After-action reviews
To extract learning from completed projects while experience is still fresh. Following completion of a project or significant event, gather involved team members. Address four q…
Being B3
Openness and Learning Mindset
A curious, adaptive attitude expressed through willingness to exchange perspectives, be vulnerable, welcome change, and grow.
Tools for this skill (26)
Cartography
For seven minutes one partner maps the other's mind with hypotheticals — would you ever, would you rather, would you like to — answered truthfully, with conditions if needed, go…
Curiosity
Five minutes of asking a partner only what you are genuinely curious about, which they may answer or decline; a minute of feedback on the questions; three more minutes; then the…
Exchanging Perspectives
Structured rounds — inspired by Liberating Structures' Troika Consulting — in which participants voice and inhabit each other's perspectives on a complex or contested challenge,…
I Don't Know About You
One partner simply lists things they do not know about the other — when you last spoke to your parents, what you think about drug use — with no obligation on the other to answer…
Immunity to Change Map
A four-column mapping process that surfaces why sincere improvement goals stall: (1) the commitment to improve, (2) what I do/don't do instead, (3) hidden competing commitments…
Intervision on Inner Development
Recurring peer-coaching sessions where participants bring their own inner-development questions — a skill they're working on, a pattern they've noticed — and coach each other wi…
Join In and Finish
Three people. One acts; the other two face away. One of those says 'freeze', comes in, works out what is going on and joins it. The third then says 'freeze', comes in, and at th…
Learning from external perspectives and critical voices
To ensure the team remains open to learning from those outside its boundaries. Periodically seek input from external perspectives: • Invite a stakeholder or community member to…
Learning Mindset Moment
Sustainability work involves learning and adaptation. An openness to learning helps teams adjust approaches rather than defending unsuccessful ones, strengthening the effectiven…
Mad Tea and Calm Tea
Two concentric circles face each other; the facilitator fires open sentence-stems ("what I appreciate in this situation is…", "a next step for me is…") and pairs complete them f…
No, Oh Really, Yes
In pairs, planning something together — a party, a picnic — in three passes. First each idea is demolished and replaced, as creatively as possible. Then each idea is accepted, b…
Peer learning forums
To enable team members to learn from each other's experiences and expertise. Monthly or bimonthly, dedicate 30-45 minutes to peer learning. One or two team members share somethi…
Question Ambassador
Two concentric circles of chairs; each person chooses one stem they will ask everyone, asks it for a minute, answers their partner's for a minute, and the outer circle rotates.…
Regular team retrospectives
To create ongoing opportunities to reflect on how the team is working. Hold a retrospective every two to four weeks with a simple format: What has been going well that we should…
Storytelling about lessons learned
To build a team culture that values learning through stories. Integrate brief storytelling moments into regular team meetings. One person shares a 'learning moment' from recent…
Strange Neighbour
Round the circle, each player turns to their left-hand neighbour and says something absurd about them — a giant mushroom is growing out of your right shoulder. The neighbour has…
Talking with Pixies
A playful externalization of competing inner voices: in quartets, one person describes a stalled ambition while two others voice the "pixies" — contrasting inner voices, one urg…
Thanks, or Continue?
