Part of the Held together, loosely mini series.
I like clarity. I like purpose. I like getting things done.
That’s not a confession – it’s a pattern I’ve often been praised for. I bring order. I move things along. I cut through.
When a team is drifting, when a problem feels stuck, when people seem tired or unsure, I know how to bring shape. I create a path. I pin something to the wall. I help people feel progress. And that has value.
But lately, I’ve started to wonder: at what cost?
There’s a particular kind of structure I’ve leaned on in recent years. It borrows from agile sprints – not as dogma, but as a way to build rhythm. Momentum. Deliverables. Something to show for the effort.
And it works. Especially in places where energy is low or attention is fragmented. It can galvanise a group. Focus minds. Give legitimacy to action.
But I’m starting to see that structure is never neutral. Every frame I choose – every cycle I impose – invites some voices and silences others. It shapes not just what gets done, but who gets to shape it.
When everything is funnelled through tight timelines and crisp artefacts, the space for something else – something slower, more relational, more tentative – starts to shrink. Reflection becomes a luxury. Participation becomes performance. Dialogue becomes a transaction.
What’s lost is harder to name. But I think it matters.
Through systems thinking, I’ve been exploring how change often emerges not from plans, but from patterns. From relationships. From subtle shifts in how people relate, speak, and listen. And that’s what my frameworks risk crowding out.
The part of me that craves pace can sometimes act like a gatekeeper – protecting against drift, yes, but also shielding me from uncertainty, difference, and the uncomfortable kind of emergence that doesn’t obey timelines.
What began as a tool for focus can harden into a mechanism of control.
So what do I do with that?
I’m not about to abandon structure. That would be neither honest nor useful. But I am learning to hold it differently. Less as a scaffold to direct behaviour, more as a container that invites contribution.
I want to be more deliberate about the rhythms I introduce. To ask:
• Who does this pace serve?
• What kinds of participation does this format invite – or inhibit?
• Where might I make space for reflection, story, or ambiguity – not as afterthoughts, but as part of the work?
And maybe most importantly, I’m learning to notice when I’m reaching for structure as a defence – against my own discomfort, or against the risk of things going somewhere I didn’t plan.
Letting go a little isn’t failure. It’s invitation.
Invitation to let the system speak, not just respond.
Invitation to be surprised.
Invitation to discover what else might grow – if I don’t grip it so tightly.
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