What a brilliant essay!! It deeply resonated with me, and the work I am trying to do. Thank you!!!! You also reminded me of a word I have recently learned: Interoception. I understand it as our ability to interpret our internal data, to feel it in our body, to be articulate about what we feel.
Brilliant. Reminds me of when living abroad and the period when your thoughts start forming in the new language rather than your own, yet the lack of vocabulary does not restrict your mind.
Anna, this was a wonderful piece — and it resonated deeply with me.
Especially your thoughts on the collapse of meaning in communication.
It made me reflect on something I’ve been thinking about for a long time:
The value of being indirect.
If it is good for you, it becomes good for me.
If you understand, I understand.
If you are happy, I am happy.
In real collaboration — which is very different from ordinary collaboration — you always “sell and buy” at the same time. Trust, energy, insight, momentum. It’s never a single transaction; it is always several, happening in parallel and reinforcing each other.
This is also why real collaboration has such a profound impact on how we speak to each other.
The moment you stop communicating to win — inside-out or outside-in — something shifts.
You gain by enabling the outside to gain.
And then communication becomes clearer, deeper, and more meaningful.
Almost indirect, but in the best possible sense.
But here is the thing I keep coming back to:
The word real changes everything.
We say “collaboration” all the time. It’s everywhere — in strategy slides, project plans, workshops, job descriptions.
But real collaboration is something else entirely.
And maybe the reason it’s so rare is because our business models and reward systems simply don’t support it.
They reward individual outcomes, not shared elevation.
Alignment is not incentivized.
Winning together is not measured.
Maybe this is why the concept has no true word.
We call it collaboration, but that word is too weak for what actually happens when two or more people create value that none of them could create alone — and where one person’s success becomes part of the other’s success.
I’ve been wondering for years if we need a new word for it.
Something that captures the essence of mutual rise, co-creation, indirect benefit, alignment, and shared gain.
One word I have played with:
• Together-value
So let me ask you — because your writing always sharpens thinking:
What should the word be for this?
For real collaboration — the one where value flows in both directions at the same time, and where the success of the other is literally part of your own success?
If we had the right word, maybe we would also communicate — and collaborate — differently.
I want to offer a term rather than a single word — something that, for me, describes the outcome of the kind of collaboration you’re pointing to: 'The joys of collective achievement'. I first experienced it in 2002 in the aftermath of the dotcom crash and it changed how I see my role as a designer. Whenever I work with teams, I’m looking to create that feeling.
Thank you for your wonderful thoughts and words. I know some of them well, 'lagom' is one I want to learn more about. And interesting that you mentioned 'Fernweh'. There is also the word 'Heimweh' in German, and that is a longing for home – not necessarily a geographic place, but the people associated with it. I experienced the tension between both for years when I was travelling between the UK and Germany in a long-distance relationship – every time the plane broke through the clouds and revealed the patchwork of fields in England or the Rhine river in Germany, I would feel both at once.
Such a great reflection on modern communication! We’ve woven in so much imprecise language into our conversations in the quest for “efficient” communication. We need to be more thoughtful and intentional about what we share and how to help people understand us, instead of trying “to sound clever, or to be right, or to prove something.”
I love your evocative writing. I love how you describe how humans' first words grew in our bodies and mouths, to keep us connected.
Also, I resonate with what you say about how we’ve lost a deeper meaning of words and language – what’s ‘not said’. The contextual, embodied, deeper knowing about ‘how’ language is said.
If we could recover this capacity, as Westerners/Industrial Era people, I think we would be taking a step back to our Indigenous roots. The deep knowledge and wisdom which First Peoples’ have preserved (where they could) – it’s almost like we get a step closer to our version of their deep knowing.
“We think we’re communicating with words, but we’re really communicating our entire worlds.”
I resonate with how you describe words and phrases used in our organisations today (e.g. ‘feedback’ = ‘I want to give you criticism’. And we kinda know this! But we put on the professional mask and ‘take it’. And try to change ourselves to fit iin.
I could have quoted you a LOT, you give many insightful lines. Another favourite I must add here is: (the value os….) “By speaking not to sound clever, or to be right, or to prove something. By daring to say: I don’t know. I don’t understand. I don’t feel at home here anymore.”
Gorgeous.
