The Third Field

Essays

The thinking behind the practice.

Each product grew out of an argument. These are the arguments. Every essay ends with the Map or the gathering it gave rise to.

  • The practiceComing

    Not Mine. Not Yours. The Field Between.

    Where the name comes from, what relational intelligence means, why the practice looks between people rather than within them, and what it refuses to do.

  • For teams · Alignment

    The Rooms Where Strategy Can Tell the Truth

    Strategic friction, decision rights and the conditions that help leaders speak honestly.

  • Co-foundersComing

    Do You Want the Same Company?

    Most co-founder breakups are not about the idea. They are about a difference mistaken for agreement in the first year and never named.

  • Team ResetComing

    Teams Don’t Break. They Drift.

    How working habits form without anyone deciding them, and the case for one habit tried for a quarter over a list of resolutions.

  • GenerativeComing

    Curiosity Is Not Consensus

    The two failure modes of teams on new ground, and the discipline of a bounded experiment.

  • For couplesComing

    The Promise Is Not the Moment

    Why we stage commitments as moments, and why the thing being celebrated is a conversation that has to keep going.

  • The Long Table (Terroir Trails)

    The Friendships That Carried Us

    Chosen family, the missing rituals of friendship and making time to recognize each other.

  • The Council of Honor (Terroir Trails)Coming

    Say It While They Can Hear It

    The most honest things we say about a person are said at their funeral, to everyone but them.