Underneath
What's going on underneath #
Three things that tend to sit under the words.
It draws a line around a group, and for someone new it can sound like a reminder of which side of the line they're currently on, even when nothing like that was said.
Some people grew up being praised for following the pattern, and noticed that doing it their own way tended to bring a sigh, however well it worked.
Underneath, a belief can settle: “I have to fit in to be okay here,” or “Better not to make a mistake while they're still watching.”
Reactions
What people often do #
- Go back to the old way at once, whatever the result
- Check with three people before changing anything again
- Explain the change at length, then feel it was too much
- Stop offering new ideas in meetings for a while
- Replay the moment on the way home, wondering how it looked
The deck
The story in 6 cards #
Six short cards, from the moment to letting go.
Your idea in week two
Your second week at a new job in Riyadh. In a meeting you suggest a quicker way to handle the weekly report, one that worked well at your last company. A senior colleague smiles thinly and says 'that's not how we do it here'. The room moves on. You sit back, face warm, and feel like the new kid at school again.
Good ideas should be welcomed
Underneath sits a rule: 'If my idea is good, people should welcome it.' It sounds fair. Plenty of people live by it without a second thought. Good ideas help everyone. But look at what it does: it makes every no feel like a rejection of you. One brush-off in a meeting becomes proof that you don't fit, and you start wondering whether to share anything at all.
Why we want our experience to count
We hold it because we want our experience to count. Lots of people grow up with some version of this rule, and it often made good sense at the time. Maybe you were valued for new ideas before. Maybe you joined hoping to make a difference. Either way, wanting your ideas welcomed isn't arrogant. It comes from wanting to contribute. That deserves kindness, not blame.
Growing quieter in meetings
Each brush-off makes you a little quieter. None of it shows from the outside, but you feel it. Bit by bit, it all adds up. You hold back ideas in meetings. You feel like an outsider. You replay the moment on the drive home. The enthusiasm you brought to the new job starts to fade, and you begin to wonder whether you made the right move at all.
Is the instant welcome worth it?
Ask yourself honestly: has holding on to this rule ever made people more open? Or has it mostly made you feel shut out? New places often protect their habits for a while, and ideas from newcomers can take time to land. Either way, one brush-off isn't the measure of your idea, or of you. Is holding this rule so tightly worth it?
Ideas that take time to land
Letting go doesn't mean you stop having ideas. It means one no in a meeting no longer decides whether you belong. You can learn how things work here, and offer ideas again later, when they might land better. Nothing else has to change first. That's where some peace comes back: your experience stays yours, and your place in the team can grow.
Being harassed, humiliated or frightened at work, or singled out for who you are, is 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 ruleIf my idea is good, people should welcome it.
A new rule to tryGood ideas can take time to land. I can wait.
Three small days
Try it for 3 days #
- Day 1
Name to yourself one thing you bring to this job
- Day 2
Learn one way things work here this week
- Day 3
Keep one idea for a better moment
Want to talk it through?
“What had you figured out on your own, and felt quietly proud of, before the comment came?”
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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
Week three, and a new way of doing it #
Third week at a firm in Chennai, a first month in a Sharjah logistics office, a new team in Bristol. A report laid out a cleaner way, a shortcut in the spreadsheet, and someone leans over the partition: “That's not how we do it here.”
Often it comes before anybody has looked at what was done. The words are about the way, not the result, and for someone still new they can sound like a note about fitting in more than a note about the work.
When did you last hear it, or something close to it?
What had you tried, and what were you hoping somebody would notice about it?Talk about this ›
The first few seconds
Suddenly the new person again #
Some people describe a quick shrink, like being the new student called out on the first day. The cheeks warm, the cursor hovers, and there's an urge to undo the change before anybody else sees it.
Being new tends to make people extra watchful for signs of how they're fitting in, so a small correction can register as something much larger. The size of it often only becomes clear later, on the commute home.
What happened in you in the second after those words: a shrink, a heat, an urge to undo?Talk about this ›
And what might that say about how much you wanted this new place to go well?Talk about this ›
Why it lands
It points at the way, and skips the work #
“This format won't load into the client's system” is about the work. “That's not how we do it here” is about the way, and it doesn't say what the way protects, so the listener is left to guess whether the problem is the report or the person.
The word “here” does a lot too. It draws a line around a group, and for someone new it can sound like a reminder of which side of the line they're currently on, even when nothing like that was said.
If the comment had explained what the old way was for, what might you have learned?Talk about this ›
And what did your way get right, as far as you can tell?Talk about this ›
The voice inside
When the rulebook moves into your head #
Hear it a few times and a voice can move in: “Just copy what's there.” “Don't be the new person who changes things.” “Wait a year before having an opinion.” The rule starts working before anybody says a word.
The comment took a moment, but the checking can go on for weeks, inside: a better idea saved for later, a quicker route left alone, a question left unasked. Because it sounds like good manners, it can feel like simply settling in.
Whose voice does the rulebook use when it tells you to keep to the old way?Talk about this ›
Is it this office, or something older that this office happened to wake up?Talk about this ›
Where it comes from
Where it can come from
For some people, fitting in came before trying #
“Do it the way your elder cousin did.” “Why must you always be different?” Some people grew up being praised for following the pattern, and noticed that doing it their own way tended to bring a sigh, however well it worked.
Others met it in school, where the right method sometimes mattered more than the right answer, or in a first job with rules nobody could explain. What can stay is a lesson that a new way is a risk until somebody senior has approved it.