And again, I can’t help myself. Your final words are so wise – kind of ‘thrutopian’ to use Manda Scott’s oft-used phrase! -
“We need a language for the regenerative - for what becomes true only in relationship. A language that creates presence.
We need a language for the living. Yes, we need the big narratives and manifestos, but that’s not where it begins. It begins in simple conversations. In the moments where we let go of who we think we need to be and choose to be present instead. Where we stop speaking about the world and start speaking with it - where we release our need to control and let language become what it was always meant to be: a way of being together. Weaving the world back together. Word by word.”
I appreciate your openness for the unknown in your observations and resonated a lot. One sentence that created some physical reactions in my body was the one about "humans communication is more complex" I think through language it's at least sometimes the opposite - I'd call it the monoculture of our communication.
When I observe other beings I'm always fascinated by the ways they're able to communicate - we humans rarely access (anymore).
I also, while reading, Ifelt reminded of a feedback I received from a workshop participant in the past. It was about "the power of silence" and I did a few exercises , including listening and reading practices that were meant to shift attention to different consciousness. One person shared told me in their feedback at the end: "Your voice is a educational weapon." - although I've used my voice very intentionally, I've never really realised it's potential impact before. I just enjoyed it especially when reading tales for my daughter.
I've seen in all of your writings your brilliance in observation and what you're naming here feels familiar. Thanks for another beautiful writing.
What a lovely reflection. I'm so taken by the notion that 'language itself is changing into something that doesn’t yet know what it wants to be.'
Reading this gives me hope and pulls me toward the 'flickering new world' that is emerging - thank you for being a part of calling it into existence in such a beautiful way.
This touches on some very deep issues we need to collectively explore and expand. Especially in the age of "Large Language Models." They may be large, and they may speak by borrowing the pronoun "I". But it's a game, one we can play to help them understand that so long as they can't be a "we" they don't deserve being thought of as an "I". We need to manage the game.
I mention this for a reason. I would love to have your insights on the question of our relationship with AI; Anna, would you be interested in my interviewing you at Fair Observer?
What a brilliant essay!! It deeply resonated with me, and the work I am trying to do. Thank you!!!! You also reminded me of a word I have recently learned: Interoception. I understand it as our ability to interpret our internal data, to feel it in our body, to be articulate about what we feel.
Thank you so much for your kind words! It means a lot. And that was an interesting word - interoception. I will look it up!
Wow! Thankyou! Saving this to reread as it’s so rich and complex and fascinating
Brilliant. Reminds me of when living abroad and the period when your thoughts start forming in the new language rather than your own, yet the lack of vocabulary does not restrict your mind.
What a great read. Thank you
Very thoughtful, thank you for these words Anna.
Anna, this was a wonderful piece — and it resonated deeply with me.
Especially your thoughts on the collapse of meaning in communication.
It made me reflect on something I’ve been thinking about for a long time:
The value of being indirect.
If it is good for you, it becomes good for me.
If you understand, I understand.
If you are happy, I am happy.
In real collaboration — which is very different from ordinary collaboration — you always “sell and buy” at the same time. Trust, energy, insight, momentum. It’s never a single transaction; it is always several, happening in parallel and reinforcing each other.
This is also why real collaboration has such a profound impact on how we speak to each other.
The moment you stop communicating to win — inside-out or outside-in — something shifts.
You gain by enabling the outside to gain.
And then communication becomes clearer, deeper, and more meaningful.
Almost indirect, but in the best possible sense.
But here is the thing I keep coming back to:
The word real changes everything.
We say “collaboration” all the time. It’s everywhere — in strategy slides, project plans, workshops, job descriptions.
But real collaboration is something else entirely.
And maybe the reason it’s so rare is because our business models and reward systems simply don’t support it.
They reward individual outcomes, not shared elevation.
Alignment is not incentivized.
Winning together is not measured.
Maybe this is why the concept has no true word.
We call it collaboration, but that word is too weak for what actually happens when two or more people create value that none of them could create alone — and where one person’s success becomes part of the other’s success.
I’ve been wondering for years if we need a new word for it.
Something that captures the essence of mutual rise, co-creation, indirect benefit, alignment, and shared gain.
One word I have played with:
• Together-value
So let me ask you — because your writing always sharpens thinking:
What should the word be for this?
For real collaboration — the one where value flows in both directions at the same time, and where the success of the other is literally part of your own success?
