Acting in Alignment
Participants surface and rank their core values through imagination and ordering tasks, then examine honestly where recent actions expressed or contradicted them, and commit to…
Being B2
Integrity and Authenticity
A sincere commitment to honesty and firmly grounded values, expressed and embodied in action.
Tools for this skill (19)
B.G.D.V.F. Connection
Two people share, in order, a brag, a gratitude, a desire, a vulnerability and a fear from the day or the time since they last met, each with its own sentence stem. Written by a…
Creating norms that welcome vulnerability
To reduce pressure toward conformity and create space for authenticity. Cultivate norms that make it safe to be authentic: • The team leader regularly models vulnerability by ad…
Integrity, Accountability, Responsibility
Separates three words usually used interchangeably, and asks what it takes to embody each as a leader and instil them in a team. The guide places it in the chapter on making cha…
Periodic values-behavior alignment review
To examine whether actual behavior aligns with stated values. Review the team's stated values. For each value, discuss: 1. Where have we lived this value well recently? What are…
Principles Walk-Around
The ten Liberating Structures principles — or a group's own espoused principles — are posted around the room; people walk, stand by one, and examine honestly where daily habits…
Secret Identity
The room is secretly split into a Friendly group, who answer 'how are you' with pleasantries, and a Raw group, who answer with one true sentence about their life; people mill an…
Standing on the Line
A question with two opposite answers is mapped onto a line across the room, ideally graded with chairs or numbers, and everyone stands where their view is best expressed. People…
The Alignment Moment
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Integrity and Authenticity (VCoL collection): When you notice yourself about to say something that does not match what you genuinely thi…
The Commitment Check
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Integrity and Authenticity (VCoL collection): When asked for a commitment, pause before answering. Check: "Do I actually intend to do th…
The Congruence Check
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Integrity and Authenticity (VCoL collection): During interactions, briefly check: "Does my body match my words? Does my tone match my me…
The Hot Chair
Everyone sits in a ring with one chair spare. The leader reads statements and each person takes a personal position: those who agree change seats calmly, those who disagree stay…
The Receiving Game ("Would I?")
Two people each make a request of the third, who says aloud how each lands in the body and the feelings as it arrives, then weighs them out loud and chooses one — or counter-off…
The Yes/No Game
One partner may only say yes, the other only no, back and forth for a minute — then swap. Can you hold a no while the other presses? Can you say yes to someone saying no to you?…
Touch My Elbow
Partners take turns asking to be touched somewhere specific, in the manual's form 'I would like my <blank> to be touched', and the other lightly does so, or declines; a declined…
Understand Different Modes of Support
A practice-hygiene exercise for coaches whose roles blur: against the playbook's glossary of neighbouring modes — advocacy, activism, mediation, mentoring, psychotherapy, traini…
Understanding Identities
A four-part coaching conversation for leaders whose pro-environment values collide with their professional identity. Explore environmental identity, starting from the coach's ow…
Withholds
A withhold is what you have not been saying to someone. Ask if they are open to hearing it, give the context and why you want to return to connection, then say it — 'I was reall…
Yes, No, Maybe
Three signs are put up — yes, no, maybe. The leader reads a statement and everyone stands beside the sign that matches their view, discusses it with the others there, and then s…
Also develops it (30)
Adapting Response Patterns
Using Albert Ellis's ABC model (Activating event – Belief – Consequence), participants analyse their own automatic, self-sabotaging reactions under pressure, identify the unhelp…
Apology Process
Connect with a meaningful apology you have not given, or cannot, and give it to a listener through stems the facilitator reads aloud — 'I acknowledge that I hurt you when I…', '…
Building and maintaining psychological safety
To create an environment where team members feel safe to express themselves, take risks, and be vulnerable. Psychological safety is built through consistent behavior over time:…
Building capability for co-creation with external actors
Co-creating with external actors involves challenges beyond internal collaboration. Before significant external co-creation, clarify the nature of the collaboration. Is this gen…
Compassionate accountability
To address performance issues and concerns in ways that maintain care for the person while being honest about the problem. Compassion does not mean avoiding difficult conversati…
Connectedness in decision-making
