This week on The Practice Plan, we’re looking at the connective tissue between two tools we’ve spent time with separately: the fixed v growth mindset and the B.R.A.V.I.N.G. Inventory.

The B.R.A.V.I.N.G. Inventory by Brené Brown breaks down the key components of trust, and specifically in the Elevate Program, we examined the inventory through the lens of self-trust. It can be an incredibly helpful framework for naming what happens when self-doubt creeps in.

What I’ve noticed through teaching both of these tools is that often, not always, but often, the moment we’re most likely to slip into a fixed mindset is the exact same moment self-doubt shows up. The fixed mindset is our comfort zone. And self-doubt often causes us to retreat.

Understanding this connection is actually good news. It means that self-doubt isn’t a problem to solve or push away. It’s an invitation. It can signal to us that we’re standing at the edge of real growth.

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A question came up in team practice last week: for a team on a fast growth trajectory, what’s the most important thing to focus on to make sure they succeed?

When the question was asked, the team was digesting the full list of tools we teach in the Elevate Program. At the heart of the question they wanted to know: which of these tools is most important for us.

It’s a great question. And the answer someone offered in that conversation is worth passing along.

The thing that helps a team move fastest is staying clean with each other.

When things are moving fast, and decisions are stacking up, it’s easy for frustration to build. For disconnection to creep in. In small ways you don’t even notice at first.

The analogy that came up: you’re hiking up a hill and little by little, rocks are getting added to the backpack you’re carrying. You don’t really notice it or feel it happening. Then one day you realize you’re hauling eighty pounds. You aren’t briskly walking up the hill anymore, you’re trudging.

What slows us down isn’t usually one big thing. It’s all the little things you didn’t put down.

It’s Not One Magic Tool

If you’re building a team that’s trying to grow fast, it’s tempting to look for one tool, the one framework, the one system that will keep everyone aligned. But that’s not really what makes a team move faster than everyone else. (Don’t get me wrong: a smooth operating system is absolutely vital. But a perfect operating system can’t overcompensate for a dysfunctional culture.)

What makes the biggest difference, in my opinion, is a team’s ability to hold each other accountable. To give feedback. To keep bringing tensions into the open instead of letting them sit. To have the uncomfortable conversation instead of deciding it’s not worth the friction.

“Letting something go” can feel like the fast move. Skip the hard conversation, keep the momentum, get over it. But that’s exactly the thing that comes back around and slows you down more than anything else. Because we aren’t really letting things go. All we did was throw them in our backpack.

Skill Isn’t Enough

Here’s the easy part to miss: you can teach a team how to give feedback well, and it still won’t matter if they don’t trust each other.

If the emotional bank account between two people isn’t in a good place, the ability to format feedback becomes less relevant. Knowing how to say something isn’t the same as being in a relationship where you feel safe to say it and where it can actually be heard.

That’s why this isn’t a one-time fix. It’s not “now that we technically know how to structure feedback, we’re set.” It’s a stacking effect of trust, of practice, of choosing again and again to name what’s true instead of glossing over it. It’s built over time, the same way the weight in that backpack builds over time. Just in the other direction.

Why This Matters More When We’re Growing

A lot of the teams we work with are in exactly this spot: growing, moving fast, adding people and decisions and complexity all at once. That’s precisely the environment where little tensions accumulate the fastest, and where it’s easiest to convince yourself there’s no time to deal with them.

This is one of the clearest places where culture stops being a soft add-on and becomes a strategic advantage. Not because it feels good. (Although, it does.) But because a team that stays clean with each other genuinely moves faster than one that doesn’t.

Working this muscle is exactly what allows you to capitalize on the growth opportunities in front of you.

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This week on The Practice Plan, we’re going deeper on values. Not just naming them, but (1) recognizing patterns and (2) understanding when and how to use them.

Values are one of the most consistent anchors I return to when navigating tensions. Whether I’m scripting S.O.S. feedback, helping someone move from complaint to commitment, or exploring a frustration with a colleague, values are almost always where we land. And there’s a reason for that.

When we put decisions, feelings, and behaviors in the context of values, we get closer to the heart of the issue. It makes it easier to stop reacting to the what and the how and start understanding the why. That shift creates more space for collaboration, more clarity in communication, and more compassion for ourselves and others.

