The BEST Moves
The Two-Question Debrief
Twenty minutes, no facilitator, no budget. These are two questions we use in our own program debriefs, and you can run them yourself in the first week back.
3 min read The move is free From 10 Business Scenarios
How to run it
You can do all of this yourself, on Monday, without calling anybody.
Put 20 minutes on the calendar in week one.
No deck, no agenda slide, no round-robin status update. Standing in a circle is better than a conference table.
Ask the first question. Everyone answers.
“What have you brought to the teams you’ve worked with?” Go in order so nobody has to volunteer. Managers answer last, or they set the ceiling for every answer after them.
Ask the second question. Same round, same order.
“What can people count on you for?” This is the one that does the work. People name a strength out loud in front of the colleagues who will now expect it of them.
Write the answers down and sit on them for a week.
Do not turn it into an action plan on the spot. The value is that everyone in the room now knows what everyone else is good at, which is not information your org chart contains.
Watch out: Do not do this on a Zoom call with cameras off. The whole mechanism is that other people hear the answer.
Why it works
The mechanism, not the marketing.
The two questions are doing different jobs, and the order matters. The first one is easy. It lets someone talk about teams that are not this one, which is low-risk, so everybody answers and nobody performs. The second question is the mechanism: it turns a private self-assessment into a public commitment. Once you have said out loud what people can count on you for, the room holds you to it, and just as importantly your colleagues now know where to route work that suits you. What you are left with after twenty minutes is a map of who is good at what, which is information your org chart does not contain and your last three all-hands did not produce.
“In our debriefs, we ask: ‘What have you brought to teams you’ve worked with? And what can people count on you for?’ Facilitated team building activities allow individuals to highlight their strengths and specific attributes, giving others an opportunity to recognize and appreciate each other as valuable and contributing team members.”
Roy Charette, Best Corporate Events, in 10 Business Scenarios Where Team Building Leads to Success (p. 108)
Managers are wrong about engagement
- HR leaders who believe staff are engaged
- 95%
- Staff who say they are
- 36%
Both numbers come from the same study. You cannot know which one your team is without asking, and twenty minutes is the cheapest way to ask.
Leapsome, in 10 Business Scenarios (p. 44)
Where they sit is not the lever
No effect
The Conference Board found work location — on-site, remote, or hybrid — has no measurable impact on self-reported engagement. Changing the seating plan in the office will not do this for you.
10 Business Scenarios (p. 75)
Where this move came from
Or take the whole book.
10 Business Scenarios Where Team Building Leads to Success
Ten common business situations, the programs that fit each, and Roy’s notes throughout.
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Programs that do this for you
If you would rather not run it yourself, these are built around the same job.