When did you first learn to check how something is usually done before trying your own way?Talk about this ›
Who taught it, and what happened the times you didn't check?Talk about this ›
The belief under it
A quiet rule about belonging somewhere new #
Underneath, a belief can settle: “I have to fit in to be okay here,” or “Better not to make a mistake while they're still watching.” Some people notice a quieter version: “My way only counts once I've earned it.”
Rules like this rarely feel like beliefs. They feel like being a sensible new starter, which is partly why they can stay long after the new-starter months have passed. Some trace a rule like this to early years and some don't; either way, it can be looked at.
What would the rule say if it were printed in the onboarding pack, word for word?Talk about this ›
Which places does it still fit, and which not?Talk about this ›
What it costs
What it costs
What copying the old way can cost #
It can mean a slower route kept for months because questioning it felt too early, a skill from a previous job left unused, a meeting spent with a useful thought that stayed put. Some people stop bringing their experience before they've decided it isn't wanted.
There's a quieter cost too. A new job is often when people bring the freshest thinking, and if every change meets the same line, that window can close without anyone choosing to close it. Over a year, a new starter can become careful without meaning to.
Not from weakness: learning a new place's rules takes real effort.
What has it cost in the last year: a shortcut, a skill, an idea that could have had a chance?Talk about this ›
If it stays as it is
Five more years of the old template #
Picture one ordinary Tuesday on a day when “my way only counts once I've earned it” is loud. What is in it: the templates, the meetings, the ideas kept for later? It's only a picture to look at, nothing to fix.
Perhaps a report built the long way because the short way was once corrected, a skill from a previous job gathering dust, a new colleague given the same line, a thought in a meeting that stays a thought. Some of it may be familiar, some not at all.
None of this needs an answer now, and the picture can be put away at any time. What, if anything, do you notice when you look?
Another way to see it
Another way to see it
How we do it, and why we do it #
Every workplace has habits, and some of them hold real knowledge: a client who needs a certain format, an audit, an old mistake nobody wants repeated. Others are simply how things were done by whoever did them first. From the outside, the two can look identical.
A familiar way of working tends to feel safer to a group than a new one, even before anyone has compared them. That says something about how groups settle into habits; it doesn't settle whether the new way was better or worse.
Another way in: if it were your job to explain the old way to a newcomer, what would you want them to understand about why it's done like that, if you knew?Talk about this ›
Noticing it sooner
What shows up when people look again #
When some people look at the moment again, they separate the comment about the method from the feeling of being told they don't belong. The first was said.
Sometimes a closer look shows the old way had a reason that simply went unexplained. Sometimes it shows there was no reason at all, only habit. And sometimes the same change gets adopted months later. Each tells you something different about the place.
How much of the second came from the words, and how much from being new?Talk about this ›
What do you now know about why the old way exists, and what are you still guessing?Talk about this ›
Which has been louder in your head: what you know, or what you're guessing?Talk about this ›
Making peace with it
No need to prove the new way in a week #
Making peace with this doesn't mean giving up on better ways of working, or pretending the comment didn't sting. It means one line from one colleague gets less say over how much of yourself you bring to the job.
Some people find it lighter to treat the early months as a time for looking, and to keep their ideas in mind, rather than winning every method on the spot. And some teams won't weigh a new way, whoever suggests it; that's about the team, and nobody has to keep testing it.
What would it be like to learn the old way without deciding your own way was wrong?Talk about this ›
Which part of your experience would you most want to keep?Talk about this ›
A truer sentence
A truer line for the new starter #
If “I'm doing it wrong again” has been running since week one, there's no need to argue with it. Some people keep a plainer line ready instead: “I'm learning their way, and my way still counts.”
It doesn't have to feel true yet. It's a line to try on, and some people say it silently while copying the old template, and find it keeps a little room open for what they already know.
What would a truer sentence be for you, in your own words, one that respects the new place without shrinking what you brought into it?Talk about this ›
What to let be
Some corrections can simply be put down #
Not every “that's not how we do it here” needs a defence, an apology or a vow never to try anything again. Some of it can be noticed, felt for a moment at the desk, and put down along with the lanyard at the end of the day.
That isn't giving in. It's choosing where the energy goes, and some people say it leaves more room for learning the job, finding the colleagues who are easy to work beside, and the parts of life far from any template.
Putting it down for the evening doesn't mean it was fine, or that it's settled. It only means it doesn't have to come home in the bag, or be the first thing waiting at the office tomorrow.
If it loosened
And if the rule loosened, just a notch #
Imagine, only as a picture, the rule a notch quieter. The place still has its ways, learning them is part of the job, and what you brought still has room. What is the first thing that feels different, even slightly?
Small things can be enough, such as a shortcut tried on your own draft, an old skill enjoyed on a weekend project, or a friend who listens to the whole idea over dinner. What would your first small thing be?
Nothing here needs to be said to anyone. Whatever comes up is yours to keep, and worth noticing. If you'd like to look at it properly, a chat is one tap away.
Small things to try
Something to try
Some small, private things to try #
- Name it in your head: “there's the not-our-way line again”
- Ask yourself quietly what the old way might be protecting, if anything
- Notice which part of your way still makes sense to you
- Picture one skill from a past job or course that you'd like to keep using
- Notice one small thing you wanted to try today, however small
Small and private. Try any of them, or none.
Pick a question
Talk it through #
Tap one. A chat with Dr. Thoughts opens on that question: free, private, no sign-up to start.
- What had you figured out on your own, and felt quietly proud of, before the comment came?
- Who from a past job or class would have loved the way you did it?
- What did “here” mean to you in that moment, and which side of it did you feel you were on?
- On an ordinary day when the fit-in-first rule is loud, what would you still be putting off?
- If that rule eased a little, what would you notice first at work?