At regular intervals the improvised performance is stopped and the audience is asked whether they want it to go on: 'thanks, or continue?' If they want more they say continue; i…
The "Google" Game
'If I were to Google you and puppies, what would I find?' — and the answer is whatever memory, story or feeling comes up, not information. Can be themed, and a second round lets…
The Beginner's Moment
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Openness and Learning Mindset (VCoL collection): When entering a familiar situation, silently ask: "What might I notice if I were seeing…
The Curiosity Switch
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Openness and Learning Mindset (VCoL collection): Notice when you feel resistance arising. Pause for a breath. Silently say: "I am curiou…
The Hot Seat
One person sits on a chair. The others approach one after another saying things like 'Look! Totte has come back!' or 'Ulf, have we forgotten anyone for your 50th birthday next m…
The Mistake Welcome
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Openness and Learning Mindset (VCoL collection): When you notice you have made a mistake, pause before reacting. Instead of criticising…
The No Game
One person keeps proposing things and the other blocks every one of them. That is the whole exercise, and the point is not the scene — it is to feel what blocking does, and to h…
Travelling Concepts
Duos take one concept — resilience, energy, sustainability — and trace how it travels between their disciplines, watching its meaning shift en route. Interdisciplinary conversat…
Also develops it (26)
Affirm the Denial
Whatever one person claims, the other denies — and then the first has to affirm the denial while keeping their original claim alive. 'I'm getting married!' 'No you're not, you'r…
Challenge your Beliefs
Participants surface limiting beliefs about change — "I have no influence anyway" — and actively transform them into empowering ones, working collectively and in pairs on how su…
Cognitive Defusion Practice
The core ACT move of stepping back from a thought so it becomes something you HAVE rather than something you ARE: rephrasing "I don't matter to anyone" as "I am having the thoug…
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…
Creating unconditional space for emergence
To create opportunities to explore without pressure to reach conclusions. Periodically create protected time for a different quality of conversation: • No agenda or predetermine…
Cross-boundary exposure
To bring in perspectives and ideas from outside the team's usual context. Create regular opportunities to learn from outside the team's usual boundaries: • Invite someone from a…
Dedicated exploration time
To protect time specifically for creative exploration. Allocate regular time where the team explores new ideas without the requirement to deliver immediate outcomes. During this…
Deliberate learning from others
To cultivate the habit of seeking and valuing input from outside the team. Create regular opportunities to learn from people outside the team: • Invite colleagues from other tea…
Doom Circle
A volunteer asks for feedback on their goals, sets the prompt and the level of gentleness they want, and then receives it from everyone in turn — specific, owned, offered rather…
Embracing Uncertainty
Through mapping, discussion, and metaphor drawing, groups engage both cognitively and emotionally with the dimensions of uncertainty — ambiguity, complexity, unpredictability —…
Getting Presents
It is the receiver's birthday and the others shower them with imaginary gifts, fast, one after another; the receiver meets every gift — thoughtful or absurd — with delight and t…
Great Guru Game
In threes who know each other, one becomes the guru; the petitioner names the guru's gift, asks a real question from their life as if they had travelled weeks to ask it, receive…
Learning from setbacks rather than being defeated by them
Setbacks are inevitable. The question is whether they defeat the team or become opportunities for learning. When setbacks occur, create structured opportunities to learn from th…
Listening to Music
Everyone settles in their own place and listens actively to calm, preferably instrumental music, with something specific to listen for — individual instruments, or imagined sett…
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…
Perspective contrast exercises
To sharpen awareness of how different perspectives frame the same issue. When facing a dilemma with different legitimate perspectives, assign small groups to deliberately adopt…
Practices for genuine dialogue
Dialogue is exploratory conversation aimed at developing shared understanding. Creating space for genuine dialogue requires structural conditions and conversational practices. S…
Process-focused debriefs
To build the habit of reflecting not just on outcomes but on processes. After significant meetings, decisions, or interactions, take 5-10 minutes to debrief not just what was de…
Stop, go, jump, clap!
The group walks the space responding to four called instructions, then the meanings are reversed — 'stop' means go, 'clap' means jump — and the calls come faster. Some are usual…
The Disrupters
Two people play a scene and two more disrupt it. Once the scene is well established, one or two troublemakers come on and keep trying to knock the players out of their flow with…
The Humble Mindset
Epistemic Recontextualisation in practice: confronted with new or challenging information (a video, a text), participants slow down and notice the emotions, beliefs, and assumpt…
The Movement Game
One person makes a movement, optionally with a sound, and the next tries to reproduce it exactly. Inevitably small changes creep in, and the instruction is to keep them: each pe…
The Pocket
'You don't know what I've got in my pocket!' The other answers with something — a ticket to Kiruna, say — and you must agree you have it and supply the reason it is there: you a…
The Volcano of Change
Structured visual dialogue on a complex issue using the Volcano metaphor (from the Technology of Participation family): groups move from surface events down through drivers to c…
Visual Offers
Player A makes a physical shape. Player B looks at the gesture for three seconds and then 'motivates' it if they can — playing, in about five seconds, enough for the audience to…
Yes, let’s...
Someone calls out 'let's...' and an action; the whole group answers 'yes, let's!' and does it, until somebody else calls the next one. Nothing is refused and nothing is discusse…