This week, I want us to build awareness around a couple of things:

1. The values of ours that show up time and again when we examine our decisions and tensions

2. How and when we can use values to support self-awareness, communication, and collaboration with our teammates

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 90-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

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It’s easy to conflate “everyone getting along” with team functionality. Meetings feel smooth, consensus is easy, and decisions are moving fast. It seems healthy. But, looks can be deceiving.

Put different people with different backgrounds, different personality types, and different perspectives in a room, and you should drum up some friction. When you don’t, when there’s agreement at all times, that's usually not genuine harmony. It’s artificial. Most of the time, it indicates that people don’t feel safe enough to push back.

The healthiest, fastest-moving organizations operate as an idea meritocracy. They want the best idea to win, regardless of who it came from. That only happens when people are willing to speak up. When they’re not, you get groupthink. The room just acquiesces to whoever has the most seniority or the loudest voice, and the best idea rarely makes it to the top.

Patrick Lencioni writes about this well in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: healthy conflict, centered around debating ideas rather than debating each other, is one of the foundations on which an effective team is built.

So, how do you know if your team actually has it?

Sign One: The Meeting After the Meeting

You’ve sat through a meeting. It ends. Five minutes later, your phone rings. Or, you find that one person on the team you trust most, and that’s where the real conversation happens.

This is an incredibly common pattern in organizations, and it’s a direct signal of low trust. You trust the person you called, but you didn’t trust the room.

(Not to mention, it’s inefficient.) If that perspective had been shared in the meeting, everyone could have worked off the same information and had an honest, real-time debate. Instead, those handful of side conversations that happened after the fact suck up time and energy and deepen fractures amongst the group.

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Sign Two: How Boring Your Meetings Are

If you walk out of meetings and they are consistently flat, nothing is debated, and if nobody pushes on anything or challenges suggestions, that’s not alignment. That’s a sign nobody felt free to disagree.

And, important to note, conflict doesn’t mean brawling. It should feel more akin to sparring. Somebody shares a take, someone else weighs in, people ask real questions, and engage with each other’s thinking. When decisions actually matter, that exchange should be energizing, not tense.

I was in a team practice this week, and someone described their team’s meetings as entertaining. That’s exactly it. That back and forth, and the absence of it, is one of the best indicators you have of whether ideological conflict is happening.

So What Do You Do About It

My personal favorite lever here is simple: flip the script on what conflict means to your team.

People often stay quiet for one of two reasons. They don’t want to be a burden, or they don’t trust they’ll actually be heard. The fix starts with inviting the pushback directly and making it lightweight rather than heavy.

A few questions that work well:

• Who can poke a hole in this?

• What are two ways this might not be as easy to execute as we think?

• If you had to play devil’s advocate against this idea, what would you say?

These questions change what it means to have a contradictory perspective.

Before being asked a question like this, playing devil’s advocate may have felt unwelcome. Now, sharing that same perspective actually becomes a favor. It’s exactly what the team is asking for.

And the moment people start leaning in is when your job becomes the most important. As an Elevater, you have to be genuinely receptive to their positions. Remember, their perspective is a gift. Show gratitude.

How we show up in those moments is one crucial element that ultimately develops trust and safety.

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This week in The Practice Plan, we’re checking in on our PDPs. That said, we’re focusing less on your PDP progress and more on your PDP process.

If you’ve been through the Elevate Program, you know what a PDP is. If you haven’t, PDP stands for Personal Development Practice. Each PDP consists of two parts: our old habit and our new habit. We identify one specific pattern or behavior that isn’t serving us anymore, and we create a plan to shift it.

When we typically conduct PDP updates in the program, we assess how well our new habit is progressing. Today, we’re going to be examining our process. Not whether our habits are changing, but whether we’re actually doing the work to change them.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 90-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

In many ways, the role of the Persecutor in the Dreaded Drama Triangle feels obvious. The Persecutor is the problem. They put others down. They belittle. They’re the force we’re working against.

And, I know when I envision a Persecutor, my mind jumps to the most obvious examples: a sports coach screaming at a player, a manager delivering poor feedback.

In my experience, many of us don’t identify with that character. Some of us might (stress responses come in all shapes and forms), but I can guarantee that we all fall into the Persecutor role at one time or another. Likely more often than we realize.

