For you, new and popular

An edit of newly added resources and those proving consistently popular among our partners' teams.
Undefined low 6
Mentors, Sponsors and Champions. With Abi Adamson
Video
Screenshot 2024 03 23 at 14 41 46
Effective Allyship. With Abi Adamson
Video
Undefined low 5
What's your Privilege Pledge? With Abi Adamson
Video
Screenshot 2024 03 23 at 14 23 02
Diversify your feed. With Abi Adamson
Video
Undefined low 4
Privilege reflections. With Abi Adamson
Video
Undefined low 3
Mindful toothbrushing. With Dr. Sam Akbar
Video
Screenshot 2024 03 23 at 09 11 15
Anchor dropping. With Dr. Sam Akbar
Video
Screenshot 2024 03 23 at 09 11 15
5,4,3,2,1 — a mindfulness technique. With Dr. Sam Akbar
Video
Screenshot 2024 03 23 at 09 11 15
Urge surfing. With Dr. Sam Akbar
Video
Screenshot 2024 03 23 at 09 11 15
Everyday mindfulness. With Dr. Sam Akbar
Video
Screenshot 2024 03 23 at 09 11 15
Making room for emotions (and the weather). With Dr. Sam Akbar
Video
Undefined low 2
Letting go of emotions. With Dr. Sam Akbar
Video
Screenshot 2024 03 23 at 09 11 15
How do you notice your thoughts? With Dr. Sam Akbar
Video
Undefined low 1
A coaching conversation around strengths
Video
Confidence Ecourse
eCourse: Confidence Mastery
eCourse
Undefined low
Daniel Goleman's Six Leadership Styles, explained by Louise Hedges
Video
Screenshot 2023 09 25 at 14 42 28
eCourse: Mastering Delegation
eCourse
Screenshot 2023 09 07 at 10 47 46
eCourse: Making Time
eCourse
SE Tthumb
eCourse: Get SET with your Goals
eCourse
Screenshot 2023 07 02 at 20 49 19
Perspectives on privilege, with Abi Adamson
Video
Neurodivergent Perspectives Lexi Keegan in conversation with Dr Anne Cockayne low
Neurodivergent Perspectives. Lexi Keegan in conversation with Dr. Anne Cockayne
Video
Screenshot 2023 03 16 at 07 52 42
Neurodiversity know-how: The Spiky Profile explained
Video
Neurodiversity explained with Dr Anne Cockayne low
Neurodiversity explained, with Dr. Anne Cockayne
Video
Screenshot 2023 03 15 at 16 34 07
Neuroinclusion at work: Thinking about adjustments
Video
Screenshot 2023 03 16 at 13 20 38
Neurodiversity know-how. Autism with Dr. Anne Cockayne
Video
Screenshot 2023 03 15 at 13 16 42
Neurodiversity know-how. ADHD with Dr. Anne Cockayne
Video
Screenshot 2023 03 15 at 12 20 36
Neurodiversity know-how. Dyslexia with Dr. Anne Cockayne
Video
Rest
Micro-learning: Setting Better Boundaries
CA thumb
eCourse: Practicing a Coaching Approach
Meetings
Finding fortitude, and follow on experiments
Pair C Iicon
eCourse: Conscious Inclusion
Pencilsoff
Seven things to avoid when writing at work
BID pic
Share genuinely useful feedback with the BID model
Premortemicon
Solve problems before they happen with pre-mortems
Mup Icon
Five tactics for influencing those more senior
J Zicon
Five powerful questions for adding impact and insight to your next interview.
Car Words
Try out the CAR technique, and upgrade your understanding when interviewing someone.
Good Qs
Smart ways to frame questions in your next mentoring session
Screenshot 2022 03 31 at 13 22 24
Try the 5 Whys to invigorate your problem solving and add depth to your decisions.
Allyship CP
Course Pack: Effective Allyship, with Abi Adamson
VCR
Course Pack: Voice Gym. Building your vocal confidence
22
A three minute mindset exercise, to support a coaching approach
Hear
Try this deep listening exercise for deeper connection and better conversations
Screenshot 2022 03 21 at 12 16 39
Experiment with the BRAIN model for confident decision making and problem solving
5
Discover the impact a five minute favour can have on your relationships, and network building
Homework
Homework for Life: A ten-second daily ritual for noticing, capturing and practicing stories
LWS
Course Pack: Storytelling
Do Story
Practical storytelling principles from Bobette Buster's book — Do: Story
Mentorsqarer
Evolve your 'inner mentor' — a short reflective exercise to focus your development, and the ways you can better support others
Spring
Experiment with a Springboard Story to communicate your change idea, and take people with you towards it.
N Ngrab
Course Pack: Natural Networking
TP
Tone Policing - What it is, why it's unhelpful and how to helpfully notice it.
Coaching Criticism
Find the Coaching in Criticism. Things to try when feedback doesn't quite land
4 Ds
The 4Ds. A practical framework for acknowledging microaggressions
Breathman
Mindful breathing — the foundation of focus and flow
Fly
Channel that fly on the wall. Try some purposeful self talk to mitigate moments of doubt
Friction
Add some friction to your most common distractions
Screenshot 2022 02 09 at 07 02 17
Build belief by recognising small wins — Try a 'Done List'
Silent Meeting
Make your next meeting a Silent Meeting
Can If Go
Immediately build your confidence, with a 'Can-If' statement
To Think
Don't forget to diarise thinking time — experiment with a 'To Think' list
Setback
Smarten your approach to setbacks, by trying out a Setback Story
CLAP
Get clear on control with a Clarity Clap
PP Ticon
Everything I Know about Life I Learned from PowerPoint — What we learned and where it led...
Circlestwo
How to be a meaningful mentor, insights from a purposeful podcast
If Then New
Design (and share) your If > Then statements, for a purposefully prompt towards action
Orange
Practice the principles of persuasion from 'Godfather of Influence,' Robert Cialdini.
Screenshot 2021 11 04 at 13 19 02
Six steps for finding focus and flow, with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in mind
MT
Course Pack: Making Time
Screenshot 2021 09 28 at 19 53 27
Great questions to ask in coaching conversations, 1-1's and other curious contexts