To ensure that awareness of connections informs actual decisions. When facing significant decisions, include explicit consideration of connections: • How does this decision affe…
Context Conversation
A conversation held entirely in the stem 'Right now, I would ___ because ___' — the thing you would do, and the motive under it, which can go several 'because's down: 'I would a…
Creating permission for courageous voice
One of the most common failures of courage in teams is silence—not raising concerns, not voicing disagreement. Establish explicit norms that speaking up about concerns is expect…
Daily-to-long-term connection practices
To maintain a thread between daily work and longer-term goals. Integrate brief long-term references into regular team meetings: • Occasionally ask: 'How does this relate to wher…
Distinguish Your Shadow
In a group of four to seven, each person in turn introduces their shadow — the part they hide or are ashamed of — and answers the group's questions as that part: how it most lik…
Ensuring diverse perspectives shape decisions
Inclusion is not merely about participation but about influence. Diverse perspectives must actually shape decisions. Examine how decisions actually get made. Who has voice in si…
Examining and reducing the team's environmental footprint
Teams cannot reduce what they do not notice. Creating awareness of environmental footprint is the foundation for responsible resource use. Periodically examine the team's direct…
Four Corners
The leader poses a statement with four possible answers, the last of them open, and everyone goes to the corner representing the answer closest to their own view. Each corner th…
Future generations perspective
To develop capacity to consider how decisions affect those who come after. When facing significant decisions with lasting consequences, explicitly introduce future stakeholders'…
Making Courageous Decisions
Participants practice recognizing fear in the moment of decision and acting on values anyway — informed by Theory U's letting-go and letting-come: releasing the safe option, all…
Meet My Essence
Mill and introduce yourself as the self you first show people — and say how and why you show up that way: 'I'm really loving and warm and soft when I meet people, so you HAVE to…
Normalizing acknowledgment of limitations and uncertainty
To create a culture where acknowledging what you do not know and admitting mistakes is normal and valued. Build explicit norms around acknowledging limitations. The team leader…
Norms for addressing harm directly
To establish team expectations that when harm occurs, it will be acknowledged and addressed. Discuss and establish team norms around addressing harm: • When someone feels harmed…
Owning outcomes rather than just completing tasks
Reactive teams complete tasks. Proactive teams take ownership of outcomes—they care about the larger result, not just their piece. Frame work in terms of outcomes to achieve, no…
Periodic team health assessment
To create structured opportunity for the team to assess its own functioning. Use questions that team members respond to individually, followed by collective discussion. Dimensio…
Poetic Motivations
Each participant drafts an "I poem" — a structured poem about identity and values ("I am… I believe… I carry…") — revealing the intrinsic motivations behind their engagement wit…
Quarterly purpose reflection dialogue
To keep the team's sense of purpose alive and connected to daily work. Once per quarter, dedicate 60-90 minutes to a structured dialogue focused on team purpose. Address questio…
Standing firm on principles under pressure
Teams regularly face pressure to compromise their principles—including pressure on environmental and social responsibility commitments. Clarify in advance what principles the te…
Structured approach to repair
To provide a framework for repair conversations when harm has occurred. When addressing harm, a repair conversation typically moves through stages: 1. The harmed person describe…
The Small Stand
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for courage: whenever an easier option would quietly compromise a value — staying silent, going along, softening the truth — pause, name the…
Unfinished Sentences
Sitting in a ring, the leader reads the first of a set of prepared unfinished sentences and the first person completes it immediately with whatever comes into their head. Anyone…
Values Check-in
A five-minute meeting opener before consequential decisions: the team briefly reconnects with its stated values and asks how they bear on today's choices. Prevents short-term pr…
Values emergence through decision-making
Discover actual values through examining decisions and patterns. Try monthly reviews of recent significant decisions, asking: What did we actually prioritize in this decision? W…
Values Mapping
A team maps what matters to it and why: individual values surfaced, clustered into the team's shared landscape, tensions between values named, and the map kept for decisions und…
Who Are You?
Three questions, two minutes each: 'Who are you?', 'Who do you pretend to be?', and — asked back — 'Who do you think I am?', then a debrief and a swap. The manual calls it one o…