So, today I wanted to dive into some more subtle examples of how the role of the Persecutor can show up.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 90-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

My mindfulness practice is one of the habits I have to be most conscious and deliberate about. It doesn’t take much for it to slip. Like many of the most impactful practices we talk about in the Elevate Program, it falls into the category of important, but not urgent. Meaning it’s most susceptible to disappearing when life gets loud.

Now, more than ever, I am hyper-aware of the consequences of deferring my practice. It’s subtle, but I notice a frenetic energy that creeps into my days. My mind accelerates the pace of my day, unconsciously and unproductively. Yes, I’m getting things done, but there’s a pressure underneath that doesn’t need to be there.

When I’m in my practice, I move more slowly. And more gets done. I feel calmer.

As I often say, mindfulness is a force multiplier for every other tool in our toolkit. It’s what allows us, when things get hard or stressful, to slow down enough to notice what’s happening and actually choose our response. Without it, we’re just reacting. With it, we have options.

There are lots of ways to build a mindfulness practice. Meditation is one of them. And if you’ve been curious but haven’t known where to start, or if you’re looking for something new, I hope this article becomes a helpful resource.

Below is a playlist of meditations from the Insight Time App, organized by time, with a short description of each, so you can find something that fits where you are.

Hope you enjoy!

And, if you have any meditations you love, please drop them in the comments below for others to enjoy!

Around 5 Minutes

Five Minutes of Self-Compassion • Lisa Abramson • 4 min

Body-based and inward-focused. This meditation guides you to settle into your body and extend kindness to yourself. Great for a midday reset or rough moment.

Listen Here

Five Minute Meditation • Hugh Bryne • 5 min

Simple breath-and-present-moment awareness meditation. Invites you to scan for tension, return to the break, and recenter in the body.

Listen Here

Five-Minute Morning Practice on Gratitude • Julie Ela Grace • 5 min

Guided gratitude practice with light body scan and visualization. Designed for the morning but works anytime you want to shift your lens.

Listen Here

Awakening Your Best Self • Davidji • 5 min

Intention-setting and inner inquiry. Prompts you to ask what you most want to unfold and plant it as a seed. More inward and reflective than body-focused.

Listen Here

Under 10 Minutes

Beginners Body Scan • Dora Kamau • 7 min

A thorough, accessible body scan that moves through the whole body. Calm pacing, great for anyone new to body-based practice.

Listen Here

The Joy of Gratitude • Ida Speyer • 7 min

Gratitude-focused with a heart-centered feel. Guides you to notice small everyday blessings and anchor into positive emotion. Short and genuinely moving.

Listen Here

Short Check-In to Ground Yourself and Become Present • Iris Ruffe • 6 min

Turning your focus inward to attune to your inner state. Include gentle thought-labeling and ends with setting an intention. Good for transitions between tasks.

Listen Here

Gratitude Meditation • Katie Willey • 10 min

Guided gratitude with body awareness woven in. Prompts reflection on what you’re grateful for while staying connected to breath and surroundings.

Listen Here

Manifesting From The Quantum Field • Helen Fletcher • 9 min

Visualization-forward and expansive. This one moves beyond the body and into possibility — guiding you to align your energy with what you want to create and step into it as if it's already real. A good pick for when you want your practice to feel generative rather than just settling.

Listen Here

Under 20 Minutes

Daily Centering: Your 20-Minute Anchor • Sarah Blondin • 19 min

Heart-centered and quietly powerful. Sarah Blondin guides you back to the steady, unwavering part of yourself that exists beneath whatever the day is throwing at you. Less about technique, more about remembering.

Listen Here

Flow Writing For Deep Self-Listening • Sarah Blondin • 13 min

This one's a little different — it's less a meditation and more a guided writing practice. Sarah walks you through a flow-writing session designed to get you past your inner editor and into what's actually going on beneath the surface. Bring a notebook. Good for when you sense something is stirring but can't quite name it yet.

Watch Here

Hopefully, this serves as a jumping-off point or offers some new options for you to explore.

There’s no single right way to practice, and not every meditation will land the same way for every person. My biggest encouragement when it comes to meditation is: try a lot of things. Different lengths, different styles, different teachers. Pay attention to what resonates.

