Mike Burrows's Blog, page 17

Video: Leading and Transforming with Outcomes

Recorded yesterday at Agile Hartford, thank you Larry Bock for hosting!

Our media page has several meetup talks with this same title, but as I mention in near the beginning, I spent the day yesterday doing a complete rewrite. The recent blog post that sowed the seeds for that rewrite is this one: Agendashift’s three meta strategies and I’m very pleased with how it came out.

Most of the links mentioned in the video you’ll find at the bottom of this (and every) blog post. Apart from this one:

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation (academy.agendashift.com)

Enjoy!

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on March 03, 2022 03:33

Agendashift roundup, February 2022

In this edition: Leading with Outcomes: Foundation is live!; Agendashift’s three meta strategies; Upcoming events; Top posts

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation is live!

As announced earlier this month:

Out of beta, Leading with Outcomes: Foundation goes fully live today Agendashift Academy has a community on Circle

The short version: The “old” Leading with Outcomes (online self-paced training from the Agendashift Academy) is replaced with a foundation module, the beginnings of a new three-track curriculum. We’re very excited about it! Two and a half hours of video in tasty bitesized chunks taking you through 18 practical exercises. If by any definition you could describe yourself as being (or aspiring to being) a leader in a transforming organisation, then it’s for you – and for many of your colleagues also.

Sign up here:

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation

Very happy with feedback so far. Happy also to report meanwhile that recording of Inside-out Strategy: Fit for maximum impact is going well. And to complement it in the Inside-out Strategy track we’ll be announcing an interactive workshop soon.

Agendashift’s three meta strategies

Or less grandly, three things to keep doing if you’re doing anything strategy-related.

It’s early days, but it seems likely to me that these will supersede the principles that in the Agendashift 2nd edition were already de-emphasised:

Agendashift’s three meta strategies Upcoming events

As mentioned, we’ll start scheduling workshops again as the new Leading with Outcomes curriculum gets up and running.

Several private speaking engagements happening – can’t talk about those of course but one public one is imminent:

Wednesday 2nd March, 12pm EST (17:00 GMT, 18:00CET):
Agile Hartford Lunch & Learn Mar. 2022 – Leading & Transforming with Outcomes Top posts

This month’s top five most-read posts are the three already mentioned plus a couple of old favourites:

Out of beta, Leading with Outcomes: Foundation goes fully live today Agendashift’s three meta strategies Agendashift Academy has a community on Circle The 1967 Manifesto for The Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (October 2021) My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 28, 2022 08:02

Agendashift’s three meta strategies

Or less grandly, three things to keep doing if you’re doing anything strategy-related (which, if you think about it, should be a lot of the time).

Meta strategy 1. Keep asking this question: “What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?”

Authentic agreement on meaningful outcomes. “Authentic agreement” meaning the right people in the room, agreeing on things that matter, expressed in their own words. “Meaningful outcomes” meaning not just numbers, not just targets, but needs met, happy endings to stories, the world changed for people in meaningful ways.

Solutions second, outcomes leading the way – literally “leading with outcomes” [1] – solutions emerging from the people closest to the problem [2], people already motivated to find them.

All of that is a 180 degree turnaround from those 1990’s models of managed change, a different paradigm entirely. Instead of using outcomes to sell solutions (and very often solutions of the wrong kid of scale), we use outcomes to find solutions. Not just game-changing for engagement, a completely different game.

Meta strategy 2. Keep outcomes at the forefront; you’re ‘done’ when needs have been met, ‘really done’ when you have fully accounted for all the learning

Outcomes don’t go away once we start thinking about solutions – quite the opposite. Outcomes change what ‘done’ and ‘really done’ mean. When we account properly for learning, it creates certain expections, helping to keep ‘done’, ‘really done’, and all the outcomes they represent in the foreground. Solutions are kept in their proper place, just a means to an end, held much more lightly.

We’re done when “someone’s need was met” [3], the outcome demonstrably achieved. This implies that we know whose need we’re trying to meet, what need, and how we’d know that we have indeed met it.

