THE WALL OF STICKIES

"Well well done for pointing out the flippin' obvious," he said sarcastically. The room tittered. He was standing by the wall, holding the bright yellow post-it note that I had written, and he had just removed from the wall of stickies.

So much for 'free-flowing ideas' or 'brain-storming' or 'mind-mapping' or whatever he called it before we started. Surely, they only work if everyone feels safe enough to express an opinion, anonymous or otherwise!

I sighed, quietly.

I've always known that there's a huge difference between what goes on inside, and what you do with your outside. Everything depends on how you manage that difference. I was annoyed, maybe even tearful and tired and furious. But I had to let it go, while he read out every syllable as though it were a poem from a four-year old.

Deep breath. Stare at my shoes. Another deep breath. Smile. Long blink. Exhale. Eyes forward. Remind myself of some truth.

I've always tried to be an incorporator. I was in a meeting recently where I had to ask a simple question, to which I already knew the answer. I knew it full well - better than the person I was asking, I would wager... but I had to ask it because I wasn't convinced that anyone else had, and I worried that other people might have wanted to know. I was incorporating everyone in the room, I thought. The organiser looked at me as though he had no idea at all that I was taking one for the team. Questions are powerful shapers of how people perceive you, it turns out.

And so apparently, are post-it notes.

"Okay," I said pleasantly, and smiled.

We use a lot of post-its. Several walls are covered in them, as though we're gradually creating a sort of papery-mosaic along cupboards and partitions: pink, yellow, orange, green squares with biro scribbles. I think the idea is that you stand around discussing them (much like modern art I suppose) and then moving the ones you don't like around (not at all like modern art then) so that the next team-huddle can disagree and then move them back.

Inevitably, the post-its lose their stickiness and fall off while the cleaners are vacuuming. No-one ever misses them.

I don't always take bullets for the team. Sometimes, I fail to say anything at all and then wish I had. Occasionally, I've got absolutely no idea what's going on anyway and I need some brave soul to take the bullet for me.

Maybe the learning here, is to say thanks to that person next time! It just occurred to me that I'd have liked that. I actually don't think we thank each other enough these days as Twenty-First-Century humans, so I guess anything I can do to redress the balance might help. Hopefully an out-of-place thank-you might come across as genuine instead of sarcastic or patronising. I think I stand a good chance of that, as long as it starts sincere on the inside and tumbles through the outside. You can tell me otherwise. You can absolutely tell me.