The TQ™ Labs
Where we discover and uncover—in conversation—what we reach for when it gets real. And what becomes possible when we don't.
Bring one real conversation. No preparation required.
What Happens in a Lab?
A lab is where you find something out. Not where you're told a thing and asked to believe it.
That's the whole reason for the word. Every Lab here runs a live question — about you, and about the framework underneath. You bring something real, you try something you wouldn't normally try, and you notice what actually happens in your own body. Sometimes it goes the way we expect. Sometimes it doesn't, and that is also a result. We'd rather have the honest one.
You don't need preparation, background, or vocabulary. There's a framework underneath all of this, but you'll meet it by doing — a conversation will go a certain way, and then a few words will name what just happened. The name arrives after the experience, which is the only order that's ever useful.
Three Kinds of Work in the Labs
The Work Itself — Live, with other people, in a room, on the issues you actually are grappling with. This is where you first feel it.
Instruments — Ones you can take home and use, or back to the office.
Diagnostics — Ones you can run on yourself, or your team if the question is bigger than one person.
The labs are for oing the work, not just learning about it. Your time is precious. Learn by doing.
Then the Diagnostics make sense.This is all about the work you are already doing. This is about how you can see—and feel—the difference.
TQ Labs
TQ Foundations Lab
A six-week practice space for strengthening the practical capacities leaders rely on to navigate complexity, uncertainty, and hard conversations.
Requirements:
Your willingness to set aside time each week to participate, virtually or in person, and to complete the weekly practice. Usually, this means engaging in one conversation you might normally avoid. Its value is for you to decide.
The When: Lab Runs start the first Tuesday of the month at 11:00 am Eastern (USA).
The Cost: Full participation. Show up for all six weeks on time and ready to work, and complete weekly lab logs to contribute to our learning and data collection.
The How: Register to get your own lab ID and meeting access information
You are also welcome to "drop in" to any of the sessions thereafter if you wish to refresh your learning.
During these six lab sessions, you will surface useful capacities you may not realize you already have—and begin practicing them where they matter most.
Read more about the Labs
Do you find yourself needing to navigate complexity and uncertainty more adeptly?
In humanitarian and development work, the hardest problems are rarely only technical. They are human, relational, and full of pressure: different needs, competing truths, limited resources, strained teams, funder expectations, and decisions that have to be made before everything is clear.
The TQ Lab is a six-week practice space for that reality.
The premise is simple: you already have the capacity to navigate complexity. The Lab helps you work it, hone it, and make it more available under pressure.
We begin with TQ20, a short reflective practice for noticing what you are carrying into the work. Then we move into Gap Take-2, a practical method for revisiting real problem conversations: first the way they usually happen, then again with three deliberate stops that help reveal what was missed, assumed, or avoided. Over several weeks, participants practice this with live material from their own work, keeping brief logs of what shifts.
In week five, we add LAMP+, a way of strengthening attention to language, assumptions, meaning, and practice. In week six, we gather what has changed and look toward possible next labs, including Boundaries, Shame, and Civic COLREGs.
This is not a course about having better answers faster. It is a disciplined space for becoming more able to stay present, think clearly, notice the gap, and move with others through uncertainty.
For NGO leaders, that matters everywhere: in team alignment, program design, community relationships, funder conversations, and the daily work of making change possible without pretending the work is simpler than it is.
2026-2027 Foundations Labs Start Dates
| 2026 | 2027 |
| Jan. 5, 2027 | |
| July 7, 2026 | March 2, 2027 |
| Sept. 1, 2026 | May 4, 2027 |
| Nov. 3, 2026 |
LAMP+
Pragmatic preparation for high stakes and crucial conversations
2026-2027 LAMP+ Labs Dates
| 2026 | 2027 |
| Feb. 2, 2027 | |
| July 7, 2026 | March 30, 2027 |
| Sept. 1, 2026 | June 1, 2027 |
| Dec. 1, 2026 |
What Disappeared
Reading what's not happening in your team... that could be
A Sailing Diagnostic for Teams in Rough Waters
No 2027 dates yet
The Boundaries Lab
What you keep saying yes to
Not yet open
Being Seen — a Lab
What you don't talk about
Shame Release
Not yet open
We Also Provide Customized Hands-On Workshops & Training
Teams are the heart and soul of any great organization and they are our passion.
Every organization is unique and deserves customized approaches to training so as not to miss the mark or waste hard earned corporate dollars.