Welcome Everybody,

Big things shifted in the Askara team past week.

By next year I will move fully over to the Askara Source Journal, which you can register for here: https://askara.solutions/​

Enjoy!

✍🏻 Week 46 - From Professional Masks to Shared Ownership

This past week marked a true milestone for Askara. Through three days of intensive workshops that pushed us into emotional territory we hadn't explored as a team before, we achieved something we've been working toward since day one: the first genuine signs of shared ownership.

For a company trying to pioneer what real trust looks like in a team, this breakthrough couldn't have come at a better time. What made it even more powerful was discovering that the frameworks we need for sustainable high performance have been battle-tested for centuries, quite literally, in military operations around the world.

Surface Level: The Masks We All Wear

Before this retreat, I found myself carefully choosing words depending on who was in the room. Not because anyone was difficult, but because we simply didn't know each other well enough yet. We were all wearing our professional masks, maintaining that safe distance that keeps things comfortable but prevents real collaboration.

Most teams never move past this stage. They stay in the realm of polite professionalism, where everyone agrees too quickly, difficult topics get avoided, and the real conversations happen in private messages or after people leave the room. It's exhausting, inefficient, and ultimately limits what any organisation can achieve.

We knew we needed to go deeper. The question was: how do you create the conditions for people to drop their guards without forcing vulnerability in ways that damage trust?

Shadow Work: When Defences Drop

Over the weekend, through structured workshops and unstructured bonding moments, we started seeing each other's shadow sides. Not just the polished, professional versions we bring to work, but the parts that get triggered under pressure, the patterns that emerge when we're pushed outside our comfort zones.

This sounds uncomfortable, and it was. Some conversations escalated. Emotions ran high. But here's what made it productive rather than destructive: we had just enough structure through Sociocratic meeting principles to keep things from spiralling into chaos. Rounds for speaking, clear facilitation, space for everyone's voice.

By the final day, something remarkable had shifted. We could hold REAL conversations with no holding back, but calm and collected. The kind where you can disagree fundamentally about an approach but still respect the person across from you. Where feedback isn't taken personally because trust has replaced defensiveness.

Seeing people's shadows isn't about judgement. It's about understanding what you're working with, so you can account for it, coach through it, and ultimately help each person grow beyond their limitations.

System Building: Military Wisdom for Modern Teams

Here's where things got unexpectedly fascinating. Through conversations with Andrew, our team member with a military background, I discovered that the self-management principles I've been exploring for years have deep parallels with military operational theory.

Think about it: military operations have existed throughout human history. Every conflict, every campaign, every mission has contributed to a body of knowledge about running effective operations under extreme pressure. You preserve what works because lives depend on it.

After a bit more digging I found out that the OKR system Silicon Valley loves is essentially military planning repackaged for business:

• Your Objective is really Commander's Intent: clear direction without micromanaging the how.
• Key Results are Mission Measures: observable effects, not busy work.
• Team autonomy comes from Mission Command philosophy: empowering people closest to the action to make decisions.
• Retrospectives are actually After-Action Reviews (AAR’s): systematic learning from what actually happened versus what was planned.

For a company in the cybersecurity space, where we're inherently connected to defence thinking, these frameworks feel especially relevant. We're not borrowing random productivity hacks; we're adapting proven operational principles that work when failure isn't an option.

But Andrew reminded me of something even more fundamental: disciplined personal routines create team effectiveness. A team is only as strong as its weakest link, so each member carries responsibility for their own effectiveness. This isn't about conformity—it's about each person optimising their own system so they can show up fully for the collective mission.

Integration: Building Our Operating System

What excites me most is that we're not just adopting these frameworks; we're evolving them for a new era of work. Military structures often rely on hierarchy and command. We're taking the operational wisdom while maintaining our commitment to self-management and shared ownership.

But here's the multiplier effect that military structures often miss: when you combine operational excellence with shadow work, you get something extraordinary. In traditional military settings, personal struggles get suppressed or hidden. You push through. You don't show weakness.

We're doing something different. When you know that Sarah gets defensive about technical feedback because of past experiences, you can frame things differently. When you understand that Tom's need for detailed plans comes from anxiety about ambiguity, you can provide structure without judgement. When the team sees that my own tendency to over-control comes from fear of letting people down, they can call me out with compassion rather than frustration.

This isn't touchy-feely nonsense; it's operational intelligence. Every unaddressed shadow creates friction in the system. Every pattern we help each other grow through removes a bottleneck. The military gives us frameworks for external coordination; shadow work gives us capacity for internal alignment. Together, they create a force multiplier that neither approach achieves alone.

The disciplined routines Andrew spoke about don't mean everyone wakes up at 5 AM for push-ups. It means each person develops practices that keep them sharp, focused, and ready to contribute. For some that's yoga at dawn, for others it's evening runs, structured work blocks, or regular digital detoxes.

The systematic approach to operations doesn't mean rigid processes. It means having enough structure to enable freedom—clear enough that people can improvise effectively when reality doesn't match the plan.

Moving forward, we're embedding these discoveries into our daily operations. Regular syncs/check-ins that follow AAR principles. Personal effectiveness as a team value, not individual preference. Operational frameworks that come from centuries of refinement, not startup blog posts.

The retreat proved something crucial: when you combine genuine human connection with proven operational systems, you get something powerful. Not the fake vulnerability of corporate “trust falls”, but real understanding. Not the chaos of structureless collaboration, but freedom within frameworks that actually work.

This is what building a high-performance team actually looks like. It's messy, it's uncomfortable, it requires both emotional courage and systematic thinking. But when it clicks, when you can have those real conversations while operating with military-grade effectiveness, you've built something most organisations only dream about.

With care,
Ben

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