Want more? Check out the latest from Home of Elevaters:

Joining me this week is Sara, one of our amazing Cohd coaches. We talk about where the system most commonly breaks down, what it actually looks like to do it well, and why the payoff grows the longer you stick with it.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 90-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

So, today, we’re examining four common stress responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

If you’re an Elevate Program alum, you’ve heard us reference these in the context of TED* and our Problem Orientation. But we’ve never gone deep on all four. My hope for this week is to unpack each and provide examples, so we can all be better equipped to recognize which we fall into.

Joining me this week is Javier, who brought a ton of great nuance and real-world examples to each of these responses.

Here’s the framing to hold onto as you read: these stress responses aren’t bad. They’re adaptive. Under stress, our brain is essentially asking, ”What’s the fastest, easiest, most comfortable way to reduce this discomfort right now?” Sometimes these responses help us get through. And they often pull us away from what we actually want. The goal this week is awareness, not judgment.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 90-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

• What coaching really is

• What strong coaching questions look like (Both around goal setting and defining the way forward)

This week, I wanted to look at coaching from the other seat, and begin to answer the question: When should I be asking for coaching?

Most of us are carrying a lot at any given time. And when we need support, it’s easy to default into reactive strategies like venting, complaining, asking for advice, rescuing, or simply just trying to muscle our way through it on our own.

But there are certain moments when coaching can be one of the most effective forms of support we can ask for, because it gives us the time and space to think more clearly, more deeply, and more intentionally.

Today, we’re going to dive into some of those moments.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

More specifically:

• Why feedback is such an important tool for helping us shift out of the Victim role and into the Creator role

• And how (with some small tweaks) we can show up intentionally as a Coach or a Challenger when delivering feedback

Historically, when we’ve talked about feedback, we’ve been focused on the S.O.S. structure. (Which isn’t going away.) But today’s conversation is all about adding another layer, which is asking: Who am I choosing to be in this conversation?

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

When we take a coaching approach with someone, it can be easy to focus on the insight, the “aha” moment, the question that helps to shift the other person’s perspective. But, insight alone is only one part of the equation.

We need action to create change.

If we end a conversation without a clear path forward, we didn’t coach… we just had a really nice conversation.

Joining me today to provide insight into the importance of this step in the process and to give us some specific questions to keep in our back pocket is Cohd coach Jackie Lesser.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

We all feel tension at work. Sometimes it’s interpersonal. Sometimes it’s systemic. And sometimes we’re not even sure where responsibility begins or ends, but we know something isn’t working because we’re experiencing the impact.

That subtle, or not so subtle, friction that tells us something isn’t fully aligned is an important cue to pay attention to.

This week, I saw moments where Elevaters listened to that cue and took action. I also saw moments where the tension was named, but that’s where it stopped. People got stuck. Not sure what to say or what to do. Telling themselves some familiar stories:

• “I don’t want to bother anyone with this.”

• “I don’t know if it’s that big of a deal.”

• “I’ve said something before, and nothing happened, so what’s the point?”

I want to call out these beliefs because we’ve all been there. Ultimately, they keep us stuck in a dynamic where it feels like things are happening to us.

This is what it sounds like to slip into the Victim Mindset.

When we’re in the Victim Mindset, things are happening to us. When we’re in the Creator Mindset, we’re making things happen.

So, What Can We Do?

In the spirit of action, I want to highlight two tools from the Cohd Toolkit that I coach participants to lean on:

1. S.O.S. Feedback

Feedback isn’t about telling someone they’re taking the wrong approach or that their system is bad.

The first step is recognizing that our idea of what is “right” or what “should happen” is just that, a belief. It is not the truth.

When we tell someone they are wrong, it creates defensiveness. When we present our opinion as fact, we set ourselves up for a difficult conversation.

Instead, we focus on owning the impact.

For example:
“When you took X action, I felt frustrated. I really value transparency, and it didn’t feel like that was happening. Are there changes we could make to increase transparency?”

“I felt frustrated.”
“I value transparency.”

That is ownership. That is acknowledging that what we are offering is a perspective, not the truth.

The more attached we are to being right, the more likely we are to blame. And when we show up fixed in our beliefs, we invite the other person to do the same.

2. Perspective Taking

Not all tension is tied to a specific person. Often, we do not even know where the issue originates. Processes and systems span teams and roles, and breakdowns are not always obvious.

This is where perspective-taking comes in.

If we are unclear on who to give feedback to, that is a signal. There is something we do not yet understand. We may have stories about what is happening, but we do not actually know.

