Ever wish you could lay a few cards on the table and instantly understand your team’s dynamics, challenges, and hidden tensions? Welcome to the world of Workplace Tarot – where instead of predicting your love life, we decode the unspoken energies of your office culture.
Of course, we’re not talking about crystal balls or incense. This is about using metaphor, insight, and a bit of humour to surface the deeper patterns shaping how your team behaves, collaborates, and (sometimes) combusts. Because let’s be honest – every workplace has its own deck of characters, and the cards they’re playing aren’t always visible.
The Tower of Silos
This one’s a classic – and it shows up more often than we’d like.
The Tower appears when departments are fortresses, not neighbours. It’s that moment when Marketing and Sales only communicate through passive-aggressive email threads, or when IT is three layers removed from the actual user. The Tower warns of sudden shake-ups (a reorg, a merger, an unexpected resignation) that reveal how little cross-team trust really exists.
DCo’s advice: Start with shared language. We helped one client, a pharmaceutical company, use DiSC profiling across all departments to map communication styles. The result? Fewer flare-ups, more empathy, and projects that actually launched on time.
The Ghost of Feedback
Beware this one – it haunts many a 1:1 meeting.
This card appears when everyone says they’re committed to feedback, but nobody actually gives it. People are “nice,” conflict-averse, or simply too busy to invest in conversations that matter. Leaders float through meetings like spirits, nodding sagely, but never really confronting the undercurrents.
Real-world moment: A financial services client approached us after a round of engagement surveys revealed high scores for “team friendliness” and terrible scores for “career development.” Translation? Everyone was too polite to be honest. We trained their managers in real-time coaching using behavioural cues and practical DiSC-informed language. Feedback frequency (and usefulness) skyrocketed – and so did internal mobility.
The Hierophant of Process
Ah yes – the card of bureaucracy and tradition. The Hierophant believes in doing things by the book. Unfortunately, the book was written in 1998.
This card shows up in organisations where process has become religion. Innovation is smothered by forms. Ideas die in committee. People spend more time justifying their calendars than doing actual work.
DCo’s take: Rituals matter – but they should serve people, not the other way around. We helped a legacy manufacturer re-engineer its training processes to focus on behavioural outcomes, not just hours logged. Turns out, when you trust people with freedom and direction, they do great things.
The Fool (With a Laptop)
Not a bad card, actually. The Fool represents fresh thinking, boldness, curiosity – someone who walks into the room and says, “Why do we do it that way?” to a room full of weary sighs.
But in the wrong culture, The Fool gets crushed. Their ideas are labelled “too ambitious,” “too risky,” or “not how we do things here.” That’s when innovation stalls and talent walks.
Pro tip: Don’t just say you support ideas – design systems that reward experimentation. At DCo, we helped a scaling tech firm create an “Innovation Sandbox” – a two-week sprint space where teams could test wild ideas with zero consequences. One of those “foolish” ideas became their most profitable product line.
The Lovers (Aka, Trust and Psychological Safety)
This one’s gold. When this card appears, it means your teams talk openly, share credit, hold each other accountable and have a laugh while doing it. You might think this one’s about feelings – and you’re right. But it’s also about performance.
Psychological safety isn’t fluffy. Google’s famous Aristotle Project found it was the #1 predictor of high-performing teams.
DCo’s story: We ran a performance bootcamp for a group of senior leaders where everything from conflict style to decision fatigue came out. It was messy. It was honest. And in post-session surveys, 92% said they felt more confident leading through uncertainty. Trust doesn’t just feel good – it delivers.
So… What’s in Your Cards?
The beauty of this metaphor? It helps people access tough truths through stories and symbols. It gives teams a language for the invisible – the culture under the culture.
Because here’s the thing: training alone doesn’t shift culture. But intentional conversations do. Behavioural feedback does. Psychological safety does. And that’s where DCo comes in.
Ready to Turn Over the Cards?
If you’re serious about understanding your workplace culture – not just measuring it, but transforming it – we’re ready to help.
From:
- Behaviour-based training programmes
- Team diagnostics and coaching
- Culture interventions built around DiSC and real-world leadership dynamics
…we create learning ecosystems that go beyond the surface.
Let’s read between the lines. Let’s play to your strengths. Let’s build a culture you don’t need a tarot deck to explain.
👉 Contact DCo to explore how we can help your teams learn, lead, and level up.
