Underneath
What's going on underneath #
Three things that tend to sit under the words.
Change is also tiring in itself, whatever its merit.
For some people it began with a manager who floated an idea at a team meeting and said “what do you think before I decide?”, and meant it.
Underneath, a rule can sit: “People affected by a change should be consulted,” or “Respect means telling people early.”
Reactions
What people often do #
- Read the announcement three times looking for what is not said
- Ask a colleague at the water cooler what they heard
- Plan for several outcomes at once
- Quietly resist the new way for a few weeks
- Feel tired for days without a clear reason
The deck
The story in 6 cards #
Six short cards, from the moment to letting go.
The Tuesday email that changed everything
The email arrives on a Tuesday afternoon in Bengaluru: from next month, every team will move to a new system and new seating. Nobody asked what you thought. You have ideas about what works and what doesn't. You read the email twice, close it, and stare at your screen. For the rest of the day, everything around you feels a little less like yours.
They should ask before changing things
Underneath sits a rule: 'My company should ask us before changing everything.' It sounds fair. The people doing the work know it best. But look at what it does: it ties your sense of control to decisions made in rooms you never enter. Your calm at work now depends on how a big organisation chooses to decide things, often for reasons it never fully explains.
Why being asked feels like respect
We hold it because being asked feels like being respected. Maybe you grew up where big decisions were made for you, and you promised yourself adult life would be different. Maybe you care about your work, and want a say in how it's done. Either way, wanting a voice isn't stubbornness. It comes from wanting to matter. That deserves kindness, not blame.
The small loss each change brings
Every big change made without you lands as a small loss. You start resisting the new system before you try it. You grumble at lunch, then feel tired from grumbling. You stop sharing ideas, because who listens anyway. Slowly work starts to feel like something done to you rather than something you do, and even the good parts of a change get lost in the frustration.
Is needing a say worth it?
Ask yourself honestly: has needing to be asked ever made a change easier to live with? Or has it mostly made each one harder? Big organisations often decide quickly, under pressure, without thinking about everyone they affect. Either way, not being asked isn't the measure of your value. Holding this rule so tightly costs you more than it gives you.
Steering your own day
Letting go doesn't mean you stop caring about having a voice. It means your sense of control comes back to the parts of work that are still yours. You can meet the change with curiosity, find what you can shape, and keep your ideas for when they're wanted. That's where some peace comes back: your workday feels like yours again, even in a changing place.
Threats, shouting, harassment, humiliation, being singled out for who you are, pay or papers held back, or being frightened at work, are something else, and worth taking seriously; staying careful can be the safe choice.
The flip
The old rule, and a new one to try #
The old ruleMy company should ask us before changing everything.
A new rule to tryI can't steer every change. I can steer my own day.
Three small days
Try it for 3 days #
- Day 1
Try one part of the new way with an open mind
- Day 2
Find one thing in your work that you still choose
- Day 3
Spend lunch talking about anything but the change
Want to talk it through?
“When did a change at work last go smoothly, and what made the difference?”
Free and private. No sign-up to start. The chat opens with this question.
Everything this deck knows
Go deeper #
What it sounds like, where it comes from, what it costs, and other ways to see it. Every question opens a chat on it.
How it lands
What was said
The email with a new chart attached #
The subject line says “An exciting new chapter”, and the attachment opens on a chart with boxes in different places. Over the first cup of coffee, a sentence settles in: “My company should ask us before changing everything.”
For some people the wish is for some say over a working life that fills so much of the week: not a veto, only a chance to be told early and asked how it looks from the floor. It can sound modest, and it can colour a whole morning.
When did a change at work last land well, and what was it about the way it arrived that helped?Talk about this ›
The first few seconds
The coffee that goes untouched #
Some people notice a quiet stillness spread through the arms as they read, the mug forgotten at the edge of the desk. Others feel their eyes skip down the page looking for their own name.
The body can lead the mind: a held breath, a scroll back to the top, a glance across the room to see who else has opened it. The slower thinking about what it all means tends to arrive over lunch or on the way home.
The last time an announcement landed, what did your body do before you had worked out what it meant for you?Talk about this ›
Why it lands
Say over one's own days #
There is real sense in hoping to be consulted before change reaches the people it affects. Working lives are built on routines, and a routine that is moved without warning takes away a bit of footing.
Change is also tiring in itself, whatever its merit. Learning where things are, who does what and how a day should run takes real effort, and being told afterwards can make that effort feel unseen.
What would hearing about a change early have made possible for you, in one ordinary week of your own?Talk about this ›
The voice inside
The voice that was not consulted #
“Nobody asked us.” “It was decided long ago and then announced.” “Why is it always done to us?” The voice tends to speak when the email is open and the first reactions start coming in on the team chat.
Some people notice the voice is partly about the change and partly about wanting to have been counted as someone whose view could have made a difference before the announcement went out.
When the voice says nobody asked, what exactly does it wish had been asked, and by whom, and when?Talk about this ›
Where it comes from
Where it can come from
Where the wish to be asked comes from #
For some people it began with a manager who floated an idea at a team meeting and said “what do you think before I decide?”, and meant it. One example like that can set the picture for how any change should be handled.
For others it comes from home: a household where a big decision, such as a move or a new rule, was talked over at the table before anything was done. In some households, being told first was a mark of being counted in.
