Before you begin
This session only works if the facilitator has done the inner work first. Read everything below before you walk into the room.
Not to present them — to internalize them. You need to have your own honest read of where your team is before you can hold the room through theirs. If you don't know your own answer to "which patterns do we live inside," you can't facilitate others finding theirs.
Send Stages 1 and 2 to participants ahead of time. The only ask: read them individually, mark what resonates, and come ready to compare notes — not to present a position. No pre-reading of each other's reactions. Reactions belong in the room.
If you're a peer of the people in the room — not an external facilitator — you have a perspective on where the team is, who's contributed to what, and what needs to change. That's an asset and a liability. Name it at the start. "I'm one of you — I have my own views on this. My job today is to hold the process, not win the argument." Then mean it.
Before the session, think through each person in the room. Who goes quiet when seniority speaks? Who absorbs tension? Who has the most to gain and lose from honesty here? Plan deliberately to create space for the people who are less likely to take it on their own.
| What to prepare | Detail |
|---|---|
| Room setup | Round table or U-shape. No projector in people's faces. Whiteboards or sticky wall if available. Water and coffee already out — no interruption for setup. |
| Materials | Printed copies of this guide (facilitator only). Printed Stage 1 self-check cards per person (optional). Sticky notes in two colors. Sharpies. A visible timer. |
| Shared doc | Open a shared doc or Miro board before the session. Commitments from the close go here in real time so everyone sees them being written. |
| Ground rules card | Print or write the four ground rules on a card or whiteboard. Leave them visible throughout. |
| Your opening line | Write your first sentence before you walk in. Not a script — just the one line that opens the session. Knowing it prevents the stumble. |
Opening & framing the session
"Before we do anything else — this session isn't a performance review, and it's not a complaint session. It's an invitation to be honest together about where we are and what we've each contributed to it."
"The framework we're going to use today is built for us as much as for the teams around us. Everything we're about to look at, we built for ourselves first. That's where we start."
"The only thing this session asks of you is to stay curious rather than defensive — about the model, about each other, and about yourself."
Read each rule aloud and ask for a visible signal of agreement — a nod, a hand, a word. Don't skip this. The rules need to be owned, not presented.
What's said here stays here
Specifics don't leave the room. Insights can. Name this distinction explicitly.
Patterns, not people
We name behaviors and systems — not personalities or blame. "We did X" not "you always."
Curiosity before conclusion
When something lands hard, ask a question before you defend. "Help me understand what you mean" beats "that's not fair."
One conversation at a time
Facilitator holds the floor. Side conversations and device use stop. We're all in the same room.
"We're going to spend today in four movements. First, we'll introduce a framework for thinking about where we are as a leadership team. Then we'll get specific — accountability, conflict, and decision ownership. Then we'll do something harder: structured feedback for each other. And we'll close with one real commitment each."
"Nothing today is theoretical. If it doesn't connect to something real, we're going to push on it until it does."
Go around the room. Each person answers one of these — their choice. Keep it tight. No commentary from others yet.
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A"One word for how this team operates right now — and one word for how you'd want it to."
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B"What would need to be true for you to be fully honest in this session?"
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C"What's the thing you're most hoping comes out of today — and most nervous about?"
Facilitator note: listen for the energy in the room. Cynicism, hope, guardedness, relief — it's all information about what this group needs from you today.
Introducing the maturity model
"This framework describes four stages of maturity for a product leadership team — not as a ranking, but as a map. Foundational. Developing. Integrated. Market Leading. Each stage has a gap to the next, and that gap has a specific shape: specific patterns, specific mindsets, specific things we protect that keep us from moving."
"The most important thing about this model is that it was built with us in it. We're not using it to judge anyone else. We're using it to see ourselves more clearly."
Don't read the guides aloud. Give each stage one sentence on what it is, one on what the gap looks like, and one on what's at stake in crossing it.
| Stage | One-line description | What the gap costs |
|---|---|---|
| Foundational | Reactive. Individual heroics. Silence flows upward. | Nothing is systemic. Progress depends on who shows up. |
| Developing | Process exists within teams. Coordination between them is still heavy. | Each team performs. The seams between them fail. |
| Integrated | Strategy, execution, and culture move together. Customer-centricity is embedded. | The org runs well internally but doesn't yet shape its market. |
| Market Leading | The org has a voice, a market thesis, and multiplies leaders. | Success calcifies. The model that won becomes the thing that loses. |
Ask everyone to write on a sticky note — no discussion yet:
- Which stage feels most like where we are right now?
- Which single pattern from that stage do you recognize most strongly?
- What's one thing you personally have done that contributed to us being here?
Facilitator note: the third question is the important one. Give them quiet to sit in it. Don't fill the silence.
Go around the room. Each person shares their stage placement and their one pattern only — no debate yet. Facilitator notes on whiteboard: which stages come up, which patterns repeat. After everyone has shared:
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→"Where do we seem to agree? Where are we diverging — and what does that divergence tell us?"
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→"The patterns that came up most — what do they have in common? What would it mean if they're accurate?"
If people place the team at different stages, resist the urge to quickly converge. Divergence is data — it usually means different people are experiencing the organization differently. Ask what's making those experiences different, not which one is right.
Accountability — the rules of ownership
"Accountability in this room means something specific. It doesn't mean fault. It means ownership — being clear about what decisions were ours to make, whether we made them, and what happened when we didn't."
"The most common form of accountability failure in leadership teams isn't malice. It's abdication — deferring decisions upward or sideways that were ours to make. We've all done it. This conversation is about naming it, not about assigning blame."
