Engaging Men in Humanizing Workplaces

Do you know how the men in your organization experience their workplace?

If you did, how might that understanding change the way you invite them into creating a more human, collaborative culture?

“Having a male-only space focused on listening—not fixing—and hearing other men speak honestly about their lives is deeply empowering.”

“I now relate to other men with far more compassion and openness.”

“I’ve become a better listener to the people I work with. Sometimes they just need me to hear them.”

“I’m better able to see men as collaborators rather than competitors.”

For a long time, I didn’t trust other men. I learned to armor up around them—to protect myself by staying guarded and self-reliant.

In doing so, I constrained myself. I reached for a kind of pretend power rooted in fear, rather than the authentic power that emerges from compassion, mutual respect, and shared responsibility.

After supporting men for many years I’ve noticed this—how men relate to other men affects the way they relate to everyone.

We need to rehumanize the workplace.

What if men played a meaningful role in that effort?

When men are invited to lead or participate in humanizing initiatives—rather than being managed around or worked around—they often find a sense of purpose and contribution they’ve been missing.

At the same time, men in organizations are not a monolith. There are subcultures shaped by role, power, history, and unspoken norms. In some contexts, the work begins by bringing different groups of men together to build trust and shared language. In others, it’s more effective to create distinct spaces for men and women, alongside a third space where they come together for honest, skillful dialogue.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

What matters is what’s true within your organization: what leaders are modeling (and avoiding), what’s happened in the past, what’s been tried, and where trust has been lost or preserved.

My role is not to arrive with a program, but to inquire—listening for the deeper needs beneath the surface—and to co-create an approach grounded in the wisdom already present in your people.