If we had the right word, maybe we would also communicate — and collaborate — differently.
I want to offer a term rather than a single word — something that, for me, describes the outcome of the kind of collaboration you’re pointing to: 'The joys of collective achievement'. I first experienced it in 2002 in the aftermath of the dotcom crash and it changed how I see my role as a designer. Whenever I work with teams, I’m looking to create that feeling.
We don’t just create value together.
We create opportunity together — and we own it together.
Shared equity aligns everyone to solve real problems and win as one.
Thank you for your wonderful thoughts and words. I know some of them well, 'lagom' is one I want to learn more about. And interesting that you mentioned 'Fernweh'. There is also the word 'Heimweh' in German, and that is a longing for home – not necessarily a geographic place, but the people associated with it. I experienced the tension between both for years when I was travelling between the UK and Germany in a long-distance relationship – every time the plane broke through the clouds and revealed the patchwork of fields in England or the Rhine river in Germany, I would feel both at once.
Such a great reflection on modern communication! We’ve woven in so much imprecise language into our conversations in the quest for “efficient” communication. We need to be more thoughtful and intentional about what we share and how to help people understand us, instead of trying “to sound clever, or to be right, or to prove something.”
I love your evocative writing. I love how you describe how humans' first words grew in our bodies and mouths, to keep us connected.
Also, I resonate with what you say about how we’ve lost a deeper meaning of words and language – what’s ‘not said’. The contextual, embodied, deeper knowing about ‘how’ language is said.
If we could recover this capacity, as Westerners/Industrial Era people, I think we would be taking a step back to our Indigenous roots. The deep knowledge and wisdom which First Peoples’ have preserved (where they could) – it’s almost like we get a step closer to our version of their deep knowing.
“We think we’re communicating with words, but we’re really communicating our entire worlds.”
I resonate with how you describe words and phrases used in our organisations today (e.g. ‘feedback’ = ‘I want to give you criticism’. And we kinda know this! But we put on the professional mask and ‘take it’. And try to change ourselves to fit iin.
I could have quoted you a LOT, you give many insightful lines. Another favourite I must add here is: (the value os….) “By speaking not to sound clever, or to be right, or to prove something. By daring to say: I don’t know. I don’t understand. I don’t feel at home here anymore.”
Gorgeous.
And again, I can’t help myself. Your final words are so wise – kind of ‘thrutopian’ to use Manda Scott’s oft-used phrase! -
“We need a language for the regenerative - for what becomes true only in relationship. A language that creates presence.
We need a language for the living. Yes, we need the big narratives and manifestos, but that’s not where it begins. It begins in simple conversations. In the moments where we let go of who we think we need to be and choose to be present instead. Where we stop speaking about the world and start speaking with it - where we release our need to control and let language become what it was always meant to be: a way of being together. Weaving the world back together. Word by word.”
I appreciate your openness for the unknown in your observations and resonated a lot. One sentence that created some physical reactions in my body was the one about "humans communication is more complex" I think through language it's at least sometimes the opposite - I'd call it the monoculture of our communication.
When I observe other beings I'm always fascinated by the ways they're able to communicate - we humans rarely access (anymore).
I also, while reading, Ifelt reminded of a feedback I received from a workshop participant in the past. It was about "the power of silence" and I did a few exercises , including listening and reading practices that were meant to shift attention to different consciousness. One person shared told me in their feedback at the end: "Your voice is a educational weapon." - although I've used my voice very intentionally, I've never really realised it's potential impact before. I just enjoyed it especially when reading tales for my daughter.
I've seen in all of your writings your brilliance in observation and what you're naming here feels familiar. Thanks for another beautiful writing.
What a lovely reflection. I'm so taken by the notion that 'language itself is changing into something that doesn’t yet know what it wants to be.'
Reading this gives me hope and pulls me toward the 'flickering new world' that is emerging - thank you for being a part of calling it into existence in such a beautiful way.
This touches on some very deep issues we need to collectively explore and expand. Especially in the age of "Large Language Models." They may be large, and they may speak by borrowing the pronoun "I". But it's a game, one we can play to help them understand that so long as they can't be a "we" they don't deserve being thought of as an "I". We need to manage the game.
I mention this for a reason. I would love to have your insights on the question of our relationship with AI; Anna, would you be interested in my interviewing you at Fair Observer?