create(v.)
“to bring into being,” early 15c.
This is the third part of a guide to staying grounded in complexity. The introduction is here. Part One covered preparing, and Part Two listening deeply.
This part gets a bit more into the details of tools and techniques you can use to create a space that invites integrity, openness and maybe even vulnerability. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Part Three: Creating
Building a container is about creating just the right conditions: where difficult things can be said. Where people feel safe enough to be honest. Where complexity can actually surface rather than stay hidden beneath professional politeness.
I sometimes think of it as surfing the energy of the room. And you have all the tools you need to do that. Your presence and your willingness to be human in the room will set the tone for everyone else for better or worse (no pressure). This part is about learning to trust what you already have.
If the energy is low, tired or flat, bring yourself up a few degrees. Not dramatically, as too great a mismatch will jar and people will feel performed at rather than met. If there’s a buzz, you might bring it down a notch. The skill is in calibrating to what’s there and shifting it gently, not overriding it.
Your voice is a brilliant tool. Subtly varying the pitch, the rhythm and the pace will keep people present and listening. The trick is enough variation to engage, not so much that it distracts.
Let people feel seen in whatever way feels natural to you and show them that you value their presence. Even if are bringing more complexity with them - maybe even especially then.
Try to show the level of openness and vulnerability you would like from everyone else. This is not performance. It is modelling, and therefore it will feel uncomfortable. It should feel uncomfortable! Consider making a small, real confession: that this is the first time you’ve run this session so you’re figuring it out alongside them. That you spent the morning on the school run and maybe they did too. This lets you offer an invitation for everyone to take a minute to settle before you begin.
It also says we are all whole people who just walked in from real lives. It gives permission to be human rather than perform a professional role. It dismantles the expert as authority dynamic before it has a chance to calcify.
Check that everyone knows what to expect (particularly any breaks). Explain the shape of the conversation, session or workshop as simply and honestly as possible. And work deliberately to build psychological safety in any of the ways you can think of, not as a box to tick but as the foundation everything else rests on. In complex spaces, the container matters more than the agenda, because you cannot predict what might need to be said.
When the container feels solid, people will say things they wouldn’t otherwise say. That is exactly what you are trying to create.
When you are not the person in charge
If you are not leading the room, you may not be able to set the agenda, redesign the process, or openly challenge how the space is being held. But you still hold your own agency and you can still shape the work in important ways. You influence the tone through how you speak and/or listen. You legitimise complexity by asking thoughtful questions rather than rushing to answers. You can slow things down by pausing before you respond, by reflecting back what you have heard, or by naming uncertainty where others are glossing over it.
Sometimes this work happens at the margins: in how you frame a contribution, in a quiet check‑in with a colleague during a break, in what you choose to record and what you choose not to reduce. You may find yourself acting as a translator between the emotional reality of the room and the institutional language it might eventually be rendered into. That labour is real, even if it is invisible.
When you don’t hold formal power, working through complexity is often about protecting the integrity of what surfaces long enough for it to matter later. That, too, is leadership.