Already In A Meeting, for teams
Your team is in two meetings at once
The one on the calendar, and the one running underneath it. The one where someone says “fine” and means something else, and the plan changes again on Thursday. We help your team notice that second meeting while it is happening, and get back to the real one.
Team sync (the real one)
WhatThe meeting behind your meeting
WhenUsually right after someone says “fine”
WhereOnline, or in the room with you
OrganizerFINO, with Anna Milaeva and Dario Giuffrida
GuestsYour team, and every part of them
Who is in your team's meeting?
Five people from the novel, and five patterns you will probably recognise from your own team. Talented people, running on parts they can't name yet.
A team full of KatesEverything gets done and very little gets declined. Your most reliable people keep saying yes, right up to the day they quit.The pattern behind it →
A founder running on DanielFour priorities this month, all of them the most important. The team learns to wait a few days before starting anything.The pattern behind it →
A room of PriyasThree versions of every deck, and the real opinion stays in a folder. Decisions get slower and safer.The pattern behind it →
A team of TomsFine in the meeting. The real conversation happens in the corridor, or never.The pattern behind it →
A firm of MartasBillable hours, just until close. Burnout with excellent records.The pattern behind it →
See two of them in under a minute
Kate, Thirteen Minutes Early, 0:42
Priya, Version C, 0:31
What we do
A shared language for the second meeting
Most teams have the talent. What breaks down is what happens inside people when the stakes rise. Someone shuts down. A hard conversation gets avoided for weeks.
We teach your team a practical way to catch those moments while they are still happening, using parts work, the model behind the novel. Then people practise on the situations they are carrying that week. The five people from the book help. “That was my Priya talking” is a much easier sentence to say in a meeting than “I was scared of your feedback.”
Two ways to start
Start here
Half a day with your team
The Self-leadership Intensive
Built on the pressure your team is under right now. Everyone answers two questions when they sign up, what they lead and where the pressure gets to them, and we build the session on those answers. Your team leaves with language they can use on Monday.
Ask about it
Then go deeper
Eight weeks, once a week
Self-leadership Circles
Sixty to ninety minutes a week, online, with two facilitators. Teaching and live practice, with examples pulled from your team's own week. The language spreads into ordinary meetings and one to ones.
See how a circle runs →
Sessions in English or Spanish. The Intensive holds up on its own, whether or not the eight weeks ever happens.
What changes
What teams report
People stop taking things personally
They get curious instead, which is a different meeting entirely.
Hard conversations happen sooner
And with less damage, because they are not six weeks overdue by the time anyone speaks.
Leaders catch themselves
They notice the reactive part before it takes over.
Meetings get shorter
Decisions get clearer. That part surprises people.
A part of me is getting defensive about that feedback. Give me a second.
I can feel my perfectionist part taking over on this. Let me reset.
We are all running hot after that call. Let us pause before the next decision.
From the teams
“Two of our leaders had been in conflict for months. Tension in every meeting, friction in every email. After going through this work, they can collaborate again. Their teams felt it immediately.”
People Operations Lead
“We needed this so much. When you are under this kind of pressure, you do not have space to repair things. Having this language makes everything work better.”
In-house legal team
“We connected and spoke about things we had never been able to say out loud before. Something shifted in how we work together.”
Team participant
Who we work with
Founders and leadership teams
Tension between leaders, and decisions that keep getting reopened because the real conversation never happened.
HR and People leads
A team with strong talent and communication that keeps breaking down, often in the middle of growth or restructuring.
Law firms
Billable hours, and the people who keep the firm running until they can't. FINO is a Florida Bar approved CLE provider, and also works on how firms run. Operations for law firms →
Trained at the IFS Institute
Registered US Federal Contractor
Florida Bar approved CLE provider
Government agencies, public health and academic institutions, employee assistance programs
Who you would work with
Anna Milaeva
Author of Already In A Meeting. Over ten years in operations, trained in IFS through Level 3 at the IFS Institute, and a Certified Deep Transformational Coach.
Dario Giuffrida
Organizational psychologist and IFS practitioner, with twenty years of facilitating groups.
Together they run FINO →
Before you book
No. The book is a way in, and a funny one, but the sessions stand on their own. We teach the model from scratch.
No. This is professional development. Nobody is asked to disclose personal history to colleagues. People learn a model they can use in a meeting, and what they do with it outside work stays theirs.
No. People choose what they bring. The work runs on situations at work, and the depth is set by the group rather than by us.
Good. We like skeptics. The work is practical and it holds up to scrutiny. Skeptics tend to become the strongest advocates once they see the tools work on something they are actually dealing with.
Up to sixteen people in a circle, so each person gets airtime. If your group is bigger, tell us the numbers and we will work out the shape with you.
If the first session is not right, that is all you pay for.
Next step
Tell us what is happening in your team's meetings
Thirty minutes with Anna or Dario. You describe the room and we think it through with you. You leave knowing whether half a day or eight weeks makes sense.
New to the book? Start with the five people →