Founders

Build the conditions for your team to do their best work.

You have a vision for what you want your team to be. Maybe that includes a place where people care about what you're doing together, communicate well, and where different strengths are welcomed. Maybe you imagine a dream team that can do ambitious work, create, and innovate, without burning out. You imagine a team that can be real with each other, disagree without disconnecting, feel encouraged to think outside of the box...

The sort of team creatives want to work in and you want to lead.

Healthy, creative teams rarely develop by accident. There are probably a number of things you are already doing right. I say that because you are reading this, which tells me you care enough to consider support for yourself and your team.

I'm going to start with the obvious: Your team (at least in part) is made of humans.

That means the environment matters, systems matter, and relationships matter for how those humans work together. Luckily, applied psychology in teams can help us better understand the unique strengths and communication patterns of your team members, the ways they may differently process information, their needs to do their best work, and practical steps that can help you and your team better work with one another.

You and I will explore the sort of work culture you want. We can explore how you all operate as individuals and a collective - and create shared language, practices, and cultural roots that foster creativity and collaboration.

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This can involve:

‍✨ Organizational and systems psychology: applying psychology towards the development of team norms, improving team dynamics, fostering better communication and roles clarity, boundary-setting, working through conflict or disagreements, and improving collaboration and belonging

🐝‍ Environmental psychology and human-centered design: applying psychology towards developing an evironment that best supports the humans within it. This can mean the spaces, systems, rhythms, expectations and structures that influence how you and your team think, communicate, focus, recover and create.

🪸 Social psychology and neurodiversity: Great work environments make room for different kinds of minds, different kinds of thinking, and cultivate spaces to grow and belong. We can explore how your team can do your best problem-solving, brainstorming, creative divergences, and creative convergences. It can also mean offering support for neurodiversity (e.g., ADHD, autistic team members) as well.

‍☀️ Psychology of creativity and making: Creativity is not a trait, but something we do when the conditions are right. So let's foster creative conditions in your team. We can design work and systems around the human needs underlying creativity. Healthy teams aren't teams without stress - they're the teams that have learned better ways of understanding, responding to, and recovering from stress.

☕‍ Supporting you: Another human who can get forgotten in all of this is you. Maybe you started as a designer, writer, strategist, artist or creative. And your business grew. Now suddenly you're managing people, making decisions, navigating conflict, carrying added responsibilities, and trying to figure out how to be a director or CEO wihout losing the creative person at the heart of this.

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A psychologist in your pocket

Sometimes you don't need a 6-month organization transformation. Some founders just need someone you can sit down with, talk through challenges with, and have as second-brain support (who also happens to have good brain insights).

We can meet for consultations where I bring psychological frameworks, research-informed perspectives and strategies, and also questions and practical ideas that you can take back to your work and team.

You can think of it like having a psychologist in your pocket to bring in when you want to understand the human side of a problem before deciding what to do about it.

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What partnership can look like

There isn't one approach that makes sense for every team. Your agency is yours. Your people are yours. Your vision is yours. My job is to help you get there. I'm happily the Samwise of this Fellowship (and you're Frodo carrying the responsibility of your mission).

Options include:

Consultation: 1:1 or leadership team conversations to think through challenges, team dynamics, communication, burnout, creative blocks, organizational patterns, or the human side of a decision

Team workshops: interactive sessions designed around your team's needs - from communication and work styles to burnout prevention, psychological safety, motivation, creative blocks, and healthier collaboration

Work & communication style exploration: help you and your team understand how each of you think, communicate, process information, make decisions, and approahc work - and how those differences can become strengths

Team & environment consultation: we can take a closer look at your physical workspace, virtual environment, systems, rhythyms, communication practices, and team culture through a psychological and human-centered lens

Ongoing team support: a longer-term partnership can include resources, classes, workshops, consulatation, and asynchronous support that your team can return to over time. We can even create a virtual space where your team can access resources about communication, burnout prevention, motivation dips, creative blocks, self trust, and sustainable creative practice whenever they need them.

The level of support is fitted to your needs.