Perspective-taking is about asking questions to understand. It requires openness and humility about what we might be missing.

What does this look like in practice?

Identify someone who may have more insight. Share your intent. Name the tension. Then ask questions.

For example:
“Hey Jerry, I was hoping to get your perspective on the onboarding process. I am feeling some tension around not fully understanding my role as a hiring manager, and I have some ideas for how it could improve. But I also know there is a lot I do not see. Could you walk me through how the current process works?”

That acknowledgment, there is a lot I do not see, is key.

It requires a gut check.
“I think this is wrong.”
“I think there is a better way.”
“I think I know the best way.”

Maybe. But when we show up from that place, we are often met with resistance.

Perspective-taking shifts the stance.
“I have thoughts, and there may be something I do not yet understand.”

The Takeaway?

Being an Elevater comes back to personal accountability in so many ways.

Elevating ourselves means looking in the mirror, recognizing what we value, and choosing actions that align with those values.

If I think a process is inefficient, the most inefficient thing I can do is say nothing.

If I value transparency, I have to be willing to share my thoughts.

If I value a Creator Mindset, I need to take steps to build something.

If I want to be met with curiosity and openness, I have to start by being curious and open to the limits of my own perspective.

This is easier said than done.

But this is the unlocking move. The one that has the power to shift the environment we create for ourselves.

Want more? Check out the latest from Home of Elevaters:

This week on The Practice Plan, we’re diving into Healthy Conflict through the lens of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model.

When most people hear the word “conflict,” they immediately think of tension, disagreement, or even damage to relationships.

But in high-functioning teams, conflict is not only normal, it’s essential.

Healthy conflict is what allows teams to:

• Make better decisions

• Move faster with alignment

• Build stronger, more honest relationships

Without it, we don’t eliminate conflict… we just move it underground.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

This week on The Practice Plan, we’re honing in on one of the most important elements of a coaching conversation: creating a robust and meaningful goal.

In my time training folks how to put on a coaching hat and support others through inquiry (check out our recent post on What Coaching Actually Is), one of the top mistakes I notice is our inclination to move quickly… especially when it comes to establishing the goal.

I think it’s because we crave resolution and action. We want to get into the “good stuff” and solve the problem. And it’s easy to assume that we’re all on the same page about where we’re trying to get to.

But I’ve noticed that when we can slow down. Pressure test our goal. Poke holes and create real clarity on what we want and why it’s important; we ultimately save time and achieve better outcomes.

So, to dive further into this topic, I spoke with one of our amazing Cohd coaches, Sara Hugo, to learn about her experience learning to coach, teaching others, and some of her favorite questions for creating a meaningful goal.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes from not only digesting it but practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

Read more

This week on The Practice Plan, we are discussing how and when to utilize perspective-taking.

This is one of the many tools that are simple to understand but can be difficult to apply in practice. Certainly, there are moments when we are deeply curious and look to learn more from the people around us. And I find the most game-changing applications of perspective-taking come in moments when we have a personal, deep conviction.

When we have an opinion or stance that we are deeply grounded in, it rarely feels instinctual to seek out our blind spots.

To recognize the power of perspective-taking and to refine our internal gauge for how and when to use the tool, I spoke with Jackie Lesser, another of our incredible Cohd coaches.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from digesting it but also from practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

Read more

Hi everyone,

I thought I would switch things up today and share a bit of a business update. We’re stepping into a new chapter at Cohd, and I want to bring you all along.

Q1 was a big quarter. Not just in the sense that things were busy or full, but as I step back and reflect, it’s a moment where the business itself has shifted.

We refreshed our brand identity.
We launched our new website.
We established our training tier on Substack.

The fundamentals of our work haven’t changed. From the very beginning, Cohd has been about creating cultures of human development. What feels distinct is our ability to communicate that clearly and execute it on a larger scale.

Since the inception of Cohd, our work has lived inside our cohorts. And there is something created in those spaces that can’t be replicated. But over the last year, it’s become increasingly clear that the impact of what we’re up to shouldn’t be limited to the people who can sit in those spaces.

So we set out to expand and launched The Practice Plan (our training tier here on Substack). It’s an important step toward making this work more accessible to individuals and organizations who believe in it.

What exactly is The Practice Plan?

