Why leaders need space to think together

Many organizations today work with strategies where the direction is clear, but where the path to get there is not necessarily so. The strategy often contains open questions, and many of the solutions must be found along the way as the organization moves forward. Change is therefore rarely about implementing a single new process or system from one day to the next. Rather, it is about navigating a reality where customers move on, markets change, and what worked yesterday may not necessarily work tomorrow.

This places new demands on management.

And this is where a paradox arises. The more complex and uncertain reality becomes, the more leaders are expected to provide clear answers. Therefore, many do what comes naturally: they try to project confidence, even when the direction is not yet entirely clear. But employees can sense when the answers are not there. Questions multiply, individual responsibility begins to drift, and uncertainty can spread throughout the organization. At the same time, it becomes more difficult to work systematically to try new things and learn along the way. Everyday life becomes busy, but not necessarily smarter.

In this situation, multiple models and tools rarely help on their own. What is often missing is something much more fundamental: space to think together.

I often meet management teams who hope to get the right answers from outside sources. A model, a method, or an expert who can point to the solution. And of course, models can be helpful. They can provide structure and help get the conversation started. But they rarely solve the actual problem. In many organizations, you find yourself in situations where no one knows the answer yet. The market is changing, customer expectations are evolving, and technology is changing the rules of the game. There is no manual.

The solutions must be created by those who are in the thick of reality every day. And that requires the management team to dare to acknowledge that they do not already have the answers, but must find them together.

I have often seen management teams gather with the expectation of being presented with solutions – only to discover that the work lies with them. At first, this can be frustrating. They had hoped for clarity from outside. But once the group realizes that no one else is going to solve the problem, something interesting often happens. They discover that they are not alone in their frustrations. The challenges turn out to be shared and interdisciplinary. The conversation becomes more honest, and curiosity returns.

And often something arises that is not always associated with change: energy. Sometimes even joy. Not because the problems disappear, but because you start working on them together. When leaders are given time, structure, and a psychologically safe space, their willingness to take risks and their sense of responsibility also grow. The uncertainty does not disappear, but it becomes something that can be handled collectively.

The interesting thing is that this experience does not only come from practice. Research into teams and organizations increasingly points to the same thing. Harvard professor Amy Edmondson has shown, among other things, that teams learn and develop when members dare to ask questions, admit doubts, and investigate problems openly together. When people feel psychologically safe, they dare to say, "I don't know yet." And that is precisely where learning begins.

Google found something similar in their large study of what makes teams effective – the so-called Project Aristotle. Here, it turned out that the most important thing was not talent or structure, but whether team members could talk openly about problems and uncertainties. The best teams were not those with the most answers, but those who could investigate problems together.

Research from MIT on collective intelligence also indicates that the quality of groups does not primarily depend on individual stars, but on how the group works together. Teams where multiple voices come into play and where problems are examined collectively make better decisions and find better solutions.

In short: the ability to think together is not just "nice to have." It is "need to have" in organizations that must navigate change.

There is still a perception that reflection is something you do away from work – as a break from operations. But in a reality characterized by constant change, reflection is not a luxury. It is a prerequisite for acting wisely. When leaders do not stop and reflect together, decisions often become short-sighted. You react instead of navigating. You solve symptoms instead of causes.

Conversely, I see time and again how organizations that prioritize space for shared reflection become better at dealing with uncertainty. Not because they have fewer problems, but because they work more consciously with them. They become better at adjusting course along the way and at standing together on the dilemmas that inevitably arise.

Perhaps the point is actually quite simple.

When the direction is not yet entirely clear, the most important thing is not to have all the answers, but to have places where you can explore the questions together.

The organizations I see succeeding best are not those with the most impressive plans, but those where management teams regularly pause, look each other in the eye, and ask:

What exactly are we facing right now — and what do we do from here?

It sounds simple. But that's often where the work begins.