Facilitating a session in person

Stay off the projector. Say what this is and, more importantly, what it is not. The room is deciding in these five minutes whether to take it seriously or perform agreement, and nothing you do later recovers a room that decided wrong here.

• “This describes how we come across to each other. It is not a measure of ability, and it is not going anywhere near a performance review.”
• “There is no good quadrant. If there were, we would have hired only that one and we would be much worse at our jobs.”
• “Everyone uses all four. What you will see is your default on an ordinary Tuesday.”

Open the shared screen and leave it up. Say nothing for the first thirty seconds — let people find themselves and look around. The silence is doing work.

• “Find your dot. Then look at who is next to you and who is furthest away.”

One or two lines each: your style, and whether it feels right. Go last yourself. Keep the pace up — if it slows, you will lose the back half of the agenda.

• “Your style, and does it match how you would have described yourself? One line.”
• “If it is wrong, say it is wrong. That is more interesting than agreeing.”

Move from individuals to the group. Point at the crowded corner and the empty one and ask the room what that costs them. Do not supply the answer before they try.

• “Which corner is crowded? Which one has nobody in it?”
• “What does this mix make easy for us — and what does it make us slow to notice?”
• “Who tends to get talked over in our meetings? Does the map explain it?”

Everyone picks one person on the team they find a bit of work, and looks up that specific direction — you working with them, not the pair in general. Read the “what to do differently” lines together for two or three of them out loud.

• “Pick one working relationship that takes effort. Not a difficult person — a pairing that costs you energy.”
• “Read the one for you working with them. It is written to you, because the adapting is your job.”

Go around once more. Each person names one specific thing they will do differently with one specific person. Write them down where the team can see them. Vague commitments are the failure mode; push for a name and a behavior.

• “One thing, one person, this week.”
• “‘I will send Priya the agenda the day before’ counts. ‘I will communicate better’ does not.”

As in the short session, plus the part people are actually wondering about: who sees this. Say it unprompted. A room that has to ask has already decided you were not going to volunteer it.

• “This describes how we come across. It is not ability, and it is not for hiring, promotion or performance review.”
• “Your full result is yours. What lands on the shared screen is your name and your style — nothing else, and nothing from anyone's private reading.”
• “Everyone uses all four. This is your default on an ordinary day.”

Put the join code up and let the room take it together. Five minutes is the real number; ten absorbs the two people who need help. Walk the room rather than watching the screen — you are looking for anyone stuck, not for the count to rise.

• “Scan the code. If you do not have an account you do not need one — continue as a guest and the result is yours immediately.”
• “First instinct, not best answer. Trying to score well on this only makes it less useful to you.”

Switch to the shared screen and let the dots land. If two or three are still finishing, say so and carry on — the grid updates live and their dot will appear mid-conversation, which is a nice moment rather than an interruption.

• “Find yourself. Then find the person you work with most.”
• “Two axes: how much you tend to tell versus ask, and how much you show what you feel. Everything else on this screen comes from those two.”

Longer than the short version: each person names their style, whether it fits, and one situation where they behave like a different quadrant entirely. That last part is what stops the room hearing this as a box.

• “Your style, whether it fits, and one situation where you are somebody else entirely.”
• “When does the deadline turn you into a different quadrant?”

Now the team as a whole. Name the tilt, the empty corner, and anyone sitting alone out on their own — that last one carefully and kindly, because it is usually the person who already knows.

• “Where are we crowded, and what does that make us good at?”
• “What is the cost of the corner nobody is standing in?”
• “Is there a decision we keep failing to make? Look at the map and tell me why.”

Split into real working pairs — pick them yourself, in advance, and pick the ones with actual friction. Each pair reads both directions of their guide and talks. Then bring two or three back to the room.

• “Read the one for you working with them, and let them read theirs. Then compare what surprised you.”
• “You are not looking for who is right. You are looking for what you each do that lands differently than you meant it.”

One specific commitment each, named person and named behavior, captured where the team will see it again. Then say when you will revisit it — and mean it, because an unrevisited commitment teaches the room that these sessions do not count.

• “One person, one behavior, starting this week.”
• “We will read this list out at the retro in six weeks. That is the whole enforcement mechanism.”

The long version. Say what it is, what it is not, where the data goes — then deliberately invite the objection. In a half day the skeptic will surface regardless; far better at minute four with you holding the floor than at minute ninety.

• “Before we start — who here has done a personality thing at work that was a waste of a morning? Good. What made it a waste?”
• “Two axes, both observable: how much you assert yourself and how much you show what you feel. The model is Merrill and Reid's, from behavioral research, and it describes behavior rather than character.”
• “Nothing from today goes into an evaluation of anyone. If it ever did, you would all start answering strategically and the instrument would stop working.”

Run the bird exercise before anyone has taken the assessment or seen a grid. It gets the four patterns into the room as an argument rather than a lecture, and a team that has argued about the edges reads its own map far better an hour later.

• “Four names, four birds, scrambled. Work out together which goes where.”
• “There is a right answer, but the arguing is the point.”

Join code up, room takes it together. With this much time, let people go slowly and answer questions as you walk around. Anyone who finishes early has a fifteen-minute break starting early, which is a good incentive.

• “Five minutes, first instinct. Come back when you have your result — do not read the whole thing yet, we will do that together.”

A real one. People have just read something about themselves and they need ten minutes to talk about it in twos before they will say anything useful in front of twelve.

• “Fifteen minutes. Compare results with someone if you want — that conversation is half the value of the day.”

Shared screen, full attention, no commentary for the first minute. Then walk the axes once, slowly, so the room understands what the position means before they start interpreting each other's.

• “Left to right: asking versus telling. Bottom to top: how much of what you feel is visible.”
• “Near a line means near a line. If you are close to the border you flex across it constantly, and you probably already knew that.”

Each person: their style, whether it fits, and one concrete moment at work where it helped or cost them. The story is the part the team remembers in six weeks — the label is not.

• “Your style, whether it fits, and one time this week it either helped you or got in your way.”
• “Tell us the moment, not the trait.”

The structural conversation, with enough time to actually land it. Crowding, the empty quadrant, isolation, and the decisions the shape predicts will stall. Let the room do the diagnosing.

• “What does our shape make us fast at? What does it make us blind to?”
• “Name a decision we have failed to make three times. Now look at the map.”
• “Who is furthest from everyone else, and what have we been asking them to do all year?”

The second break matters more than the first. The pattern conversation is the heaviest part of the day and people need to put it down before the pairs work.

• “Fifteen. Then we get practical.”

Assign pairs deliberately — real working relationships with real friction, not friends. Each reads their own direction, then they trade what surprised them. Rotate once if the group is small enough. Bring three back to the whole room.

• “Read the guide for you working with them. Not the one about them.”
• “Then tell each other the one line that stung slightly. That is the one worth acting on.”

Pick a meeting the team genuinely has next week — a decision, a review, a planning session — and walk through who will drive it, who will go quiet, and what you will do about it. This is the step that converts a good morning into a changed Tuesday.

• “Thursday's planning meeting. Who talks most? Who has the thing nobody else knows and will not say it unasked?”
• “Name the one person you are going to deliberately bring in, and how.”

One commitment each, named and written. Then tell them exactly when this gets revisited and by whom. Close by handing back the responsibility: the map was today's work, the adapting is theirs.

• “One person, one behavior, this week.”
• “Six weeks from now we read this list out. Nothing else about today is mandatory; that is.”
• “You will all forget which quadrant everyone is in. That is fine. What I want you to keep is the habit of asking why someone landed differently than you expected.”