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Human Skills

Foundations

Group of women gathered in a circle, playing a holiday game in a decorated event space.
A group of women gathered in a circle, playing a game with a blue and yellow device. They appear engaged and focused, standing in a room with wooden floors and table in the background.

What We’ve Covered

Virtual · April 24, 2026 · Compassionate Detachment

  1. 🃏 Unofficial Start

    “What’s one thing you’re telling yourself about EMPATHY right now?”

    Behind the curtain An intentional question in the unofficial start avoids the typical time wasted “waiting” for others to be present. It primes for the session and gets engagement started.

  2. 🤝 Connection Before Content

    Pick one object that does one of these three things:

    1. Reminds you of someone carrying a burden.
    2. Reminds you of a burden you take home.
    3. Reminds you of someone who supported you.

    In your breakouts: how did compassion play a role in your object’s story?

  3. 🧭 Spectrum of Control

    Forty statements. You positioned yourself on each one.

    The point wasn’t to get it right. It was to notice where your body went, what you wanted to argue with, and where you surprised yourself.

    Then a quiet pass on three questions, alone:

    1. What was easy to answer?
    2. What was hard to answer?
    3. What was a surprise?

    Same three questions in your breakout group. Then a popcorn share back together.

  4. 🦺 The Three Responses + The Grid

    Three ways people try to control their emotional exposure to caregiving: Spectator, Swimmer, Lifeguard.

    Crossed with three phases of an interaction: Before, During, After. That’s the 3x3 Grid we used to diagnose where each of us drifts under pressure.

    Only one of the three is sustainable.

    ⚓ Three anchors that held the room

    1. Empathy is not Compassion. Empathy shares the pain network in your brain. Compassion runs on a different circuit — warmth and care from your own footing. Only one of them fatigues.
    2. You’re not the main character. You’re an important character in their story. Lifeguards stay on the deck because they care, not in spite of it.
    3. Care without carrying. Compassionate detachment is the sustained skill — engaged, from outside the problem.

    The full breakdown — Spectator/Swimmer/Lifeguard cell-by-cell, plus the Lifeguard Playbook from Alicia Grandey’s research — lives on the deep resource page below.

  5. 🌊 Swimming Out — Personal Inventory

    Cam off, three minutes alone: When have you been the Swimmer? Where do you find yourself swimming out? Be specific. Name names.

    Then breakouts on two questions:

    1. What’s your biggest pattern?
    2. What helps you be the Lifeguard?

    Chat blast to close the segment: one thing you’re learning about yourself right now.

  6. 🎯 Action Storm + Accountabilibuddies

    Three minutes alone: What small actions will help you Appraise, Anchor, and Recover?

    Then in pairs, finish these two sentences out loud:

    “When I leave I will ___. You can help me by ___.”

    Pro Tip

    The 3-month phone reminder

    Set a recurring reminder on your phone every three months: “Are you being the Swimmer or the Lifeguard?” Future you will thank present you.

  7. ✨ Closing

    On your way out, finish one of these in the chat:

    1. “I am ___”
    2. “I believe ___”
    3. “I will ___”
    Behind the curtain When we name it, it’s more likely we’ll do it or believe it.

Go deeper 📚 The full version of what we worked through

Compassionate Detachment — Deep Resources

Definitions, the full Lifeguard Playbook, annotated bibliography

The cleaner version of what we worked through live, plus the disambiguation we didn’t get to — compassion fatigue, empathic distress, burnout, compassionate detachment. What each one means, and why the differences matter.

Open the deep page

The 3x3 Grid — quick reference

Spectator / Swimmer / Lifeguard × Before / During / After

The diagnostic from the session. Print it. Tape it inside a cabinet. Glance at it before the next hard conversation.

