Work is harder to navigate. We help leaders regain their bearings.
We help you make sense of the confusion, pressure, and constant adjustment that quietly drains capacity at work.
How We've Lost Our Bearings at Work
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What's Happening Beneath the Surface
When organizations don’t resolve contradictions, work starts to feel strange. Priorities shift faster than meaning can settle. Expectations multiply without clear ownership. Roles blur. Decisions half-land.
So people adapt. They smooth gaps, absorb strain, manage appearances, and quietly hold things together so work can continue. These responses are often skilled and well-intended. They’re how capable people keep systems functioning when clarity or authority is missing. Over time, effort shifts from doing the work to holding the contradictions together.
That adaptation makes sense in the moment. But when it becomes constant, clarity and judgment erode, not because people aren’t capable, but because the system increasingly relies on human compensation to hold what it hasn’t resolved. See example scenarios we support.
The Meaning of "Behaving Badly"
What We Mean
“Behaving badly” is a satirical way of describing how people respond when modern work systems stop making sense. It names what happens when individuals, teams, and organizations adapt to unresolved contradictions.
Priorities shift without reconciliation. Decisions stall. Structures don’t match expectations. And capable people step in to compensate so work can continue to function.
At the individual level, this looks like workarounds, over-functioning, role stretching, emotional labor, and performance theatre to remain credible.
At the team level, it shows up as misalignment, unspoken norms, competing definitions of “good work,” and quiet pressure to absorb strain rather than surface it.
At the organizational level, it appears as conflicting strategies, incentives pulling in opposite directions, symbolic commitments without structural support, and decisions pushed downward instead of resolved.
These behaviors aren’t careless or unconscious. They are often skilled, intentional responses to conditions that no longer provide clear bearings.
Behaving Badly Better means responding with awareness rather than autopilot.
It’s the practice of noticing the conditions you’re operating in, recognizing how your responses shape the system, and choosing how to act with clarity and agency, even inside constraint.
Finding Your Bearings
Slowing Down To Notice
This is about building orientation capability — the ability to re-establish clarity and judgment when conditions have changed faster than your reference points.
If what you’ve read so far feels familiar, it can also feel unsettling. Disorientation is a signal that the environment has changed faster than existing reference points can keep up. Finding your bearings is the practical work of re-orienting inside that environment.
It means shifting from operating on autopilot inside the noise to deliberately clarifying:
- what is actually happening around you
- what you are responding to versus what you are choosing
- what matters now versus what is merely loud or urgent
- where your effort is being pulled, absorbed, or distorted
This is the move from default reaction to deliberate participation. From orientation, judgment stabilizes. From judgment, clearer choices become possible.
When To Reach Out
Need a human capacity and systems read on what's actually happening?
BBHQ works one-on-one with leaders to clarify what’s actually shaping behavior, decisions, and execution - before more pressure is applied.
This work helps you clarify:
- what conditions are shaping behavior right now
- how effort is being absorbed, distorted, or misdirected
- what options are genuinely available next
Leaders use this work to orient themselves before deciding whether to push forward, pause, adjust, or reset.
This work can be useful before, during, or after major initiatives when something isn’t landing the way it should.
This work is delivered primarily through 1-1 Insight Sessions with leaders who are willing to look clearly at what’s really happening. Offered online or in person. Courses and tools are also available.
Scenarios
Individual / Leader Focus
- High performers seeking sustainable productivity
- Leaders feeling pulled in many directions and less clear
- Career transitions where judgment and direction is harder
- High-capacity people beginning to disengage quietly
Team & Leadership Dynamics
(examined through the leader’s role in the system)
- Senior teams that appear aligned, yet decisions stall or loop
- Cross-team work where accountability is diffuse and progress relies on workarounds
- Leadership roles carrying strategy, execution, and sensemaking simultaneously
- Slow or stalled execution despite continued effort
Organizational
- Business changes consuming energy without traction
- Culture or HR initiatives producing unintended behaviors
- Strategy refreshes that don’t translate into coordinated execution
- AI or technology rollouts where technical plans are clear, but human impact is harder to read
What We Do
Pattern Spotting
Research & Writing
What we look at
We observe what happens when modern work stops holding together.
We look for recurring dynamics, contradictions, and workarounds that quietly shape behavior across individuals, teams, and organizations.
Not surface symptoms, but the patterns that keep repeating even as roles, strategies, and priorities change.
Explore recent observations in The Brief →
Research & Writing
Research & Writing
What we make sense of
We investigate these patterns through field observation, analysis, and writing.
This work helps people recognize that what they’re experiencing isn’t personal failure, but predictable responses to complex conditions.
It restores language, framing, and perspective so people can see what’s actually happening and interrupt autopilot.
Read investigations and reports in the Vault →
Courses, Tools & Insight Sessions
Courses, Tools & Insight Sessions
How people work with this
We design practical tools, learning experiences, and focused conversations that help people apply insight in real conditions.
Courses and field guides support individuals, teams, and organizations navigating sustained complexity.
Insight Sessions offer space to clarify what matters now and determine next steps. The focus is restored clarity, choice, and agency.
See how people work with BBHQ →
Read our First Field Tale
Who Ate My Muffin?
Start your BBHQ journey with our first Field Tale.
A true story disguised as a modern parable about reactivity, trust,
and the tiny misunderstandings that send teams spiraling.
It’s a quick, witty read and it’s free for subscribers.
Subscribe to get instant access to the Advance Edition.
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