We’re really done when we’ve fully accounted for all the learning that goes with achieving the outcome. To be sure of not missing any, work is framed in the right way (as hypotheses and experiments, whenever that’s appropriate), the right things are monitored, and regular reviews are in place. The regular rhythm of review and the shared understanding of what each review entails creates containers for learning. If you know that the learning will need to be accounted for, it really changes how you work.

Meta strategy 3. Keep developing your understanding of where this all happens

Where rather than how, because the third meta strategy of the three is not about practice or process, but organisation [4]. It’s about working to eliminate a common organisational dysfunction, also working to develop a kind of organsational agility that’s about so much more than mere speed.

If instead of keeping outcomes at the forefront you allow yourself to be distracted by solutions and how you’re rolling them out, you manage for progress, not impact. Compounding the error, one group manages things that people closer to the work could easily be managing for themselves. And it works in the opposite direction too: one group second-guessing the needs, priorities, and strategies of another. In short: the wrong people managing for the wrong things. Totally dysfunctional, so common, and don’t be so sure that your branded process framework or your PMO will fix it for you either!

Often this dysfunction happens between levels of organisation (up and/or down), but the trick is to think less in terms of levels or hierarchy and more in terms of identity. For an outcome, what’s the group of people most closely identified with it or that you would want to see organising around it? Conversely (and more powerfully), for any group of people with an identity of its own and the apparent will to develop itself – team, team of teams, something bigger, something cross-cutting, whatever – what are the outcomes that it is pursuing? What, in other words, is its strategy, and has it been afforded the opportunity to develop it for itself and in its own words?

That way of looking at organisation has a dynamism that’s simply not there in the org chart or the process diagram. People participating in multiple circles, circles that overlap and rapidly share learning, insights, and intelligence because they also share people. For as long as they’re needed, circles that have lives of their own. Structures that support both the development of people and the development of the organisation. Structures rich and dynamic enough to meet the ever-changing complexities of the business environment.

With this third meta strategy, the preceding two don’t just have a home, they have many homes. Strategy becomes something fractal and emergent, living in the conversations not just within circles, but between them.

Summary

Agendashift’s three meta strategies, things to keep doing if you’re doing anything strategy-related:

Keep asking this question: What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?Keep outcomes at the forefront; you’re ‘done’ when needs have been met, ‘really done’ when you have fully accounted for all the learningKeep developing your understanding of where this all happens

[1] This section drawn from the first video in Leading with Outcomes: Foundation (academy.agendashift.com)
[2] Thank you Karl Scotland for that wording
[3] See Done (agendashift.com/done)
[4] See the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (deliberately-adaptive.org)

For further reading, my two most recent books:

Agendashift: Outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation (2nd ed 2021)Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile (2019, audibook 2020)

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 22, 2022 01:44

Agendashift Academy has a community on Circle

For students and supporters of the Agendashift Academy (“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”) there is now a community on Circle. Regardless of your role or level of seniority, if by any definition you’re a leader in a transforming organisation, you aspire to be one, or you support others in that, then you are most welcome.

Currently, it has two main areas (we’re calling them ‘circles’, each with their own more topic-specific spaces within them):

The Welcome circle is open to all logged-in users, a shared space for public Announcements and Public Events, also Member guidelines (please read) and the latest progress on Curriculum development. If you’d like to invite interested colleagues to this shared space you are welcome to use this link .The Foundation circle is a private, invitation-only space for students of Leading with Outcomes: Foundation . Invitation is automatic on signing up to the course, and every post in the course invites community commenting – you can do it without leaving the course but naturally you’ll want to join the conversation afterwards

Over the course of 2022, the three tracks of the Leading with Outcomes curriculum will get their own circles, as will members of the Academy’s affiliate programme and training community.

For mobile users on iOS there’s an app for Circle, this community’s host platform. Highly recommended! We’re told that an Android app is in the pipeline.

Should I join?

The new Circle-based community doesn’t replace the LinkedIn group or our Slack community – audiences overlap but they’re not the same. It is pimarily for Agendashift Academy students and (soon) for other kinds of participants, but if for whatever reason, you’re interested in seeing how the Academy develops content-wise or ecosystem-wise, you’d be most welcome. Join here.