Jump to the grid

Other Free Resources

Newsletter Free, monthly. Tools and stories in your inbox. Podcast Conversations with the researchers behind the work. Pick my brain Questions from the session, or just to say hi.
Colorful doodle-style illustration with text that reads "Welcome Back! to Human Skills Training" and handwritten phrases like "What's a story", "You tell yourself about", and "Empathy" surrounded by colorful lines and accents.
Handwritten notes with motivational quotes in various colors, including green, blue, purple, and black. The notes highlight the importance of finding objects that remind you of someone and that empower you.
Notes with questions about how to play a role in storytelling and object behavior, written in colorful marker on a white background.
A whiteboard with handwritten notes and diagrams about the spectrum of control, including concepts of control, constraints, and responses, with color-coded arrows and explanations of different responses like mute, no wrong answers, and hold questions
A digital whiteboard containing a title that reads "3 Questions" in purple, with large handwritten questions in red, green, and blue ink: "What was easy?", "What was hard?", and "What was a surprise?"
Notes and handwriting on a whiteboard that include the words 'Breakouts,' 'What is,' 'Compassionate,' and 'Detachment' with some purple and green lines.
Handwritten notes with phrases: "The 3 responses to someone drowning," "The spectator," "The swimmer," and "The lifeguard," each in different colors and styles.
Hand-drawn infographic titled "The Lifeguard" with sections on different times: Before, During, and After, relating to lifeguard duties such as hours, appraises, anchors, braces, and recoveries, with notes on mechanisms and internalizing.
Handwritten notes with colorful text and arrows including phrases like "When Have You Been," "The Spectator," "The Summer," and "The Lifeguard," with some words highlighted and pointing to various directions.
Handwritten notes with the words 'Action Storm', 'What Small Actions Will Help You?', 'A Praise', 'Anhor', and 'Recover'. The notes are written in different colors and styles, with some underlined or highlighted.
In-Person · December 2, 2025 · The Neuroscience of Connected Teams

  1. 🃏 Unofficial Start

    Take a card.

    What story does this bring up about how you connect with your team at work?

    Behind the curtain Time is the only resource we don’t get back. Most workshops waste the first ten minutes waiting for stragglers. The cards turn that waiting into the first piece of work we did together — a deliberate use of the time we had.

  2. 🤝 Connection Before Content

    Card swap. Trade with someone in the room. Now you’re holding someone else’s story.

  3. ⚡ Juggle As Fast As You Can!

    Our first team challenge. An hour of juggling, iterating, and trying again.

    ⚓ Three anchors we named afterward

    1. Psych Safety > Performance. The team that can say “I don’t know” out loud is the team that gets faster.
    2. Agreement / Alignment. Getting everyone to agree is nearly impossible. Aligning on a shared goal gives your team the buy-in to execute, test, and figure out what’s next together.
    3. Listen to Win. Not to wait for your turn. Not to fix. Listen so you can actually move with the people next to you.

  4. 🧠 The Neuroscience Lab at Penn State

    We feel, and then we think. Always in that order. The proof? Your biological response to a 🍋 lemon that wasn’t there.

    From Dr. Koraly Pérez-Edgar’s Cognition, Affect & Temperament Lab at Penn State.

  5. 📡 Emotional Radar

    Map your team across the empathic-distress ↔ compassion axis. Where are people sitting right now? Where do they drift under load?

  6. 🔄 4F Debrief

    Facts · Feelings · Findings · Future. Five minutes alone, then together — the room named what was actually happening across the morning’s work.

  7. 🍽️ Lunch

    Pause. Reset. Eat together.

  8. 🤝 Connection Before More Content

    Get in a trio. What’s one insight you’ve had so far? Share it.

  9. 🏆 Win As Much As You Can!

    A team-vs-team game where the only way to actually win is to stop playing against each other. Then the debrief.

    ⚓ Three anchors we named afterward

    1. Proximity & Frequency. Trust is built by being close enough, often enough — not by big gestures spaced too far apart.
    2. Trust is consistent maintenance. Not a milestone you cross. A practice you keep up.
    3. Not Zero Sum. Most of the games we play at work aren’t actually zero-sum. We just inherited the rules.

