The Beginning

"My first real job was as an Engineer in the Merchant Navy. At sea we felt fear of fire, rocks, drowning (and being found naked trying to climb into fridge), but it was no comparison to the fear I felt sat in a cubicle in my first office job. This Kafkaesque fear radiated from the people around me. There were rules to be followed, confusion as to why they existed, yet a fear of breaking them. I rarely spoke to my comrades around me, we kept our heads down, built a bubble around ourselves, and dutifully soldiered on."

The End

"I'm done with fear. Letting go, fellowship, openness, courage and reflection replace it, and like fear they slowly spread. We change our life, maybe our teams, perhaps our organisations. This is not a fad, a methodology, a process or tool. This change is a slow, deep, cultural one. At times it seems impossible, armour seems impenetrable, the weight of hierarchy constraining us. This isn't a program, these are networks of real people, relationships, egos, more complex than we can hope to understand. Making work better takes persistence, enquiry, empathy and continual learning."

The Rest

This book is about making sense of the senseless; understanding why people behave the way they do at work, and how it's possible to change that by building supportive relationships, rather than competitive ones. By removing the problems that hold us back we can find time for creativity and reflection and bring joy back to our work lives.