Joe’s first move when things go wrong in his company is to make sure everyone feels seen. That’s the most effective way to change things—not strategy, not process, not directives. Seen.
The breakthrough came when Joe was feeling the authority-isolation dynamic—“them and us”—and Sarah said “I love your frustration.” All the separation vanished instantly. “It’s us. We’re doing this together. I have a role, you have a role, but we’re humans together.”
“Whenever things are going wrong in the company, my first move now is to make sure everybody feels seen. It changes things. It’s the most effective way to change shit.”
Feeling seen isn’t always comfortable—sometimes being seen means someone names an uncomfortable truth. But when everyone feels seen, politics dissolve. The jockeying for position, the blame cycles, the information hoarding—all of it comes from people not feeling seen and trying to protect themselves.
This works because authority issues, at their root, come from not feeling seen: “I wasn’t seen for my goodness, so fuck authority.”