Me, Us, and It: A Whole-System Lens for Leadership and Collaboration

Introduction

Many of us enter work situations laser-focused on outcomes: deadlines, metrics, and delivery. Others are drawn more to relationships, or to personal impact and wellbeing. But in truth, effective leadership and collaboration requires us to encapsulate these factors and more.

The “Me, Us, and It” model offers a whole-system lens for understanding what’s happening in any work setting. It reminds us that:

• How people show up matters (Me).
• The way we work together as a team matters (Us).
• And our approach to doing actual things matters (It).

It sounds obvious when you write it down. But how often do teams actually pay attention to all three? In our experience, rarely. Most teams and leaders have a strong default (often a task / “It” focus), and the other dimensions get neglected until something breaks. In fact, when we ask leaders in rooms to share what takes up their energy at work, they nearly always list “it” related things, with very little consideration for the “us” or “me”.s.

The Three Domains of “Me, Us, and It”

Me – The Personal Lens

This is your own thoughts, emotions, energy, needs, mindsets and experiences. It’s about self-awareness. How are you showing up? What assumptions, values, or emotions are influencing your behavior?

Example: Are you anxious and rushing decisions? Are you avoiding conflict? Are your values being honoured?

Us – The Relational Lens

This is the quality of connection between people. What’s the atmosphere like? Are people listening to each other? Is there trust, safety, or tension? It’s about team dynamics, belonging, and communication.

Example: Is your team aligned or fragmented? Are voices being heard? Is there collaboration or defensiveness?

It – The Task Lens

This is the shared work, projects, goals, outcomes, or systems. It includes processes, strategy, performance, and clarity around objectives.

Example: Is the goal clear? Are roles defined? Are you working efficiently and delivering value?

Why This Model Matters

Most teams and leaders naturally favour one lens over the others. For example:

• High task-focus teams might sacrifice wellbeing (Me) or trust (Us).
• Relationship-oriented leaders may avoid necessary accountability (It).
• Individuals overly focused on their own needs may miss group or system-level impacts.

The value of “Me, Us, and It” lies in bringing the invisible into view, surfacing unspoken dynamics and rebalancing where attention is overly skewed. We also like the fact that it feels really holistic and quite intuitive for people as well.

Bringing the different domains of me, us and it to the fore helps teams and leaders make better decisions, resolve tensions earlier, and sustain high performance without burnout. We’ve worked with leadership teams who were so obsessed with “It” (delivery, targets, output) that the “Us” had completely broken down. People weren’t talking to each other honestly, trust had eroded, and collaboration was basically performative. The irony? Their relentless focus on the task was actually making the task harder to deliver.

Using “Me, Us, and It” in Practice

This model can be applied in many ways:

Team reflections – “Where is our current focus? What’s missing?”

Conflict conversations – “What’s going on for me, for us, and for the task here?”

Project debriefs – “Did we take care of people, relationships, and delivery?”

1:1 check-ins – “How are you doing (Me)? How’s the team (Us)? Are you clear on priorities (It)?”

Leadership coaching – “Where do you lean? What might you be overlooking?”

Even pausing in the moment to ask, “Am I considering Me, Us, and It?” can shift awareness and improve choices. It takes about five seconds. Try it in your next meeting and see what you notice.

From Reflection to Culture

Over time, organisations can embed this model into how they:

• Run retrospectives and project reviews
• Structure meetings and agendas
• Design performance and development conversations
• Train managers in holistic leadership
• Approach wellbeing, inclusion, and strategic planning

Used regularly, “Me, Us, and It” becomes a shared language for complexity and care, balancing people, process, and purpose. We’ve seen teams adopt this as a simple check-in at the start of meetings, and within weeks the quality of their conversations shifts noticeably. It’s one of those models that’s deceptively simple but (when actually used) genuinely changes how people relate to each other and to the work.

Learning More

To go deeper, explore these resources on people-shift.com:

• Team Social Contracts
• Self-Awareness in the workplace
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Lencioni’s framework for effective teams
• Organizational Culture in the World of Work

The People Shift View

At PeopleShift, we love this model for its elegant simplicity. It reminds us that good work isn’t just about delivery—or just about connection—or just about self-care. It’s about paying attention to all three and dialling each of them up and down as needed.

Another thing we really like about this framework (and Adair’s original model) is that it is a bit of a meta-model. Many other tools and models that we work with fit within it, making it a great starting model to use with teams and leaders in their exploration of leadership and high performance.