If you sign up for any Agendashift Academy training you’ll be invited automatically and added to the relevant private space. Currently that means the Foundation space for students of Leading with Outcomes: Foundation. If by any definition you could describe as a leader in a transforming organisation, you aspire to that, or you support others in that unique challenge, then it’s for you! Two and a half hours of bite-sized video content and 18 short exercises – great value at €99.

The next two Leading with Outcomes modules – one self-paced, one workshop – will be announced soon. They’re from the same track and you’ll be able to take them separately or together. The Foundation module will be a prerequisite for both.

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 16, 2022 04:13

Out of beta, Leading with Outcomes: Foundation goes fully live today

Yes, it’s here at last! It took a little longer than expected, but we leave beta proud of what we have created. If you participated in that beta, thank you!

What to expectIn bite-sized chunks – we take “self-paced” seriously – nearly two and a half hours of video instruction, no video more than a few minutes longFour “chapters”:Inside-out strategy: Fit for maximum impact – the biggest chapter, as it introduces the Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes structure, Agendashift’s IdOO (“I do”) patternOutside-in strategy: Positioned for successAdaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scaleInnovating for performance: Ideation, experimentation, and feedbackOver the course of those four chapters, 18 exercises taking you through that processA student workbook in a choice of convenient formatsA student community where you can ask questions, share insights, and meet other leaders

All of it is designed for leaders at every level of organisation. Whatever your level of experience or authority, whether you’re a leader in a team, a team-of-teams, or the whole enterprise, you’ll find it relatable, fresh, and with just the right level of challenge. All for €99!

What’s new

What makes Leading with Outcomes: Foundation different to anything we’ve done before:

Our audience, “leaders in transforming organisations”, a description we hope many will be able to relate to, likewise the Agendashift Academy’s new strapline, “Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”Compared to our workshops, it is unequivocally a training product, designed and delivered as such

To that first point, my empathy towards leaders in transforming organisations is very real, because I’ve been there myself. During the banking crisis I led a global department that found itself uncomfortably close to the centre of the storm. I’ve been a CTO in a startup, looking for its exit, needing to transform itself in the process. I’ve had hands-on leadership roles in two government digital transformations and advised others, much of that at the kind of scale that kept me in mind of what it was like to lead teams or to manage managers for the first time. More recently, it seems that Agendashift, its community, and its ecosystem are constantly evolving – something I’m glad about and a different kind of leadership responsibility perhaps, but still I feel it.

That second, training-related point is important too. Up to now, Agendashift has been largely a workshop-based product. But many workshops – including some very enjoyable and productive ones – should not be understood as training. The Leading with Outcomes curriculum will of course include the workshops for which we are best known, but LwO:Foundation is designed from the ground up as training. Its primary goal is clear: it is to greatly increase the number of leaders at all levels of experience and authority who are equipped to participate thoughtfully and effectively in the processes of strategy and transformation. Helping leaders increase their impact is how we increase ours.

What stays the same

What stays the same is the question:

At a minimum, Leading with Outcomes: Foundation demonstrates the practicality of an outcome-oriented approach, all students having the opportunity to practice some basic strategy development themselves (and no, that is not above anyone’s pay grade, nor a job only for specialists). We hope that this will whet the appetite to develop fluency in the language of outcomes, whether that’s to enhance their leadership skills at their place of work or to support others.

What’s in store

After the LwO:Foundation prerequisite, Leading with Outcomes branches out into three tracks:

Inside-out strategy – working on the experience and capability of the organisation (or your unit thereof), creating new possibilities, gaining fluency in the language of outcomesOutside-in strategy – keeping your organisation/unit well positioned in its business environment, meeting strategic needs, creating the right perceptions, developing product offerings, building a platform, creating advantageAdaptive organisation – helping the organisation become the organisation it needs to become, addressing its imbalances, disconnects, and other structural issues within and between levels, developing its people, and accelerating its learning

Each has modules in two formats, study (self-paced or classroom-based) and experiential (the workshops, in other words). As with Foundation, nothing is only for specialists; nothing is above (or below) anyone’s pay grade. Always, we start with the context that matters, yours.