Use 2–3 of these depending on energy. Don't rush to all of them. One question explored well beats five questions touched lightly.
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1Think of a decision in the last 90 days that was ours to make that we deferred upward or left unclear. What was it? What made it easier to defer than to own?Facilitator: go first if the room is quiet. Model the vulnerability.
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2When something goes wrong in our team, what does accountability actually look like? Is it about finding the failure, understanding the system, or something else?Listen for whether accountability is punitive or systemic in this culture. Name what you hear.
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3What are the decisions in this organization that everyone thinks someone else owns? Where are the genuine blind spots in ownership?Often produces the most useful list of the session. Capture these visibly.
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4Where have we, as a leadership team, asked our teams for a standard we haven't been consistently meeting ourselves?This is the "we go first" question. It's the hardest and the most important.
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5What would it mean to hold each other accountable here — not in a punitive way, but in a "I'm going to name it when I see it" way? Are we willing to do that?This is the trust question. The answer matters less than whether people answer it honestly.
Before leaving this section, write on the whiteboard: "Decisions we need clearer ownership on." Get three to five specific items. These will inform the commitment-making at the close.
Conflict navigation & decision ownership
"Conflict in a leadership team isn't a sign that something's wrong. It's a sign that people care about different things — or that they see the situation differently. Both of those are valuable."
"The dysfunction isn't conflict. It's unaddressed conflict — the tension that goes underground rather than through the room. That's what we're building a practice to prevent."
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1What's a tension in this team that's currently underground — that people talk about in 1:1s but not in the room? What would it take to name it here?Facilitator: you may already know the answer. Consider naming it yourself to break the seal.
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2When we disagree in this team, how do we resolve it? What actually determines the outcome — the best argument, the most data, the most senior person, or something else?This often surfaces a gap between how people think decisions get made and how they actually do.
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3Think of a decision we've relitigated more than twice. What made it hard to close? What would a real decision have required?Relitigated decisions usually signal either unclear ownership or a conflict that wasn't fully surfaced the first time.
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4Do we have a shared vocabulary for how decisions get made — who consults, who decides, who can veto? If not, what would it take to build one?Even a lightweight RACI or DACI framework agreed on in this room is more valuable than the perfect framework applied after.
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5What's the thing we most need to decide as a leadership team right now that we've been avoiding? What's making it hard to call?Name the live decision. Don't solve it in this session — just surface it and note it for follow-up.
Don't overengineer this. Get to one shared answer for each of these three questions on the whiteboard:
- For a cross-functional decision that affects all three disciplines — who decides? How?
- If we're in a meeting and can't agree — what's our process for moving to a decision anyway?
- Once a decision is made — what does "committed" mean? Can it be relitigated? Under what conditions?
Write whatever the group arrives at — even if rough. A real working agreement is the output here, not a polished framework.
"Productive conflict is disagreement that makes the decision better. The goal isn't to remove the tension — it's to make sure the tension goes through the room instead of around it."
360 feedback — structured, safe, and useful
"We're going to do something that requires trust, and I want to be direct about that. 360 feedback only works if it's specific and honest — and it only lands well if it's given with care, not as a verdict."
"This isn't an evaluation. It's an act of generosity — the kind of thing you only do for someone you want to see grow. If that's not how it feels as you're giving it, adjust your framing before you speak."
"The format is simple: one strength worth naming, one growth edge worth naming, and one specific request. We go around for each person. No rebuttals — just listening and a brief thank you."
Give 5 minutes of silent writing before any sharing. For each person in the room, everyone writes:
For each person in turn (including the facilitator, if you're a peer):
- The person receiving feedback listens and takes notes. No defense, no explanation — just "thank you" at the end.
- Go around the room: each giver shares their strength and their one request only. (Growth edge can be written and passed privately if the group isn't ready for full verbal.)
- After all feedback is given, the receiver has 60 seconds to say what landed and what they want to think about further.
Time check: with 6 people, this is roughly 5 minutes per person. With 10, you may need to prioritize the strength and request and write the growth edge.
If someone says "you're great at everything" or gives feedback so softened it carries no signal — gently push: "Can you make that more specific? What did you observe that led you there?" Vague feedback is almost always kinder-feeling but less useful than specific feedback delivered with care.
Trust builds in sequence — know where your team is
If your team is at rung 1 or 2, don't push for the full verbal feedback format. Written-and-passed may be more productive. Trust the level the group is actually at, not the level you wish they were.
Commitments & close
"Before we close — one commitment each. Not a goal, not an aspiration. A specific behavior change: something you'll do differently, something you'll stop doing, or something you'll start. Observable. Yours to control. Something you'd be willing to be held to at our next session."
"These go into our shared doc in real time. They're not private — that's the point. We're building accountability with each other, starting now."
Each person states their commitment out loud while the note-taker writes it in the shared doc. Format: "I'm going to [specific action] by [when], and you can hold me to it by asking [specific question]."
Facilitator goes last. Your commitment should model the standard you held the room to today.
"What happened in this room today took something. The willingness to look at ourselves honestly, to receive feedback, to name things we usually leave unsaid — that's not nothing."
"The maturity model we started with today is a tool, not a verdict. We use it to find where we are, not to judge how far we've come. The work ahead is the same thing we practiced today — choosing honesty over comfort, together, one conversation at a time."
"The guides will be there for us between now and next time. The commitments we just made are where we start."
Set the date for a 60-minute check-in — 4 to 6 weeks out. Agenda: commitments review, one update on the accountability gaps named today, and readiness to go deeper into the remaining stage guides. Don't let this be something that "gets scheduled later." Later usually means never.