The Practice Plan is our way of sharing the Cohd toolkit beyond the Elevate Program. It’s our way of training the tools, bringing in new voices, and, as always, anchoring the work in practice.

Every Monday, inside each edition of The Practice Plan, you’ll get:

• A conversation about a Cohd tool. I chat with fellow Cohd coaches and Elevate alumni about one of our tools and how folks are applying them in real leadership situations

• A clear written breakdown of that tool. So you understand the structure behind it

• Individual reflection questions. To help you think about how the concept shows up in your own leadership world

• Team discussion prompts. Which you can bring into meetings, coaching conversations, or development sessions

There are also a few things we’re especially excited about, including team discounts and a 50-week workbook that accompanies the weekly posts, so you and your team can take this work out of your inbox and into your day-to-day.

This is a way for alumni to stay connected to the work. For individuals to access the tools even if they haven’t participated in our Elevate Program. And it’s a way for us to start building a broader community of people who care about this kind of growth.

If we’ve piqued your interest and you’d like to know more, you can read all about The Practice Plan, here.

To celebrate the launch, we’re offering 30 days free for anyone who wants to explore. Just follow the link below. And, if you know someone in your network who might find it valuable, feel free to pass the link along.

Join The Practice Plan Free to 30 Days

And while this is a new phase in the business, it also represents a shift for me. For the majority of the past 4 years and 8 months, I was pretty committed to keeping this small. There was a simplicity, but also a comfort in that.

And, with that comfort comes a limit to the impact that can be made.

Over time, it’s been the participants’ responses (their growth, their feedback, the way they take this work and run with it) that have made it harder and harder to justify keeping it contained.

Hear from some of our amazing participants:

When it comes to this work, I’ve always felt the most energized after leaving a team practice. But embarking on the new challenge of communicating what we’re building, and making the toolkit accessible at a larger scale, is energizing me in a similar way.

Because of that, I couldn’t share this update without expressing my incredible gratitude to everyone who has supported Cohd in getting to this point.

To every leader who took a chance and introduced this work to this team. Every participant who showed up with an open mind. To every person who has shared Cohd’s work. And to our amazing Cohd coaches who are making it possible for things to become both bigger and better.

Thanks to everyone.

As we head into Q2, I have a sense that we’re just getting started.

And of course, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about bringing The Practice Plan to your organization.

Want more? Check out the latest from Home of Elevaters:

This week on The Practice Plan, we are discussing The Rescuer Role, one of the three roles that make up The Dreaded Drama Triangle (originally created by Dr. Stephen Karpman).

Of the three (victim, persecutor, and rescuer), the Rescuer Role is often the most eye-opening because many of us can fall into it without any malintent. We simply want to make things easier for the people around us.

But in practice, the habit of rescuing can actually undermine the growth of our teammates (or friends, children, partners, parents, etc.).

So, this week we wanted to explore what the Rescuer Role is, and how it often shows up in the workplace.

To do this, I spoke with Erin Van Galder, one of our amazing Cohd coaches, whom I have known since nearly the very beginning of Cohd and who studied and understood The Dreaded Drama Triangle long before our meeting.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from digesting it but also from practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

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I’ve given them the feedback, so why isn’t anything changing?

This is a tension I’ve heard many times, and often the leader sharing it with me is equal parts frustrated and confounded.

It’s an easy moment to climb our ladder and start telling ourselves stories about our team member. They don’t care. They’re not listening. They’re not capable.

And while those things may sometimes be true, acting on those assumptions is a sure way to ensure nothing changes. When we believe someone isn’t capable or they don’t care, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We continuously notice only behaviors that support those conclusions.

As leaders, instead of pointing the finger at our people, we want to first take stock of our own actions and approaches. It’s easy for us to feel like we’ve been incredibly clear, and that’s not always the case.

If you find yourself in this loop, here are four places I would look first (and the tool I’d apply):

1. Are we assuming understanding or actually confirming it?

I’ve found managers often think they’re on the same page with an employee after delivering their feedback, but in reality, what feels so obvious to them doesn’t translate.

At the end of the day, how effectively we’ve communicated isn’t proven by what we’ve said; it’s provided by what the other person is taking away. And it’s pretty uncommon for us to check the latter.

We assume we delivered the message (which makes perfect sense to us), so the person on the receiving end should be on the same page.

The Tool to Use: Mirroring

Instead of assuming alignment, ask them to mirror back what you’ve said. Or share their understanding of next steps.

