“”All models are wrong”: what did George Box actually mean?

“”All models are wrong”: what did George Box actually mean?

by | Mar 30, 2026 | Coaching, Leadership, Theoretical Models

There are so many quotes out there that we repeat and assume to understand, and then all of a sudden, we discover them in their wider context, and they gain a completely new meaning… That’s what happened to me with George E. P. Box’s quote:

“All models are wrong, but some are useful”. (1987, p. 424)

 

 

 

 

 

Confession time: I used to use this quote as a reason to dismiss most psychological models. They can in no way reflect the complexity of the human mind or spirit—therefore, wrong, therefore, dispensable… After all, if a renowned statistician admits models are wrong, why should I bother? Yes, I admit, it was a relatively cynical view.

What Box actually meant

But then I got curious about that quote and discovered that earlier in his book, on page 74, Box wrote:

“Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.”

Reading the p.424 quote in light of p.74 reframes it entirely—at least for me. Here’s how I now understand Box’s words:

Models are a simplification of a phenomenon so it can be somewhat grasped by our limited brain cells and become practical. Think of our models for the human body and how it functions; the universe; and so on.

“All models are wrong”

Obviously. They have to be wrong by definition, as they are a simplification of the “real thing” and as such do not represent or encompass the whole thing in its full form or complexity… ergo, all models are wrong. And yet we need models to be able to somewhat comprehend ourselves and the world we live in.

So, knowing that models are just that—models—Box goes on to ask: “the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.” In other words, how far off from the real thing do they have to be to no longer serve their intended purpose?

One could argue that Box is not questioning models per se, but rather inviting us to think about what margin of error we are willing to accept—and when a gap to reality becomes too wide to be of any use. It seems to me that Box was really a pragmatist, advocating we use the models we have until better ones come along.

Now—another confession: I am neither a statistician, nor a mathematician, nor a George E. P. Box expert. But I love quotes and am always curious where they actually come from. Which is probably why I kept digging and found this, in a journal from 1976, p. 792:

Worry selectively

“Since all models are wrong the scientist cannot obtain a ‘correct’ one by excessive elaboration. (…) Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity”

Followed by:

“Worry selectively. Since all models are wrong the scientist must be alert to what is importantly wrong. It is inappropriate to be concerned about mice when there are tigers abroad.”

In other words, overcomplicating a model or trying to make it as “complete” as possible is unhelpful. But also, that not all errors in a model deserve equal attention—we should focus on the ones that actually matter instead. Interesting thoughts, especially for someone like me who loves to get lost in the details of things.

Four statements, same author, same thread of thought—each one adding a layer to the others. Together, they paint a portrait of a rigorous but deeply pragmatic mind. Love it!

 

Now it’s your turn

📌  What’s your experience of Box’s quote? How would you interpret it?

📌  Any other quotes you’ve come across that took on a completely different meaning once you explored their original context?

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

PS: All em dashes are my own.

References:

Box, George E. P. (1976), “Science and statistics” (PDF), Journal of the American Statistical Association, 71 (356): 791–799, doi:10.1080/01621459.1976.10480949.)

Box, George E. P.; Draper, Norman Richard (1987). Empirical model-building and response surfaces. Wiley series in probability and mathematical statistics. Page 424. New York: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-81033-9. –> “The fact that the polynomial is an approximation does not necessarily detract from its usefulness because all models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.”

Part 2: So, you’ve had a CliftonStrengths team workshop. Now what?

Part 2: So, you’ve had a CliftonStrengths team workshop. Now what?

by | Mar 23, 2026 | CliftonStrengths, Coaching, Leadership

In my previous article, I explored what really happens in a CliftonStrengths team workshop—and why it so often reveals much more than just people’s strengths.

The buzzing energy in the room when people start to really “see” each other is addictive; as is the shift that takes place when people realise that what looked like a personality clash in a team is very often strengths colliding. And because we look at those dynamics through a strengths lens, even difficult conversations become constructive.

But here’s the thing. These insights only have value if you do something with them after the workshop ends.

You’ve had your workshop.
Your team had a great time.
People learned something new about each other.
There was probably a moment or two of genuine recognition—“oh, so that’s why you keep insisting we assess risks” or “oh, so that’s why we kept clashing on this project”.

And then everyone goes back to their desks.
Now what?

That’s the question I tackle at the end of every workshop I run. And my answer is always the same:

CliftonStrengths journeys are marathons, not sprints. And a workshop is a starting point, not a destination.