Solve problems before they happen with pre-mortems

Some of the pitfalls ahead in any coming project or opportunity can be surfaced before you get going, with a neat predictive tool called a pre-mortem. And once potential problems are in the present you can get creative on ways to pre-empt them. This short guide steps out how to try one today.
FTL04

Many of us will be familiar with the idea of a post-mortem or a project retro — a review conducted after a project's completion of what went well, what went wrong, and what could be improved on the next go round. But a lot of the problems you’ll end up facing on a new project can be easily identified and easily solved from day one. That’s where pre-mortems, used by lots of growth-minded teams — and cited in Annie Duke’s excellent Thinking in Betscome in.

As its name suggests, a pre-mortem gets in early to identify problems, sticking points and pitfalls before they’ve arisen. And once they've been surfaced we can proactively explore how to mitigate them. A head start on headaches.

Below we share some simple steps to follow so you can give pre-mortems a go in your team. Try one today to pre-problem solve and bias bust your project.

Screenshot 2022 06 20 at 07 00 01
Illustration by Leon Edler
1
Prepare

Assemble your team, making sure that everyone who needs to be at the pre-mortem is present. If your team is dialling in remotely, create a Miro or collaborative whiteboard so everyone's thoughts and contributions are visible and shared. If it’s in-person, grab some pens and paper.

2
Set a timer

Pre-mortems shouldn’t take longer than 20-30 minutes, so make sure to neatly timebox each step. If this is your first time trying a pre-mortem, set an initial 2 minutes for the first round of brainstorming (laid out below).

3
What could go wrong?

Ask your team to look into a ‘crystal ball,’ and imagine a dark and gloomy future - the task or strategy or project you’re all about to begin working on has failed. But why?

What specifically went wrong? Be as descriptive as you can. The idea here isn’t to invoke nausea, rather to flush out as full a picture of potential problems as possible.

Start the timer and brainstorm, in silence, with your team.

👉 A lot of teams find Mind-Maps particularly useful here.

4
What happened?

Time's up. Go around the group one member at a time and ask each person to reveal their top reasons why the project failed.

Was the deadline missed? Were there unchecked biases that knocked it off course? Did the project go over budget? Did the style of the marketing campaign not click with your audience? Were there creative tensions among the team? Did the website crash?

Write all the answers somewhere shared and visible; on post-it notes stuck to the table if in-person, or in text boxes on your virtual whiteboard.

5
Assess and take stock

Here’s where the real pre-problem solving gets going.

Address each individual reason that the future project failed. Start by judging, as a group, the likelihood that the problem will occur. For example, tornado hitting the office - unlikely; creative tensions among the team - likely; deadline missed - very likely.

Next, assess how big of a contribution the reasons made to the failure of the project. For example, the project going over budget - severe; creative tensions among the team - less severe.

Rank your reasons by risk and likelihood, with high likelihood and high risk at the top and low likelihood and low risk at the bottom.

6
Break Murphy’s law

Working from the top down, begin putting steps in place to solve the problem before it happens.

If going over budget is highly likely and very risky to the success of the project, you might give someone in the team the job of monitoring expenditure on a week by week basis and reporting to the project leader.

If the website crashing isn’t very likely but poses a huge risk, speak to someone in IT who can run a safety check on the site, or who can do a quick risk assessment to make sure the platform is up to date.

What blockers can you put in place to stop problems from appearing seemingly out of nowhere?

Perks of a pre-mortem

👍 Revealing biases

Especially in group settings with a diverse range of minds and mindsets, slowing down and assessing your decision making and assumptions unearths the biases that might get in the way of the project's success.

👍 Reducing overconfidence

Imagining that the project has already failed forces the team to ‘reality check’ and understand the risks involved. But when everyone sees the roadblocks ahead, and knows precisely how to hurdle them, it builds that confidence back from a healthier and more grounded place.

👍 Clear roles

With a collective understanding of what could derail the future project, everybody knows exactly what part they play in solving the issues.

Hungry for more?

👉 Try The Six Thinking Hats for collaborative problem solving, bias busting and ideation

👉 Make your next meeting a Silent Meeting for focus and retention

👉 Use the Round-Robin Brainstorming Technique and build on each others ideas

More Resources