Every team runs on three energies. Most teams never see them.
One brings clarity. One brings drive. One holds things still. Together they decide how a team argues, how it decides, and how far it goes.
Withya holds up a mirror so a leadership team can finally see its own mix. Not to judge it. To understand it.
It started with a company that was sinking.
In 2008, one of the young companies in our incubator was losing money and could not raise any. Its CEO asked me a simple question: “Can you coach my team the way you coach me?”
I had no method for a whole team. So I went back to the oldest map of human nature I trusted, a few pages of the Bhagavad Gita, and turned it into one sheet of paper. What that sheet showed changed the company, and eventually changed how I look at every team I meet.
Picture a busy restaurant with three waiters.
Same uniform. Same kitchen. Same pay.
The first waiter is calm and attentive. He remembers that you take no sugar. He clears a spill before anyone asks. He is not watching the tip tray, yet he ends most nights with the most tips. That is White energy.
The second moves at a run. He takes your order, disappears, and reappears just as the bill arrives, hoping for a big tip. When it is small, his mood drops. That is Grey energy.
The third sits by the counter, on his phone. When you wave, he looks up slowly. He does what he is asked, eventually. That is Black energy.
Every company has all three waiters. So does every person, on any given day.
Most assessments hand you a score. Withya hands you a mirror.
Every member of the leadership team rates every colleague, and themselves, on thirteen everyday qualities. Nobody is graded. Nobody passes or fails. What comes back is a picture of the team as the team actually experiences itself.
Sometimes that picture shows an imbalance: plenty of vision and no engine, or a team quietly weighed down. Then it shows where to begin.
But more often, what people feel when they see it is relief. Two co-founders who have argued for a year discover they are simply wired in opposite directions, and that this is why the company works. The person everyone found difficult turns out to be the only one carrying the drive. Different wiring is not a problem to fix. Very often, it is the reason the team is strong.
Real teams. Names removed.
- A fashion design house where the leaders felt they were pulling in different directions, and discovered they were each holding a different rope.
- An architecture practice full of brilliant ideas, with no one whose job was to carry them over the finish line.
- Two co-founders of a wellness brand who stopped arguing once they saw how differently they were wired.
For leadership teams
For CEOs and founders who want to see their top team clearly: before a restructure, a senior hire, a fundraise, a handover, or simply when something feels stuck.
For you and your family
The same three energies, brought to the kitchen table. A gentle way to understand yourself, and the people you live with.
Twenty leadership teams.
Ninety-five leaders.
Fifteen years.
And one question, asked again and again: what is really driving this team?
Every team has a story it has not heard yet.
Begin with a thirty-minute conversation about your team, and what you would like to understand.