The real value doesn’t live in the event itself—it lives in what you build afterwards, making your initial investment ten times more effective.

Working with many different teams, I’ve come to think of this as three layers of practice that build on each other: 1) individual ownership, 2) the manager conversation, and 3) team amplification. Each layer depends on the one before it. Skip a layer, and you’ve built a Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Here’s how it works.

Layer 1: Individual ownership

Many teams want to jump straight from the workshop to embedding strengths into their everyday work. The ambition is exactly right—but for most teams, it’s too big a leap to start there.

The reason is simple: you can’t build a strengths-based team out of people who don’t yet fully understand their own strengths. Individual ownership is the foundation. Without it, team-level conversations stay surface-level. In fact, I often recommend teams (if time and budget allows) to start at that individual level first before any workshops.

When every team member genuinely understands their own profile—how they prefer to build relationships, influence others, process information, and get work done—that’s half the battle won. They now have a language for things they previously couldn’t articulate. They start to see their patterns more clearly: what energises them, what drains them, where they naturally excel, and where they tend to overcorrect—and, more importantly, the possible whys behind it all.

It also hands them something powerful: agency. Suddenly they can take ownership of their own development: in their next check-in with you, when deciding which project to volunteer for, what support they may need, or what training to pursue next.

This means that beyond the workshop itself, it’s worth investing in helping each team member truly explore and own their report. Ideally with the support of a certified coach—because that’s where the real depth happens. Not just understanding what each theme means, but how themes interact with each other: amplifying each other, balancing each other out, expanding each other’s power—and occasionally how they may drive you and others a little crazy.

No budget for individual coaching? No problem. Gallup has an extensive library of resources—podcasts, YouTube videos, articles—covering every CliftonStrengths theme in depth.

And there are simple, visible ways to keep strengths present in everyday life too. Team members can add their Top 5 or Top 10 themes to their e-mail signature. And, if you’re co-located, a team strengths grid on the office wall becomes a surprisingly meaningful conversation starter.

Layer 2: The manager conversation

Individual ownership sets the foundation. And the single most powerful thing a manager can do to build on it is this: show genuine interest in your team members and have a strengths conversation with each one of them, one-on-one.

And the good news: it doesn’t require anything elaborate. You don’t need access to their CliftonStrengths report. You don’t need to be a certified coach. All you need is genuine curiosity, good intention—and the right questions.

None of this is theoretical. I’ve personally experienced how this kind of conversations can shift whole dynamics, relationships, and performance in teams. A manager who takes the time to ask “what do you do best, and are we actually using that?” says: I see you. I care about you. And I want to enable you to work at your best and to grow. That’s the foundation of trust. And trust is what lubricates your team’s engine and makes everything else in a team possible.

Part of what I offer is preparing managers for exactly this kind of conversation. To that end, I’ve developed The Strengths Conversation Guide—a practical tool with 20 questions designed to open up honest, constructive dialogue between managers and their team members.

A few examples:

  • What do you love most about your role?
    – What activities do you pick up quickly?
    – What brings you the greatest satisfaction?
  • Which tasks do you enjoy least—past or present?
    – Why? What makes them less enjoyable?
    – How does this connect to your strengths profile?
  • How would you like to be supported in your work?
    – What factors distract or get in the way of your best work? How can I help minimise those?
    – Do you have talents that could benefit the team if you had better opportunities to use them?
    – What steps can I take to ensure you have opportunities to apply your natural talents to your role?

One more thing worth naming: unless your team member specifically expresses a wish to work on a weakness, your greatest leverage as a manager to support their success is to help them develop their strengths—and manage around their weaknesses.
What does that look like in practice?
Invest your development budget in helping your people go from good to great, and from great to exceptional:
– Have a team member who enjoys giving presentations? Pay for a membership at a local Toastmasters club.
– One of your team members is particularly talented in “getting things done”? See if they may be interested in a PMP or Agile certification.
The return on investment will almost always outperform the return on shoring up what doesn’t come naturally (unless that’s what the employee really wants).

Layer 3: Team amplification

With individual ownership in place and the manager conversation underway, you have everything you need to take strengths to the team level—and this is where it gets genuinely exciting.

Beyond the initial workshop, I encourage team members to have informal one-on-one conversations with each other to explore their strengths together: where are we similar? Where are we different? Where could we complement each other? Nothing formal or structured—just a relaxed conversation over a cup of tea or coffee. I often start teams on this path during the initial workshop itself, but the real power lies in keeping these conversations going long afterwards.

