These resources (which include the content from the book, and where appropriate, downloadable tools) are only available to folks who have purchased the book. Get in touch if you’d like access.
Learning is more important than being right
First, a quick game. I call it Builders—credit to the mystery facilitator who showed it to August years ago. You split a group of workshop participants into two teams with identical supplies: Post-its, scissors, glue sticks, scrap paper, a few Sharpies. The brief is simple: “Design and build as many paper houses as you can in fifteen minutes.”
Call team one “Perfect Corp” and give them four rules: We never make mistakes; we’re obsessed with quality; we speak in statements, never questions; and we respect the line manager’s authority at all times. (Ask them to pick a line manager.) Call team two, “Appreciative Homes,” with four nearly opposing rules: Quality emerges from collaboration; we care about each other; we give no directions, only questions; and every builder has full autonomy.
What happens next is predictable. Perfect Corp huddles, debates, polishes a blueprint, re-polishes the blueprint, and—if the timekeeper is kind—manages to erect a single immaculate bungalow. Appreciative Homes, meanwhile, spends the same 15 minutes firing questions back and forth (“How small can a door be and still feel like a door?” “What if we fold one sheet into two units?” “Who sees an easier way?”). They improvise, test, and iterate. When the buzzer sounds, their table is covered with a village—fifteen homes, give or take, each one good enough and getting better with every pass.