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 (15)
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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 (15)
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…
Embracing Uncertainty
Through mapping, discussion, and metaphor drawing, groups engage both cognitively and emotionally with the dimensions of uncertainty — ambiguity, complexity, unpredictability —…
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…
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…
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 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…