The tracks will roll out in the above sequence over the course of 2022. Once they’re all in place, you’ll be able to take modules in whichever order suits you best. They will feature some of our best-known tools: Celebration-5W, 15-minute FOTO, the Agendashift Delivery Assessment, the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation Assessment, multiple mapping tools, Changeban, and more. The dual-format approach of each track means that you’ll have the opportunity both to experience these tools as a participant and to understand them from a more expert perspective.

What does it mean for Agendashift’s practitioner community?

Many in the Agendashift community are practitioners – consultants, coaches, facilitators, trainers, and so on. What does Leading with Outcomes mean for them?

Honestly, it is early days, and for me, 2022 will be dominated by the development of the three tracks. We don’t have all the details defined yet but we are making it possible to participate in more ways:

Participating in the same training that your clients will takeParticipating economically as an affiliateParticipating as a connector of communitiesDelivering certifiable training and/or workshops yourself

The first two of those options exist from day 1, with generous discounts/commissions for affiliates. The third option however isn’t yet well defined at all, and developing the pathway to the last one is a significant piece of work in its own right. We do know though that there is significant appetite already, and we are very open to working with others. With the right participation, perhaps it will come together sooner rather than later.

Let’s do this

Sign up today to Leading with Outcomes: Foundation. And bring your colleagues!

If you need to explore with us what it might mean to bring Foundation, the Leading with Outcomes curriculum or parts thereof into your organisation – perhaps as part of your leadership development or organisation development programme – don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can reach us via support@agendashift.com, the Agendashift contact page, or you can contact me directly at mike@agendashift.com. Likewise if you see yourself participating in some of the other ways I have described – there is plenty of opportunity there!

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 04, 2022 07:59

Agendashift roundup, January 2022

In this edition: Leading with Outcomes: Foundation launches next week; Celebration-5W version 7; Upcoming events; Top posts

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation launches next week

We’ve been in beta a few weeks now, reworked a couple of things that didn’t land quite as well as I would have liked, and now we’re finishing off the final touches. We have a launch day in mind, but if it’s a day or two later, that’s ok!

If you’re a subscriber, you’ll know when it’s ready. A taste of what to expect meanwhile:

A Foundation module (launching next week) that will be the main entry point to the rest of the Leading with Outcomes curriculum, available initially as online self-paced training, later as classroom training (online or in person, public or private)Primarily for “leaders in transforming organisations”; if you think there’s a chance that this description might fit you, your colleagues, and/or (if you have them) your clients, then it’s relevant – likewise if it describes something you could aspire toApplicability at all levels of organisation, with something fresh and accessible to offer leaders at all levels of authority and experiencePlenty of practical exercises relevant to your context – 18 in Foundation alone! Spoiler alert: you will be doing some actual strategy workOver the course of 2022, modules both study-based and experiential (public or private) for each of the following three tracks: Inside-out Strategy, Outside-in Strategy, and Adaptive OrganisationCelebration-5W version 7

More than just a version announcement, this post reveals some development work that I’m already testing privately and will include and explain in the Outside-in Strategy track of Leading with Outcomes:

Celebration-5W version 7

Celebration-5W deck 2022-01 v7

Upcoming events

We’ll start scheduling workshops again as Leading with Outcomes gets up and running. A couple of planned speaking appearances will hit the events page in the next few days.

Top posts Celebration-5W version 7 Leading with Outcomes: a cheat sheet (March 2021) Get unstuck and get going: Starting small with 5% and 15% outcomes (October 2021) Celebration-5W version 6, “your next big breakthrough” (September 2021) My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 28, 2022 06:09

Celebration-5W version 7

Spot the difference:

The v7 deck of our context-capturing kickoff exercise Celebration-5W now has two sets of slides, one (left) with the setup and the What as “Key accomplishments, objectives, goals, your next breakthrough”, the other with the newer and shorter “Your next breakthrough and all that it makes possible”.

OK, if there are two variants, why not more?

