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 (7)
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…
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…
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…
Also develops it (23)
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…