  10. 💡 Sparking Connection

    How to start a connection on purpose, not by accident. Two moves we walked through:

    📖 Two moves that came up

    Move

    Change “Why” to “How”

    “Why did you do that?” puts the other person on defense. “How did you end up there?” opens the same door without the door slamming back. Same curiosity, different room temperature.

    Move

    🔍 Be the Detective, not the Judge

    The Judge already decided the verdict and is looking for evidence. The Detective is looking for what’s actually true. Pick on purpose.

  11. 🧩 The Maze

    The afternoon’s team challenge. An hour navigating a path you can’t see, with help from people who can.

    ⚓ Three anchors we named afterward

    1. Small things. The micro-moves — a nod, a single word of direction, a pause — are what actually moved the team forward.
    2. Specific Support. “You’re doing great” is noise. “Step left, six inches” is help. Specific beats general every time.
    3. Mistakes → Learning. The fastest teams weren’t the ones that didn’t miss. They were the ones that turned a miss into a correction in the next move.

  12. 🎯 Action Storm

    Five minutes in a trio: What’s one takeaway and how will you apply it? Cross-pollinate.

    Then five minutes alone, getting specific:

    1. What will you do?
    2. How will you know it’s working?

  13. ✨ Closing

    “You were spectacular today because ___.”

    That’s the exit mechanic. Instead of clapping, find someone you hadn’t talked to yet and finish the sentence.

    Behind the curtain Applause points the attention back at the front of the room. This sends you out specific, named, and seen by someone else — which is where the focus belongs at the end of a day like this.

What you took home 🎒 The Human Skills Cards and Workbook

🃏 The Human Skills Cards

The deck we opened with — yours to keep

One question per card. Built to start the kind of conversation that doesn’t happen by accident. Use it at work, at the dinner table, anywhere small talk is doing the work that real questions should.

Lost yours? Get in touch.

📓 The Human Skills Workbook

Your reference companion from the day

Frameworks, anchors, and the prompts from each segment, all in one place. Built to be marked up, not preserved.

Need another copy?

Other Free Resources

Newsletter Free, monthly. Tools and stories in your inbox. Podcast Conversations with the researchers behind the work. Pick my brain Questions from the day, or just to say hi.
Handwritten motivational poster with the quote 'Juggle as fast as you can!'. The poster lists three constraints: 1. Pattern the same, 2. Order the same, and 3. Everyone must touch all objects, all written with underlines and in various colors.
A hand-drawn diagram of the human brain showing the pathway from the brain to the body, with arrows indicating the flow. The diagram includes a large cloud-like shape representing the brain, a blue shaded area, and a red arrow labeled 'FEEL-THINK' il
Diagram of emotional radar with three concentric zones labeled 'Comfort Zone,' 'Learning Zone,' and 'Panic Zone,' with characteristics and behaviors listed within each zone.
A poster titled "The 4 F Debrief" with words and phrases in blue, red, and black ink. It lists four categories: Facts, Feelings, Findigs, Future, with questions and prompts in red next to them, such as "What happened?", "How did you feel when...", "T
A large handwritten poster titled 'Win as much as you can' with instructions on how it works, using different colored markers and decorative dollar signs.
A handwritten note on white paper attached to a wall, stating that certain candidates will vote X after the game, with the name Carol Wood and some scribbles beneath.
A whiteboard chart titled 'The Edge' with four sections labeled '1' to '10' and columns marked '+1m', '2m', '+1m', and '2m'. It contains handwritten data in blue, black, and red ink, with some scribbles and markings, and notes referencing the land of
A handwritten poster with a motivational quote about wins. The quote says, 'Win as much as you can,' with 'can' underlined with red and blue lines. Below, three points are listed: 1. Proximity & Frequency, 2. Trust - with words 'constant' and 'mainte
Handwritten notes on a large sheet of paper titled 'Super Maze' with color-coded points: red describes big and small things, purple describes support and specific support, and green describes mistakes, learning, and emotions.
A collection of white cards with printed questions and icons, spread on a black surface, with a partially visible gray device in the background.

🎧 That playlist tho . . .

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