Celebration-5W is actually pretty easy to change, even as you’re doing it! And it’s Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA); with appropriate attribution and under the same licence, you can even publish your version.

Some possible tweaks:

What: The end of the project (not a variation I ever plan to try, but it’s easily done)When: The earliest you dare celebrate the breakthrough on which this upcoming period depends (a good one for January, and I have done this one)Where: At which Prime Ministerial residence are you celebrating – kidding, though I do say “have some fun with this one” – practicality isn’t the point here

What’s with the breakthough thing?

See Celebration-5W version 6, “your next big breakthrough” (September 2021).

Beyond that, I am actively exploring this kind of progression, which works as an extended kickoff or even a whole discovery workshop:

Breakthrough – from Celebration-5WAdaptive challenge – the adaptive challenge that makes the breakthrough importantPurpose – the purpose that makes the challenge meaningful and worth pursuingIdeal, Obstacles, Outcomes – ie the IdOO (“I do”) pattern: envisioning a compelling future, identifying what gets in the way of what we want, looking beyond those to what’s better

Compared to a typical Agendashift discovery workshop, stages 2 and 3 above replace Agendashift’s True North or similar generative image, minimising the amount of foreign material introduced and any biases that may be contained therein. True North is great – cathartic even – when you’re about to do something that’s mainly about internal experience and capability, but when if you’re about to do some kind of outside-in strategy (say), it may set up the wrong expectations.

Inspiration: Gervase Bushe’s Generative Change Model, as featured in his book (highly recommended) The Dynamics of Generative Change (2020). You may remember that I reconciled this model with Agendashift in the 2nd edition of Agendashift: Outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation (2021). Not only did I find a remarkable correspondence between the two, the thinking didn’t stop there.

Bottom line: Celebration-5W is a fun and highly reliable kickoff exercise. I never regret using it, and when I didn’t use it but could have done, that was usually a mistake. To make it even better, consider it as more than just a standalone exercise.

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 17, 2022 02:44

Agendashift 2021 roundup

In this year-end edition: Top 10 new posts of 2021; Still going strong, our most-read classic posts

Top 10 new posts of 20211. Leading with Outcomes: a cheat sheet (March)

Back in March, this post anticipated the launch of the Agendashift Academy and the first version of Leading with Outcomes. Today its replacement, Leading with Outcomes: Foundation, is in private beta and its launch is imminent. We’re ready to reach a broader audience now – leaders in transforming organisations – and the feedback so far has been great

And the cheat sheet itself:

2. Eating our own dog food (1/n): Our outside-in strategy review (OI-SR) (February)

The first in a short series of three posts, in which we used our own outside-in strategy review tools on ourselves.

3. The 1967 Manifesto for The Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (October)

What might have been…

4. Get unstuck and get going: Starting small with 5% and 15% outcomes (October)

On the benefits of starting small. See also the 15-minute FOTO update below.

5. Up and Down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (September)

Video explaining a modern take on a 70’s classic, the basis for the new Leading with Outcomes’ third track (the other two being inside-out strategy and outside-in strategy).

6. Why the Agendashift 2nd edition? What happened? (April)

A big, big update to the Agendashift book. Your holiday reading?

7. Announcing 15-minute FOTO version 11 (November)

Recent updates to our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO.

8. What do I mean by ‘generative pattern’? (May)

A detailed answer to a question that came up in a #community Zoom.

9. Inside-out or outside-in? A strategy warmup (June)

A question that split the audience 50:50.

10. Celebration-5W version 6, “your next big breakthrough” (September)

Seemingly just a small tweak but we’re still building on it!

Still going strong, our most-read classic postsFrom Reverse STATIK to a ‘Pathway’ for continuous transformation (October 2019) My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019) What the (Lean-)Agile scaling frameworks don’t give you (December 2020) How the Leader-Leader model turns Commander’s Intent upside down (June 2018) I’m really enjoying Challenge Mapping (June 2020) What kind of Organisational Development (OD)? (And a book recommendation) (May 2019) #2MBM: Meaning before Metric, Measure before Method (July 2020) ‘Right to Left’ works for Scrum too (July 2018) What I really think about SAFe (October 2019) Stringing it together with Reverse Wardley [Option Relationship Mapping] (February 2019)

Have a great Christmas! We’ll be back in the New Year with Leading with Outcomes: Foundation!

