Release: An Overlooked Step in Learning Partnerships

“Senior leadership won’t listen to us. This is the only place we can voice our concerns.”

A team member candidly shared this with us during a learning partnership. This isn’t an isolated feeling. We often see similar sentiments echoed in other ways, like project reports and external commentary. For many staff, the usual avenues, HR, line managers, staff surveys, all feel like closed loops. Not because people are unfeeling or hostile, but because the structure isn’t designed to support nuance related to safety, reflection, and learning.

At Quotidian Strategies, we’ve come to recognise that early in many partnerships, before we can support learning, we first need to support release.

When teams haven’t had intentional space to reflect individually or as a group, share concerns, name tensions without fear of some sort of retribution, or to even celebrate their accomplishments, the first few sessions of a learning partnership often become a kind of pressure valve. Slowly releasing what can look like frustration, anger, tears—or even silence. A silence that is thick, wary, and self-protective. Not because people have nothing to say, but because they’re not yet convinced this space will be any different from the ones they’ve learned to navigate with caution.

This isn’t therapy. But it can be therapeutic.

And highly relevant to learning. It’s an intentional space to name what’s real. And that’s essential if we want reflection and sensemaking to go anywhere beyond surface-level observations or rehearsed talking points about values and impact.

Too often, organisations bring in learning partners to meet tight deliverables and fixed timelines, unaware that beneath the surface, there is emotional weight and structural tension that must first be acknowledged. Clearing this internal haze is what makes genuine learning possible.

When considering engaging in learning partnership, organisations should:

• Choose partners who know how to hold space for discomfort, not just extract insights.

• Ask potential partners how they approach socioemotional dynamics, not just data collection.

• Look for partners with a clear strategy for establishing and continuing to negotiate safety and trust.

• Reflect on what formal and informal spaces exist for team expression and who facilitates them.

• Consider what might shape participation or silence in teams.

• Make time at the start of any learning process to listen before moving to analysis or planning.

Creating the conditions for team cohesion isn’t separate from learning, it’s how learning becomes possible.