I was brought in to redesign a national service for a program that had always been run regionally. Each regional team treated its territory like a separate organization. Their work, audiences, and priorities all felt local. When I started talking about a national approach, the response was consistent: we’re all unique; one approach can’t meet everyone’s needs.

They weren’t wrong about the differences. But they also had almost no history of collaborating across regions, especially not in a structured way. Most of their work happened within regional boundaries, and when they did meet across regions it was to compare updates, not to work through shared problems in a structured way. That mattered. I could not assume that a workshop format would feel natural or useful just because I thought it was well designed. If I wanted them to work differently, I had to pay attention to the culture they were already in and introduce that change at a pace they could actually come with.

So I started with interviews.

I asked staff to walk me through how they delivered the service, end to end: who they worked with, how decisions were made, how changes actually moved from idea to reality. Across regions, the details varied, but a few patterns kept repeating. People were carrying a lot of the coordination themselves. Workarounds and local versions had grown up over time. Some parts of the experience were strong in one place and fragile in another. When I pulled those stories together and reflected them back, it gave us a shared picture of uneven service and invisible extra work.

Then I pulled together a small group and built a tool for an unserved audience segment based on what they had told me. That gave me a way to show that high‑quality national content was possible, and that a shared approach did not have to erase regional knowledge. More importantly, it showed them that their input was not decorative; it was shaping the work.

Then I introduced a workshop series.

I ran nine one‑hour sessions, one a week. That pacing was deliberate. A short, predictable series was easier to absorb into their operational reality than large sessions. Each workshop had a clear purpose and a small number of activities. I posed specific questions, confirmed things they had already told me, and stayed explicit about what we were trying to work through in that hour.

I also tried to keep the mechanics as easy as possible. I took visual notes in real time using their exact words on a shared whiteboard. I did not paraphrase. If people wanted to type directly, they could. If they preferred to talk, I typed for them. Every time I presented a finding or a decision, I tied it back to what they had already said in interviews or earlier sessions. I wanted participation to feel straightforward, and I wanted it to be obvious that their contributions were carrying forward.

One of the most active discussions came during a future‑focused storytelling session where I walked them through a fictional scenario involving new technologies and delivery methods. It gave us a way to test how far they were willing to go and where their limits were. Some people said they needed to be at future sessions “to make sure we don’t go off the rails.” Others simply appreciated that their input was being taken seriously. Even the skeptics kept showing up.

What stayed with me from this work wasn’t a particular activity. It was how much the design of the sessions had to respect the culture and pace they were already living in. If I had tried to change too much at once, they would not have come with me, no matter how tidy the workshop plan looked.

If you’re trying to introduce collaborative work into an environment where it feels new or unfamiliar, a few questions are worth sitting with:

There isn’t a single right format for these situations. When the existing culture sets the pace and shape of your workshops, you’re far more likely to create something people will actively participate in, instead of something they simply attend.