Twydale Blog
Who’s Leading When You’re Not?
I once worked with a leader who described himself, quite seriously, as “ruthlessly consistent.” He said it with pride, as though it were a badge of honour — a sort of organisational antihero cape. Reliable. Predictable. Never thrown by change. Which might have been...
When the Safety Brief Becomes a Performance
There’s a certain look people give when you tell them you work in leadership development. Somewhere between polite interest and faint concern. And if you add “facilitator,” the conversation drifts toward outdoor team-building, ropes courses, or flipcharts in a...
Who’s Not in the Room You Think You’re Managing?
It happened in the middle of a facilitation session, just as things were humming along. I was working with a group of experienced professionals from the same organisation, though not the same teams. Some had worked together before. Some had worked with me before. Some...
The Value of Asking the Obvious Question
In facilitation, we like to think we’re good at noticing. We read the room. We spot when energy dips or smiles tighten. We catch the subtle signals that say “something’s off.” And we quietly congratulate ourselves for being perceptive. But sometimes, noticing isn’t...
Clarity, with a Side of Custard
Last week, I was facilitating a hybrid leadership session that featured, among other things: six people in the room, nine on a screen, three time zones, and one tray of unexpectedly chilled custard slices. This wasn’t the problem. But it sets the tone. The session was...
The Day the Post-its Took Over (and Why That Was Fine)
Last month, during a strategy sprint for a global client, we hit an unexpected moment. It wasn’t a dead silence. It wasn’t polite avoidance. It was the opposite: a sudden, joyful mess. We were midway through a session designed to map future opportunities. The plan —...
Just Let Me Know If This Is Useful
I was delivering a virtual session recently — one of those hybrid set-ups where the facilitator is live, the slides are tidy, and the participants are scattered across time zones like dropped popcorn. About halfway through, I posed a question. Not a trick one. A...
We Could Workshop That
A while ago, I was facilitating a leadership development programme in the Midlands, where everything was going reasonably well until we reached the part of the day labelled “Conflict and Courageous Conversations.” A silence crept into the room — not awkward, exactly,...
What Are Other Organisations Doing?
A few days ago, I found myself in the margins of a senior leadership offsite — one of those long-table affairs where no one’s quite sure whether to relax or hold their breath. It was a “future of work” conversation, billed as strategic but simmering with unspoken...
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