenced. Not scheduled for later. Had.
Decisions your team has been circling will be made, with names attached.
Each person will know specifically what they’re going to do differently starting Monday, and the rest of the team will know it too.
You’ll have shared language for the two or three patterns that were costing you the most, so when they show up again (and they will), someone can name it in five words instead of letting it run for another quarter.
The people whose alignment sets the pace for everything else.
The aim is simple: people on each other’s team, building something that matters. You leave with something installed. Something the team actually uses on Monday.