Who first asked what you thought before a change was made, and what was that like for you at the time?Talk about this ›
The belief under it
The rule about being told first #
Underneath, a rule can sit: “People affected by a change should be consulted,” or “Respect means telling people early.” The first sentence is the one people hear; the rule beneath decides how each announcement gets read.
Rules like this come from valuing fairness and courtesy, both worth valuing. They can be looked at beside this company as it is, with its quick decisions and the awkward fact that some changes cannot be shared early.
It may trace to earlier years or to this job.
Where does the rule about being asked still fit, and where is it simply not how a company of this size moves?Talk about this ›
What it costs
What it costs
What being the last to know can cost #
It can mean a restless evening after the announcement, a chat among colleagues that goes round the same four sentences, a pause before starting the new way. None of it is loud, and all of it travels.
The days after a change can feel like a long adjustment held privately in the head. The ease of knowing a job well is crowded by the question of how much has moved, which takes more attention than the change itself.
Over the last year, which change at work did you come to like, and what made the difference?Talk about this ›
If it stays as it is
The next five years of announcement mornings #
Picture one ordinary Monday on a day when “my company should ask us before changing everything” is loud. What is in it: the email, the new chart, the team chat lighting up, the coffee cooling at the edge of the desk? It is only a picture to look at.
Perhaps the email is read in full, a few questions are noted, the first meeting goes better than expected, and the afternoon settles into something workable.
Nothing here needs an answer, and the picture can be set aside whenever you like. What, if anything, do you notice about it?
What else is in that Monday?Talk about this ›
Another way to see it
Another way to see it
Asked about what, exactly? #
“Ask us first” can mean a vote, a chance to comment, a warning a week ahead or simply being told the reason. Each is a different, smaller hope, and some of them are easier to find than the whole.
Some decisions are made above where a team can see, and some cannot be shared before they are final. That does not take away the wish to be asked; it only makes plain how the wish and the way companies decide can sit side by side.
If being asked had to be one small, concrete thing, such as a week's warning, what would you want it to be?Talk about this ›
What is already there
What has stayed steady #
Alongside everything that moved, some things may have stayed: a colleague at the next desk, the route to work, a part of the job you know inside out, a routine that carried on.
Seeing one of these leaves the wish to be consulted exactly where it was. Seeing what is there is not the same as saying the hope was wrong.
A half-remembered moment will do.
What has stayed the same at work, and would you like to notice more of it?Talk about this ›
Making peace
When change arrives before the question #
Peace here can mean the gap between how change was meant to arrive and how it did stops running the week after. If a change puts your job, income or visa at risk, that weight is real and different from this hope; someone you trust can help you think it through.
If anyone at work threatens, harasses or humiliates you, or singles you out for who you are (gender, caste, religion, colour, age, a disability or where you come from), that is something else, and worth taking seriously.
So are unpaid work demanded, pay or papers held back, unsafe work and feeling frightened. Going along or staying careful can be the safe choice.
Basic respect and safety at work are never “expecting too much”, for you and for them. Picture the morning after an announcement with this hope held more loosely.
What would you do first, and what would you leave until later?Talk about this ›
A truer sentence
A truer line for the announcement days #
Beside “My company should ask us before changing everything”, some people keep a line like this ready: “I hoped to be asked first, and I can still find my footing.” It does not need to win, only stand beside the old line.
A line like that can feel borrowed at first and settle in with use. Others find a plainer wording of their own fits better, and that is fine too.
What would a truer sentence be in your own words, honest about the hope without needing the company to have done it differently?Talk about this ›
What to let be
The chart can wait until tomorrow #
Not every announcement needs a response by the end of the day. It can be noticed, felt, and left like a file closed on a screen, still saved, no longer in front of you.
The wish to be asked can stay private for as long as you like. None of that covers threats, harassment, humiliation, being singled out for who you are, unpaid work, pay or papers held back, unsafe work or being frightened. Those are worth taking seriously, and staying careful can be the safe choice.
Leaving it for tonight does not mean it was fine, or that it is settled. It only means this evening does not need a ruling.
If it loosened
And if the grip eased, even a notch #
Try, as a picture only, the expectation a notch quieter. The wish to be asked is still there, and the email is opened, read, and taken after the coffee has been finished. What is the first thing that feels different?
It might be a morning that begins with the coffee first, or an announcement read without the racing. What would your first small thing be?
Nothing here needs saying to anyone. Whatever comes up is yours to notice. Next, a look at what making peace with this hope could mean, and what is already there.
Small things to try
Something to try
A few small things people try #
- Notice which part of a change is about the work and which about being told
- Think of a change at work that you have come to like
- Notice what stays the same in a week, even when much has moved
- Picture what a good announcement would have sounded like
- Notice which is louder, the new thing or the wish to have been asked
Small, private and optional. Try whichever feels doable.
Pick a question
Talk it through #
Tap one. A chat with Dr. Thoughts opens on that question: free, private, no sign-up to start.
- When did a change at work last go smoothly, and what made the difference?
- Which routine at work do you most enjoy, and what is it about it?
- Who first asked what you thought before a decision was made?
- If the wish to be asked before changes eased a little, what would you notice first?
- What has stayed steady at work that you would like to notice more?