Team meetings are another natural home for strengths—and an often underused one. Most teams have a standing meeting rhythm already; the question is whether strengths can become part of the conversation.

– When a team is preparing to take on a new project, a question like: “looking at our collective strengths, where are we well placed, where might we have blind spots, and who on the team can help with those?” can change the quality of the planning conversation entirely.
– When tensions arise or a decision goes sideways, asking “where did our strengths collide or go on overdrive?” reframes blame and opens up a very different kind of dialogue.

These don’t need to be long detours. Even five minutes of strengths-informed reflection in a regular team meeting, done consistently, builds a shared language over time and a new way of working.

For more structured amplification, follow-up workshops are a powerful option. Two of my favourites (though there are many more):

  • What I bring, what I need. Each team member shares two things: what they contribute to the team through their strengths, and what they (and their strengths) need from their colleagues in order to work at their best. It’s a remarkably honest exercise—and it shifts the team dynamic from assumption and underlying conflicts to explicit mutual understanding, respect, and accountability.
  • The talent marketplace. Team members name where they need support on a current challenge or task, and colleagues volunteer help based on their own natural strengths. It turns the team’s collective talent into a living, shared resource. And it can surface combinations of strengths that no one had thought to put together before.

All of these suggestions work because they build directly on layer 1: they only have depth if individuals already understand and own their profiles. And they work best when the manager is genuinely invested in the process and knows their team members’ strengths and preferences. That’s why the sequence matters.

Now, it’s your turn

The teams I’ve seen get the most out of CliftonStrengths are the ones who treated their initial workshop as just the beginning— and kept going. Individual ownership. The manager conversation. Team amplification. Three layers, each building on the last. It’s a marathon, not a sprint—and, in my experience, one of the most rewarding journeys a team can take together.

📌 What are some of your favourite ways to keep the strengths conversation alive after the initial workshop?

I’d love to hear what’s worked, and what hasn’t.

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

PS: All em dashes are my own.

Recommended resources: 

Part 1: Are CliftonStrengths team workshops worth it?

Part 1: Are CliftonStrengths team workshops worth it?

by | Mar 23, 2026 | CliftonStrengths, Coaching, Leadership

One of the most common reasons teams contact me to run CliftonStrengths workshops is this: they want to strengthen team spirit and help team members get to know each other from a different perspective.

But very often, the real value of these conversations lies somewhere else.

Business and HR leaders are not just looking for a one-off “feel-good event”. They’re looking for a practical way to help their teams communicate better, understand each other better, and manage pressure and workload more effectively.

Now, I’m normally not a big fan of psychometrics.

Many of these tools can feel like they place people in boxes that are a little too neat, and a little too tight for comfort.

That hasn’t been my experience with CliftonStrengths.

I first encountered it while recovering from a burnout eleven years ago. It gave me a new perspective on how I show up in the world. More importantly, it didn’t make me feel boxed in. Instead, it opened up a conversation with my coach at the time, Gaby Lederer-Ganse, about some of my natural talents—and allowed me to define for myself how they show up in the world, while recognising that this is only one piece of the much larger puzzle of “who I am”.

That experience led me to become a certified CliftonStrengths coach through Gallup (the organisation behind the assessment). I also became the first (and only) certified internal coach at my former employer. Back then, there was little demand for CliftonStrengths. Most teams opted for the DISC profile instead, which I personally disliked (but that’s a topic for another post…).

Then COVID hit. And suddenly, many line managers were looking for new ways to bring their teams together during a very challenging period.

Common criticisms to CliftonStrengths

Now, I’m well aware that CliftonStrengths has its critics.

Sometimes I see people question its validity, even though Gallup is considered to be a highly reputable and trusted source for public opinion polling, social research, and workplace analytics, and is known for its rigorous scientific methods. Having said that, I do concede that many of the validation studies have been conducted and reported by Gallup itself, rather than independent academic researchers, which may understandably lead to some skepticism.

However, a much more common critique I’ve seen is that it’s “too positive”—that it only talks about strengths and ignores weaknesses.

So let’s dispel that myth right away.

CliftonStrengths is not just about strengths.

What actually happens in a CliftonStrengths workshop

When I do individual report debriefs and run team strengths workshops, we certainly explore your strengths—i.e., your preferred ways to get things done, influence, analyse information, make decisions, and build relationships. In other words, the lenses through which you see and interact with the world around you.

But we also look at something equally important: how those same strengths can sometimes get in the way. How they can drive you—and other people—crazy when they are overused or go on “overdrive”.

