Hearing twice in a week that people can be “messy”

Last Friday, the word “messy” came up in a conversation about AI and public services. It caught my attention I wrote a reflection here, about people doing the “messy” work of being relational, complex and human.

Today I heard the word again. This time during a webinar on Emotional Intelligence, led by Cara Cuniff through Barclays’ Eagle Labs.

Maybe it’s a bit like psychological priming. You buy a particular colour or make of car and then you see it everywhere. The word “messy” keeps popping up for me.

What’s striking is how easily “messy” becomes shorthand. A way to package something complex up, or to quietly close it down.

A different frame

One of the ideas of today’s session was a reframe of this: emotions aren’t messy. What if they’re treated as data, rather than disruption?

Emotions can tell us what feels risky, what feels fair and what matters enough to spark a reaction. Seen through that lens, emotions aren’t the problem. They’re signals.

And when leaders say,

“we don’t have time to open that conversation”, or

“we don’t have time in the project timeline to explore how people feel about this”,

it’s rarely about the time.

More often, it’s about what feels unsafe, uncomfortable or costly to name. Whether that’s time delays, financial pressure or reputational risk.

The webinar explored the link between emotional intelligence and leadership. Not as a “soft” practice or a trait coded as feminine, but as intentionality about what gets spoken, what remains unspoken, and why.

Creating gentle spaces to say and hear hard things

This aligns strongly with the kind of work we’re drawn to in Spark.

We spend time and energy creating deliberately gentle spaces for people to share hard things. Where people feel safe and seen, they’re more willing to share their experiences and emotions. That shared understanding - of what matters, and what has mattered before - can lead to better decisions about the future.

We’re especially drawn to working with teams who are willing enough to slow down a little, to notice what’s present. To listen for what could change(s) could make experiences feel and be better over time.

We put a lot of care into capturing people’s experiences, emotions and messages with integrity. And on reflection, we haven’t always got it right in ensuring that the people receiving the messages felt safe enough to hear them.

That matters just as much.

Because most people working in public services want the same thing. Even if we come from different roles, responsibilities or perspectives, we’re often working towards the same outcomes: to help improve people’s days, experiences and lives.

📍 Pin to ponder:

• Is another condition for courageous change the creation of spaces where truth feels safe enough to say, and to hear?
  You can read about the background of “conditions for courageous change” here.
  

Thinking Out Loud is where I share short pieces of thinking from the middle of the work. Ideas, questions and lived experiences, offered while they’re still forming. (Tiny Experiments Pact: Day 16/100).