• What’s your takeaway from this conversation?

• What are you planning to do differently moving forward?

• Can you walk me through how you’re thinking about this?

When someone mirrors what we’ve said back, we get real information. It is the most true assessment of whether we’re actually aligned and our communication style is working.

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2. How clear were we, really?

Ambiguity is the enemy of accountability. How clear were your expectations?

It’s easy to say things like "be more proactive" or "communicate better," and to us, that feels straightforward. But there is a lot to interpret there. Those directions leave miles of space for the other person to define success in a way that may not match what you had in mind.

So, when we go back later and feel like progress hasn’t been made, it becomes frustrating on both sides. We feel like we’ve been clear, and they feel like they’ve been trying.

The Tool to Use: Committed Action Language

What precisely needs to happen? By when?

The more concrete the expectation, the easier it becomes to follow through. Your teammate knows exactly what to do, and you know exactly when to follow up if something hasn’t happened.

No more waffling or wasting time/energy wondering if they’re working on it.

If you asked them for a weekly project update by EOD Wednesday, then you know you can follow up first thing Thursday morning if you haven’t seen anything. (If you just asked them to “be more communicative,” we’re living in a perpetual grey area.)

3. Have we actually communicated the impact?

It’s also common for us to be really frustrated by a situation, but when we go to deliver feedback, we default to keeping things light and acting like it isn’t too big a deal.

Now, I’m certainly not a proponent of jumping into a feedback conversation heated. But it’s a disservice to our people to downplay importance.

If we act like something is minor, we shouldn’t be surprised when it’s treated as such.

The Tool to Use: S.O.S. Feedback

Instead of bringing emotion into a conversation, I recommend focusing on clearly articulating the situation's impact.

Instead of: Can you just make sure this gets done earlier?

We can say: When this comes in late, I feel a lot of stress because I have to shift all my priorities around to pull everything together. And, in turn, it affects how prepared we are as a team.

We don’t need to bring stress into the conversation, but it’s incredibly helpful to share that you feel stress in those moments. That level of context humanizes the request and lends it the appropriate weight.

People are much more likely to change their behavior when they understand the real consequences of not doing something, rather than just the instruction itself.

4. What’s actually getting in the way?

If you’ve confirmed understanding, set a clear expectation, communicated the impact, and you’re still not seeing change, then we are likely no longer dealing with a communication issue.

There’s something else that’s blocking execution. And this is where it’s so easy to double down on making assumptions, when what’s actually needed is curiosity.

The Tool to Use: Perspective Taking

Instead of repeating the same directive, we can shift toward trying to understand what we don’t see.

• We’ve talked about this a few times, and I’m not seeing the shift yet. What’s getting in the way?

• What feels challenging about this for you?

• What do you need support with to follow through?

• If you were in my position, how would you handle this?

These questions do two things. Firstly, they help us uncover context we may not have. And secondly, they invite the other person into the problem-solving process, rather than keeping them in a passive role where they’re just being told what to do.

This requires a level of humility, because it means being willing to admit there may be something you don’t fully understand yet.

And sometimes there is. And sometimes there isn’t.

But regardless, you’re now working toward a solution together instead of continuing the same unproductive conversation.

The Shift

When nothing changes, it’s very easy to conclude that the other person is the problem. And again, sometimes that might be where you ultimately arrive.

But Elevaters take a moment and ask a different set of questions.

1. Have I actually ensured they understood what I was asking?

2. Was I as clear as I think I was?

3. Did I make the impact of this visible?

4. Have I gotten curious about what might be in the way?

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This week on The Practice Plan, we’re going to be exploring the strongest element of The Trust Equation: Intimacy. And, to take a quick step back, The Trust Equation is an incredibly useful framework created by David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford for understanding exactly how we build (or rupture) trust in a professional environment.

When looking at all four components of The Trust Equation, intimacy is regarded as the “strongest”. It’s the component that builds deep, long-term trust.

So, this week we wanted to explore how to build trust when you’re starting from scratch or when you’re focused on strengthening a challenging relationship.

To do this, I spoke with Kayla Kilpatrick, an HR professional and an Elevate alum who recently started a new role. She offers a practical take on the impact of high-trust relationships at work and real-world examples of how to start small when building intimacy.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from digesting it but also from practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

Read more