  • The colleague whose stamina and drive for getting things done start making it feel like work matters more than people.
  • The colleague who keeps analysing when others want to decide.
  • The one who pushes for action while others still want to manage risks.
  • The one who keeps changing targets and plans when others just want to move forward with “a” plan.

We also explore the themes at the bottom of your report—the ones that don’t come as naturally to you but may come very naturally to others on the team.

Looking at these perspectives helps teams understand why tensions or friction may arise—especially in times of pressure and stress.

What looks like a personality problem in teams might be strengths colliding...

And because we look at all of this through a strengths lens, even conversations about weaknesses become constructive. Why? Because the focus shifts from deficiency to difference, and from blame to understanding.

When teams become aware of these dynamics, it becomes much easier to assume positive intent and give each other the benefit of the doubt when things go sideways.

So, to answer my own question…

Are CliftonStrengths team workshops worth it?

After having designed and led many CliftonStrengths team workshops, yes—I do believe they are worth it.

While psychometrics as a scientific discipline is complex and debated, the value of tools like CliftonStrengths in my work lies more in creating structured conversations that help teams understand and collaborate with each other.

But this comes with a caveat.

If a strengths workshop is treated as a one-off exercise, you and your team may end up investing a substantial amount of time and money simply to have “a good time”. And there is certainly value in that!

However, if you want more sustainable results and a real impact, you want to find ways to embed the strengths philosophy into your way of working as a team.

It then becomes a marathon, not a sprint.

That starts with each team member truly understanding and owning their individual CliftonStrengths report—whether they do so with the help of a coach, through their own exploration of the many online resources available, or both.

Just as importantly, the conversation needs to stay alive within the team.

How you may ask?

That will be the topic of my next blog post on the topic.

Now, it’s your turn…

If you’ve been part of a CliftonStrengths team workshop, I’d love to hear: what worked? what didn’t?

If you’ve taken CliftonStrengths yourself, I’d love to know: what surprised you most when you first saw your results?

And, if you’re curious about what a strengths conversation could open up for you or your team, feel free to reach out. No obligation—just a conversation about what new perspectives and opportunities this kind of exploration might offer.

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

PS : all em dashes are my own.

Recommended resources: 

Your weekly poem: CAGED BIRD—or the world of coaching in the advent of AI

Your weekly poem: CAGED BIRD—or the world of coaching in the advent of AI

by | Mar 13, 2026 | AI, Coaching, Poem

🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away… 

I’ve just come out of an Association for Coaching AI Virtual café session that left me feeling both angry and depressed… I will probably be writing an article about it at some point, but I’m not ready yet. What I can offer you today is raw. And then I remembered Angelou’s poem.

So, I’m offering you her poem as a way to express how I feel right now towards the coaching profession in general, and AI coaching agents specifically.

 

CAGED BIRD

🌻 A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom. 🌻

—Maya Angelou

 

Caged…

… in the belief that simulation is as good as reality. That placing words next to each other based on statistical probability is the same as two human beings making meaning together.

… in the belief that relationship is secondary. In the reduction of relational coaching to having a “nice relationship”—as if presence were decoration, only needed at the beginning of a session.

… in the doubt of our own value, experience, and humanity—so much so—that we think AI can emulate our “knowledge”, as if we were walking encyclopaedias to be downloaded for greater effect.

… in frameworks that have reduced coaching to a set of competency boxes to be ticked—and in the ensuing illusion that if AI can tick those same boxes, it must be coaching.

… even in our own tools and techniques, as if coaching were a set of formulaic transactions, processes and structures you download—rather than a way of being you spend a lifetime developing.

… in an illusion of false promises—calling it democratisation when it’s just cost-cutting dressed up as access—creating a caste system where those with least get the least.

… in the pretence of progress—at enormous environmental cost, in a world where millions still have no reliable internet connection to access the “solution” being sold to them.

Caged …

Caged …

I have no words of wisdom or hope to offer you today… except that I REFUSE to be caged.
I did not leave my golden cage to be entrapped in a bronze one—and nor have you.

I am the free bird.
I leap on the back of the wind
and float downstream
till the current ends
and dip my wing
in the orange sun rays
and dare to claim the sky.

Who are you? And what do you dare to claim?

 

🦋 Happy Sunday everyone! 🦋

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

PS: I’m speaking my truth from a relational, Gestalt-informed tradition—and I’m well aware not everyone shares this frame.

