The Room Reader
A Work Patterns Field Guide
A free companion to Why We Do That at Work.
The book treats workplace behaviour as flexible patterns and lenses. This companion extends the book’s Notice, Try and Ask close, giving you room to compare the same pattern across different situations rather than reading it once.
Available now · One working week, revisited per situation
“What is this room asking of people, and what is it costing?”
A way to compare workplace patterns across situations — what a behaviour may protect, what the room rewards, and what it costs.
- A situation page you can repeat for any room
- Notice, Try and Ask, with space for what changed
- A twelve-pattern workplace index
- Optional views for individual contributors, managers and team reflection
These are patterns and lenses, not personality types, archetype scores, employee assessments or diagnoses. People move between patterns as conditions change. Used with a team, this is a look at the situation — never an invitation to label a colleague.
The room as you experience it, and the patterns you take part in.
Write on the page, or print it and use a pen.
Anything you write stays in this browser. It is not sent anywhere, not saved to an account, and never visible to anyone else. Clearing it removes it completely.
The situation
Notice, try, ask
The book’s three moves, with somewhere to record what followed.
The twelve-pattern workplace index
Where you have seen each of the book’s twelve patterns, and under what conditions.
Continue with the book.
Why We Do That at Work
Leave an honest review.
A review is never a condition of using anything here. It simply helps another reader decide.
Reviews open once the book is published.
These resources are intended for personal reflection and education. They are not therapy, diagnosis or medical advice. Move at your own pace, pause or skip anything that does not feel useful, and seek appropriate professional support when you want it.