First session with a new map 1. The first read
Read the map as a team before anyone reads it about a teammate.
- Time
- 50 minutes
- Group size
- 3 to 12, the whole team
- Materials
- The team map on a shared screen
- Send the map link two days early with one instruction: read your own report and bring one line you disagree with.
- Say the ground rule aloud: no style is better than another, and nothing said here goes near a performance conversation.
- Each person reads their own dot for ninety seconds. Then read the team read together and name the thinnest style without pinning it on anyone.
- Close on the disagreements, written where everyone can see them.
Ask the room: What does the map get wrong about you?
Skip it when: Mid-redundancy or inside a live performance dispute. Read under that shadow, a map becomes evidence.
A warm-up before the first read, or a new member joining 2. Style corners
A quick, physical read of how differently the room reacts to the same moment.
- Time
- 15 minutes
- Group size
- 6 to 20
- Materials
- Four signs (D, I, S, C) and three work situations written in advance
- Put one sign in each corner. Read a situation aloud, such as “the deadline moves up a week”.
- Everyone walks to the corner that matches their first reaction, not their dot on the map.
- Each corner gets one minute to say what it needs from the other three in that moment. Run three situations.
Ask the room: Which corner did you not expect to stand in, and why?
Skip it when: When one corner would hold the same single person every round. Use a show of hands instead.
When the map shows the team split on pace or focus 3. The pace and focus lines
Make the team’s two real splits visible, then agree what each side owes the other.
- Time
- 25 minutes
- Group size
- 6 to 20
- Materials
- Two signs per line and an open floor
- Put “Decide now, adjust later” and “Decide once, decide right” at opposite ends of the room. Everyone stands where their instinct sits.
- Ask the two people at the far ends: what does the other end give this team that you cannot?
- Agree one sentence together: how much notice this team gives before a decision lands.
- Repeat with “Get the thing right” and “Get the people right”, rewriting one real team message from each end.
Ask the room: Which recent decision would have gone better at the other end’s speed?
Skip it when: When standing in a line would single someone out. Run the same questions as a chat poll.
When people know their own style but not each other’s 4. The rapid round
Surface the small, daily differences in first moves that the map only summarises.
- Time
- 20 minutes
- Group size
- 3 to 10
- Materials
- Ten one-line prompts and sticky notes
- Read a one-line prompt: “You get a vague brief.” “A meeting runs over.” “Someone misses a handoff.”
- Everyone writes their first move in five words, in twenty seconds. Reveal round the table, no comment.
- After ten prompts, name the two biggest gaps and agree one line for each.
Ask the room: Which gap costs us most, week to week?
Skip it when: When people would compete for the “right” answer. Say up front that there is none.
When the same message lands differently on everyone 5. Say it four ways
Practise one real message in each style’s language, so landing it well stops being luck.
- Time
- 15 minutes
- Group size
- 3 to 8
- Materials
- One real message that has to go out this week
- Pick the message: a slipped deadline, a change of plan, some praise. Give each person a style to write for, not their own.
- Three minutes, four sentences. D: the bottom line, then the ask. I: the person and the energy first. S: the notice, the reason, what stays the same. C: the specifics and the criteria.
- Read all four aloud. Each person says which version they would want to receive; write it next to their name.
Ask the room: Which version would you want to receive, and which one do you actually send?
Skip it when: When the real message is a performance concern about someone in the room.
When the pair matrix flags a friction pair 6. The playbook swap
Give two colleagues who keep colliding both halves of the same manual, in each other’s presence.
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Group size
- 2, one pair
- Materials
- Both people’s “Say this” lines from the pair matrix, printed
- Give each person the lines written for working with the other one, not the ones about themselves.
- Ten minutes of silent reading: tick what is true, cross what misses. Each reads out one tick and one cross. No defending.
- Each names one behaviour they will change, phrased as something they will do. Write both down and re-read them in four weeks.
Ask the room: What does the other person’s version get right that surprised you?
Skip it when: When the friction is a conduct issue. Style language must never soften something that needs a manager and a process.
When the map names a style nobody covers 7. The missing-style advocate
Give the style your team lacks a seat at the table, one meeting at a time.
- Time
- 10 minutes
- Group size
- 3 to 12, inside a meeting you were having anyway
- Materials
- One card with the missing style’s question
- Write the missing style’s question on a card. C: what would make this wrong? S: who absorbs this change, and how much notice do they get? D: who decides, and by when? I: who outside this room needs bringing along?
- Hand the card to one person at the start and rotate it each meeting. The holder may interrupt once; the room must answer.
- Before closing, ask whether the question got a real answer or a polite one.
Ask the room: What did the card make us say that we would otherwise have skipped?
Skip it when: When the style is covered but quiet. Then the fix is asking that person directly.
When meetings end without decisions 8. Four meeting norms, kept
Turn the map’s operating guide into four rules this team will keep.
- Time
- 40 minutes, then 15 a quarter
- Group size
- 3 to 12
- Materials
- The map’s operating guide and the recurring meeting invite
- Read the map’s meeting and decision rules aloud, then cut the list to four. More than four and none survive the month.
- Write each as a behaviour you can see: “decisions get an owner and a date before the meeting ends” is a rule; “be more decisive” is a mood. Paste the four into the recurring invite, one keeper each.
- Once a quarter, a show of hands per rule: kept, half kept, dead. Delete the dead one and pick the next activity.
Ask the room: Which of these four will be hardest for you personally?
Skip it when: When the team already has norms nobody follows. Delete those in public first.