Resources:

  • This week’s song is Freedom! ’90 by George Michael

Why coaching skills training are turning managers into robots—and what to do about it

Why coaching skills training are turning managers into robots—and what to do about it

by | Mar 11, 2026 | Coaching, Leadership

Something very strange happens to managers who attend a coaching skills training
—they lose their ability to speak!

I was invited to observe a coaching skills training for managers to see if I would wish to facilitate the programme—and I left wanting to rewrite it.

Meet John

Picture John (fictitious name). A highly accomplished expert in his field and a leader. Eloquent, well spoken, and you can tell he’s a very bright fella’…

He’s just been taught that coaching means being neutral (are we ever?!?), holding no opinions or thoughts of his own, and only asking open-ended questions (except for any starting with “why” that is). Translation: be a robot.

All of a sudden, John is making very strange, weirdly structured sentences. In fact, at times, they don’t even make any sense. The words are English but the meaning escapes comprehension. What’s going on?

Now, some coaches would argue that’s just what learning coaching does. As a manager, you’re used to “telling”—so like any new language, it takes a while to get used to it… Bull! (pardon my French)

Here’s what I think is going on

We’re witnessing the discomfort of trying to perform formulaically, and being incongruent between what you think, feel, and say.

It has nothing to do with how difficult the coaching mindset is. It’s because we’re asking the Johns of this world to talk like robots instead of human beings.

And here’s the really sad part

HR leaders will view the training as a success.

Leaders will pat themselves on the shoulder for learning a new language.

Meanwhile, Jane (fictitious name)—an employee in that same training—is telling our breakout group how her manager went through this exact training a while back, but sounds so “phony” she doesn’t want to open up to him.

That’s the story the HR leader and line manager will never hear.

What I suggest instead

When I run coaching skills training for managers, we cut through that noise.

I don’t want you to talk like me or some coaching guru.
I don’t want you to tick competency boxes.

I want you to sound like you—genuinely you—while openly relating to another human being and making the conversation about them.

And—very importantly—we openly address the elephant in the room: you can’t be neutral. You’re human. You have countless thoughts, opinions, feelings, and sensations—and rather than pretending otherwise, we explore how to use them purposefully.

We also acknowledge the fact that you wear multiple hats at once: expert, leader, people manager. That can create tension and interesting power dynamics in the room. And any training that doesn’t tackle those head on is doing its participants a disservice.

And we don’t shy away from this one either: not everyone wants to be coached by their manager. That’s their right—and ignoring it helps no one.

So—

if you want your managers to sound neutral, follow models, and talk like robots, by all means, continue doing what you’re doing.

If you want real cultural change, let’s chat!

 

Agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear from you.

 

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

 

PS : all em dashes are my own. What can I say—I can’t help myself. 🙂

Recommended resources: 

“We’re not here to be quiet”—Your weekly poem on being REAL

“We’re not here to be quiet”—Your weekly poem on being REAL

by | Mar 6, 2026 | Coaching, Leadership, Mental wellbeing, Poem

🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away… 

REAL

🌻 I’ve cried when I’m happy
And cried when I’m sad
I’ve smiled through the good times
And smiled through the bad

I’ve screamed in excitement
I’ve screamed out in pain
I’ve gasped at the sunshine
And gasped at the rain

I’ve laughed when I’m nervous
And when I’m elated
I’ve sighed with contentment
And when I’m deflated

I’ve sung when I’m lonely
And sung in a crowd
I’ve shouted when angry
And when I’ve been proud

‘Cause whether we’re up
Or we’re riding a low
Our feelings are desperate
For somewhere to go

We can’t keep them trapped
And locked up in a cage –
They force their way out
‘Cause they need to escape

And sometimes we’re told
That emotions are weakness
That feeling is flawed
If we let it defeat us

But how can this be?
Surely this must be wrong
For what could be weak
About something so strong

Cannot be tamed
Can’t be kept down
And cannot be contained

So when you next shout
Or you laugh or you cry
You scream or you smile
Or let out a sigh

Whatever the reason
Just let yourself feel
We’re not here to be quiet –
We’re here to be real 🌻

—Becky Hemsley
published in “Letters from life”

🪴 Feelings want their rightful place

This week I had the pleasure of supporting John Leary-Joyce on his Gestalt Coaching foundation course, with a remarkably gifted group of participants.

The focus was on the coach’s use of self—showing up fully, bringing their own present-moment experience into the room as live data to facilitate the client’s own embodied experience. In other words: to feel alongside. To be real, together.

Becky’s poem captures something the Gestalt tradition has always known: that feelings want and deserve their rightful place—be it in a coaching relationship, at home, or at work.

