When a Team Member Withdraws: Creating a Safe Path Back to Participation

Case Study: Nicki

Tenets illustrated: Safety • Choice and Autonomy • Trustworthiness and Transparency

Context

Nicki was a member of a library team brought together for a half-day Team Synergy workshop. The manager who commissioned the session warned Mike: Nicki is rigid and introverted, and everyone on the team has a problem with her. She probably thinks this whole workshop is about her. She might not even show up.

She showed up.

What happened

From the moment the session began, Nicki’s body language told a story: arms crossed, flat expression, minimal participation. The room was working; she was watching it work, from a distance, as if deciding whether to trust it.

During the break, she excused herself. She did not come back.

Eventually, Mike became aware that she was at the bottom of the stairs — the old building's creaking floors gave her away. She was listening to the session from below, at the edge of the room, not quite in and not quite out.

He did not go and get her. He did not call her name from above. He did not signal to the group that anything unusual was happening.

Instead, he began mentioning her in the ongoing conversation. Not to expose her absence, but to name her value: “It’s really too bad Nicki’s not here right now, because I think she’d have a lot to offer on this. Based on her role, I’d really want to hear her perspective.”

And then he recognized the problem he had created: if Nicki came back up now, it would be obvious. She would walk in while he was praising her absence. The re-entry would be awkward in a way that might make it impossible.

So he called a short break and casually suggested that someone check whether Nicki was alright — not as an extraction, but as a genuine check-in. A little while later, she rejoined the group.

The session continued. Nicki did not become a transformed participant that afternoon. But she came back.

Tenet in action: Safety — Mike did not force a re-entry. He created conditions that made it possible. Choice and Autonomy — Nicki’s retreat was a choice, and Mike respected it while keeping the door open. Trustworthiness and Transparency — naming her value publicly communicated that this room was thinking about her as a contributor, not a problem.

What followed

Years later, Mike encountered Nicki at a funeral. The woman who had commissioned the original workshop had passed away. In a room full of grief and awkward professional adjacency, Nicki came to him. She initiated the conversation. He had not expected it.

He does not know what changed, if anything did. He knows Nicki came to him in a hard moment and talked to him. That was enough to count.