Bring your boxing gloves
“I hope you brought your boxing gloves.”
That was the first thing someone said to me as I set up for a workshop. Straight-faced, arms crossed, half-joking, but only half. I’ve heard some version of that line on multiple occasions. Sometimes it’s “this should be fun,” said in a tone that you know means the opposite. Sometimes it’s just a look, with that slight eye roll and disconnect that says we’ve been here before, and it didn’t go well.
I get it. Most people walking into a workshop have been burned by a past one. They’ve sat through sessions guided by a multi-slide PowerPoint where decisions were already made, where their input disappeared into a notebook no one opened again, or where the loudest voice in the room set the direction. So, they arrive ready to defend their turf. That’s not hostility. It’s self-protection.
If there’s one thread that runs through my work it’s people: understanding them, listening for what’s underneath what they’re saying, and meeting them where they are rather than where I’d like them to be. And what I’ve learned is this: the combativeness at the start of the day is almost never the real story. The real story is that people care. They care about their work, their teams, and getting it right. The frustration is just what caring looks like when it hasn’t had anywhere to go.
“The frustration is what caring looks like when it has nowhere to go. ”
So, we don’t fight it. We make room for it.
We start by getting the chaos out on the table, all of it. The workarounds, the “that’s just how we do it,” the things nobody has said out loud in years. It’s messy, and it’s supposed to be. Then, slowly, people start seeing their own pieces in a bigger picture. Someone realizes the person across the table has been wrestling with the same problem all along. Two people who came in on opposite sides discover they want the same thing; they’ve just been saying it differently.
That’s usually the moment the room shifts. The arms uncross. People lean in. The person who came in with the boxing gloves is now the one at the flip chart, marker in hand, sketching out how it could work.
By the end of that workshop, no right hooks were thrown. We had a shared structure, a common goal, and a group of people who genuinely wanted to build it together. Nothing magical happened. We just gave them the space to do what they’d wanted to do all along.
That’s what I keep coming back to.
People want to do good work. They want order out of the chaos. They want to feel heard, and they want to be part of the solution, not handed one.
“People want to be part of the solution, not handed one. ”
Our job isn’t to bring the answers. It’s to build the conditions where the answers can surface, and then get out of the way.
“Our job isn’t to bring the answers. It’s to make space for them to surface. ”
So yes, bring your boxing gloves if you like. I’ve just never seen anyone need them by lunch.
TidalCo: is a strategy design consultancy. We help organizations and communities navigate complex challenges — and we believe the best answers come from the people in the room.
Author: Sarah Hyde