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 20, 2021 02:44

Agendashift roundup, November 2021

In this edition: Leading with Outcomes: Foundation; 15-minute FOTO, version 11; New video on Agendashift assessments; Top posts

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation

As announced this morning to current and existing students, the “old” Leading with Outcomes will be retired soon, and its replacement will look and feel strikingly different.

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation goes into limited private beta this week, to be launched in full around the end of the year. We’re aiming for a much broader audience – all “leaders in transforming organisations” – and as the name suggests, it’s also the starting point for more. Henceforth, the name “Leading with Outcomes” covers a whole curriculum that reorganises the Agendashift Academy’s existing offerings (both self-paced and interactive) into three parallel tracks, for which the highly accessible Foundation module will be a prerequisite.

For more detail than that, you’ll have to wait for the announcements. Remember meanwhile our guiding principle: Agreement on outcomes before solutions – literally, leading with outcomes! If you share our desire to see more of that, up and down transforming organisations everywhere, then you understand the level of our ambition. We’re going to make it easier for more people to participate in the realisation of that vision, so if you’re with us, get ready.

15-minute FOTO, version 11

The latest version of our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO was announced this week, and the announcement drew a lot of interest. Read it here:

Announcing 15-minute FOTO version 11

New video on Agendashift assessments

Added this month to our media page:

The Agendashift Delivery Assessment – starting conversations in business agility Top posts Announcing 15-minute FOTO version 11 Get unstuck and get going: Starting small with 5% and 15% outcomes (August)The 1967 Manifesto for The Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (October)My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)Up and Down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (September)

Welcome to Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model

View more on Mike Burrows's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on November 30, 2021 04:06

Announcing 15-minute FOTO version 11

The facilitation deck for our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO is now at version 11. Minor tweaks aside, the two main changes:

The tip to “start small” with 5% and 15% outcomesThe four roles of the Classic edition of the game have been reduced to three (the Lite edition doesn’t mention roles until the debrief)

You can read some background to the “start small” advice in the recent post Get unstuck and get going: Starting small with 5% and 15% outcomes. Thinking about it more tactically, if the objective of the game is to produce a quantity of outcomes, jumping straight to “world peace” leaves a lot of space unexplored! So start small, see where “Then what happens?” takes you, and in the process uncover not just meaningful objectives to pursue, but places to start, outcomes to organise around, outcomes that tell us when we’re winning, outcomes that (at the right time) will lead to solutions, and so on.

The change to the roles in the Classic edition takes us from the four of Client, Coach, Scribe, and Observer to the three of Client, Coach, and Host. The host’s job subsumes scribe and observer but goes further: it is to ensure that within the deliberate constraints of the game, everyone has an enjoyable and productive time. It covers things like:

Making sure the client and coach who they are and what they are meant to be doingMaking sure the client has chosen the obstacle that will be the focus of the next conversationMaking sure that outcomes get captured – whether or not that means performing the scribing task themselvesSafety officer (noting that whatever the coach might think, “I can’t answer that” is a valid answer)Referee – keeping the conversation to the rules (it is a game after all)Time-keeper – it takes some time discipline to ensure that everyone gets to play every role within the game’s 15 minutesIntervening when a conversation hasn’t got started (distracted by meta conversations perhaps) or is running out of steam (perhaps it’s time to choose another obstacle)Observer – from a perspective outside the conversation, noticing things that might be useful to recall later in the debrief

As per the 2014 book Host by Mark McKergow and Helen Bailey, hosting is a powerful metaphor for leadership. If ever you’ve struggled with the notion of servant leadership or feel that the leader’s responsibility to “create the environment” is never properly explained, then host leadership is for you. It’s worth noting also that Mark McKergow is also a co-author of one of the references / inspirations for 5% outcomes – see the abovementioned post for details.

As ever go to agendashift.com/15-minute-foto for tips, download instruction, and an ancient but still fun video.