28/01/2026
Culture isn’t built by slapping a poster on the wall and hoping for the best. It’s built on how well we respond to pressure, to challenges and to each other.
When we understand what happens to us under pressure, we begin to accept (and even invite) feedback without getting defensive, we can get important tasks done (even the ones we don’t like doing), and we can significantly reduce the likelihood of burnout, conflict and performance issues.
The Bunbury Regional Art Gallery team is one that embraces the City of Bunbury values of community, openness and bravery, so it was great to spend the day with them yesterday and to learn more about the incredible work they’re doing with us and for us.
This training focused on two practical things that shape team dynamics every single day:
✅ Communication styles and how to work with people who think and work differently to us. Those who attended, learned how to put assumptions aside and choose understanding and accountability instead.
✅ What happens to good people when the pressure is on. Whether we respond to challenges by exerting dominance, tagging out or picking up the balls that others may be dropping. How to step away from enabling our own poor performance and addressing it instead.
The big takeaway is that even good people demonstrate unhelpful behaviour when they are uncomfortable, but when they understand how this unintentionally plays out, without slapping labels on themselves, they build awareness, and awareness creates change.
When teams understand their communication styles and pressure patterns, they stop making assumptions, they challenge their biases, they communicate better and everyone starts working better and working better with each other.
The trap we often fall into though, is expecting greater accountability without giving our people the tools to create it. Bit like a software program – we can get frustrated and resent it, or we can install an update to improve it.
Resent, or reboot.
If you’ve got a capable team, but things get tricky under pressure, this type of training will help you raise the bar, without creating conflict.
If you’d like to know if this would be a good PD for your team, feel free to drop me a message here and shoot me through your email. I promise you won’t be added to any mailing lists, or be subject to any sales pressure. It'll just allow us to have an email, phone or in-person convo, so you can decide where (or if) we go from there.