🪴 Neither tidy nor optional

The poem is a great reminder of the power of feelings and their versatility.

I cry when I’m happy and when I’m sad.
I scream out of excitement or pain.
I sing when I’m lonely or overjoyed.

Whatever the context or reason, and however they show up, feelings allow us to be real.

Our emotions are neither tidy nor optional. They are relentlessly looking for a way out. And perhaps the most radical thing we can do—especially at work—is to stop pretending otherwise.

Which raises the question: how much space do we actually create at work for people to feel—and to be real—without panic?

For most companies I know, the answer is “very little space”, because emotions are messy, can be scary, and we don’t always know how to deal with them in ourselves, let alone in others…

You’d be surprised at the number of times I’ve had a manager come to me, in panic, because their employee cried during a check-in or a team meeting…

🪴 The paradox at the heart of it

The poem holds a paradox at its heart
—that the very thing we’re told makes us weak is the thing that makes us real;
—that the very thing we perceive as weak is in fact “so strong” it “cannot be tamed”, “be kept down”, or “be contained”.

Sometimes feelings arrive uninvited; they often refuse to be reasoned with; and they will inevitably find a way out—one way or another.

And yet we spend so much energy at work building walls around them.

I understand why—I really do.

But I wonder if those walls are the best way to create a healthy productive environment… or if they’re actually making things worse.

Because here’s the deeper paradox:

🪴 When feelings burst

The more an environment values “head” over “heart”, the more it encourages the stifling of feelings, and the more those feelings will eventually burst through in ways that are far more disruptive than if they’d been given space in the first place.

Unaddressed emotions don’t disappear. They calcify into disengagement, fear, absenteeism, and sickness.

That’s when managers start yelling at employees; employees burst out of meetings, punching a wall; colleagues stab each other in the back—and the rest burn out.

And, because we are ever so polite with one another
—either no one names what’s happening and the cycle quietly poisons the whole environment,
—or someone gets fired for ‘inappropriate behaviour’, only for the pattern to repeat somewhere else, with someone else.

This is the paradox Becky names—and one I work with companies to navigate every day.

It’s messy. And yet, putting our heads in the sand won’t make feelings go away.

(A note on context: I’m not suggesting every workplace becomes a therapy room, or that a surgeon pauses mid-operation to process their anger at their boss. There’s a meaningful difference between expressing feelings responsibly and being overwhelmed by them. What I am suggesting is that many workplaces seem to be allergic to emotion altogether.)

🪴 “How are you?”; “How do you feel?”

One of the things John challenges us on is finding different ways to ask someone—a client, a colleague—”How do you feel?” In fact, he bans the phrase from his foundation course. 😅

On the one hand, a question like “How are you?” has become a wall in itself—polite, well-meaning, and very easy to deflect.

But even a genuine “How do you feel?” is often met with “I’m not sure.” Why?

Because we’ve lost our connection to our body, and without that connection it becomes much more difficult to name our feelings—until suddenly one day, someone bursts into tears in a meeting or loses their temper with a direct report…

And this is precisely why learning to do better than “How are you?” or “How do you feel?” matters—because the first step to creating space for feelings is learning how to reach them.

🪴 So what might it look like in practice?

It starts with leaders who are willing to go first—who model what it looks like to be real, responsibly. When a leader normalises emotion, they give everyone around them permission to do the same.

And it starts small: a team meeting that opens with something other than the agenda; a culture that treats someone crying not as a crisis to manage, but as an opportunity to demonstrate curiosity and compassion; a colleague who says “You seem a bit down today” instead of “How are you?”.

None of this requires a therapist on staff. It requires a change in what we allow ourselves to notice, and what we choose to do with it.

🪴 So, two questions for you this Sunday:

📌 When was the last time you allowed yourself to express your true feelings—to be real?

📌 How else could you ask someone “How do you feel?” without using those words? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below 👇🏽.

And I’ll reveal some of John’s and my favourites in the comments once you’ve had your turn!

 

🦋 Happy Sunday everyone! 🦋

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

Balthazar, the donkey

Picture of Balthazar: my new friend at SurVojo.ch and teacher of healthy emotional expression

Resources:

  • Where to visit Balthazar: If you live nearby Binningen (CH), you can visit Balthazar (and Fabian) at the Sur Vojo farm (survojo.ch). You will find two Grand noir du Berry there – Balthazar is the smaller one. The other, and much larger one, is Lotus. 
  • This week’s song is Aerials, cover by The Barefoot Movement