People respond to the conditions they’re working in.

When something isn’t working, it’s easy to blame the people. But people respond to the conditions they’re working in. Square Loop helps teams see—and redesign—those conditions.

Square Loop enables teams to design the conditions they choose to work in while completing a specific task or project together.

Using a simple four-step process, teams build a shared language to co-design the working connections they require to help them align how they work together.

Alignment before Action.

The Square Loop process

A simple path to better ways of working together.

The Square Loop Method is a four-step process that helps teams design safety and connection into how they work together.

01Understand

Understand — See your team’s conditions.

Discover the signals and patterns shaping how your team works.

Teams complete a 10–15-minute multiple-choice survey.

Results are combined to reveal patterns where strengths and challenges across the five conditions are most visible.

These patterns help identify the priority areas to explore in the Alignment Workshop.

02Learn

Learn — Build a shared language.

Learn to notice and understand how conditions shape our experience of work—especially under pressure.

Team members complete a 15-minute story-based learning experience designed to build awareness of the nervous system in everyday life.

Following Claire through an ordinary morning, we see how her nervous system shapes how she thinks, feels and responds—often before she is even aware of it.

03Design

Design — Create working connections.

Use the Square Loop Language Cards to co-design the connections your team needs to optimise safety and connection.

The Alignment Workshop is shaped by the patterns identified through the team survey.

Working around a shared purpose, project or task, the team explores the conditions affecting their work and co-designs the working connections they agree will help them work together in stronger, healthier ways.

Nervous system state — tap to flip and see the back — Nervous system state

Nervous system state — back — Nervous system state

Signals — tap to flip and see the back — Signals

Working connections — tap to flip and see the back — Working connections

Working connections — back — Working connections

04Embed

Embed — Put it into practice.

Build your new working connections into everyday working documents and processes, with clear signals to learn, adapt and stay aligned.

Priority working connections are integrated with individual learning objectives and team outcomes to create an Alignment Plan—embedding new ways of working into the work itself.

Why Square Loop is different

How can we solve a problem we don’t yet have a shared language for?

For generations, we’ve become increasingly sophisticated at designing what we do at work—our processes, systems, technologies and tools.

But we have paid far less attention to how we work together, particularly when we’re under pressure.

Every team has a language for deliverables, budgets, timelines and outcomes. Square Loop gives teams a shared language for the human experience of work—so they can notice what’s happening, understand it together and design what happens next.

The Square Loop Language

Square Loop Language Cards give teams a simple way to recognise and discuss what is happening in their work. The three card types help teams explore their nervous system states, identify the signals and patterns they are experiencing—or want to create—and design the working connections that will support their work together.

Tap to flip

State

I notice myself.

Tap to flip

Signals

We notice what’s happening.

Tap to flip

Working Connections

We design what happens next.

A shared language for turning experience into understanding—and understanding into design.

Who Square Loop is for

People who need to work together.

Square Loop is designed for groups of people working toward a shared purpose — whether they are coming together for the first time, starting something new, navigating complexity, or finding a better way forward together.

Project teams · Leadership teams · Cross-functional teams · New teams · Partnerships · Networks · Alliances · Consortiums · Multi-organisation teams · Teams seeking realignment

Alignment before action.

The pilot invitation

Could your team help shape a new way of working?

We’re looking for teams and groups united by a shared purpose who know there must be a better way to experience the workplace.

You might be starting something new.

You might be working well and want to become even better.

Or you might know something isn’t working—and be ready to try something different.

We’re inviting a small number of teams to experience and help shape the Square Loop method.

Curious. Open to experimentation. Ready to learn together.

Become a Pilot Team →