1. 🃏 Unofficial Start

   

   “What’s one thing that went really well in May?” — dropped in the chat.

   Facilitation Tip Starting with a low-risk question like this improves engagement and sets the tone for a safe place for contribution.

2. 🤝 Connection Before Content

   

   Finish this sentence stem: “I keep trying to change ___ , but ___ keeps getting in the way.”

   In your breakouts: share it, and look for the common pattern across the group. Most of what came up was about changing our own behavior — and the room kept taking full ownership of it, which is both admirable and workable.

   Pro Tip

   Stack your intentions

   “I’ll go to the gym tomorrow” is weak. “At 7am” is better. “At 7am, doing this routine” is better still. “At 7am, this routine, and I asked a friend to meet me there” is strongest. Each layer raises the odds you actually follow through.

   The when/where/how specificity effect is Peter Gollwitzer’s implementation intentions (94-study meta-analysis, d = .65); the accountability-partner layer is Gail Matthews’ 2007 Dominican University study.

3. 🚣 Group Challenge — River Crossing

   

   

   Get the farmer, the chicken, the fox, and the bag of corn from the south bank to the north bank.

   The boat carries the farmer plus one item. Never leave the fox alone with the chicken, or the chicken alone with the corn. Fewest moves wins.

   🏆 Winning Stakes: A FREE Book! — first group back with a working solution wins their pick from Chris’s reading list.

   Winners: email Chris with an address and which book you want!

   Behind the curtain The point wasn’t the puzzle. Nobody tried to reason with the fox or lock it in a cage — you can’t change a fox’s DNA. You changed the order of operations and the conditions instead. That’s exactly the move with the people you’re trying to influence.

4. 🐔 Why Change Is Hard — The Outposts

   

   Why did the chicken cross the road? Ask a neuroendocrinologist, an evolutionary biologist, and a physiologist and you’ll get three different answers — and each one is true. That’s Robert Sapolsky’s frame, from Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.

   Behavior is too big to fully explain: genes, hormones, history, mood, a worldview formed in childhood, a habit reinforced for decades. The trap is that when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

   So let most of it go. A fox will have the DNA of a fox. Zoom out to see the whole picture, accept how little of it you control, then zoom back in on the few places you actually have influence — the question you ask, the relationship you build.

   Anchor We feel first, then we think. Presenting the logic — “if everyone could just see the data” — almost never changes behavior.

   Picture it

   Lisa Simpson, door to door

   Remember Lisa in The Simpsons Movie — going door to door about the lake, then giving her big presentation, “An Irritating Truth”? She had every fact right. The town tuned her out anyway. Being right isn’t the same as being heard. It’s the door-to-door scene in The Simpsons Movie.

5. 🔄 The 4F Debrief

   

   Three minutes, camera off, in your own head — a reusable way to process any experience:

   1. Facts. What happened?
   2. Feelings. What came up for you?
   3. Findings. What did you notice or learn?
   4. Future. What will you do with it?

   (Roger Greenaway’s active-reviewing model.)

6. 🔍 Be the Detective, Not the Judge

   

   

   Part 1 — Build trust and deep understanding.

   Story

   🔍 “Be the detective, not the judge”

   Chris built a tight, multi-stage hiring pipeline for his friend and mentor Scott Woods — full of disqualifiers and deal-breakers. Scott’s note: “This helps us grade and judge candidates, but it leaves no room to understand the context behind their decisions. Be the detective, not the judge.”

   ❌ Instead of this	✅ Try this
   Pushing everyone to agree the system is fair	Align on one piece of common ground: “If you stay at one star, the program closes. We both want it open — let’s play the game together.”
   Listening to win — waiting to jump in and be right	Listening to understand — chasing the root issue (motivation? belief? capacity? lip service?)
   Asking “Why didn’t you do it?” (puts them on defense)	Asking “How did you come to that decision? Help me understand your thinking.”

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

7. 🌱 Plant Seeds, Not Flags

   

   

   Part 2 — Spark the change. Once you’ve earned a little trust, help them get to their idea. Don’t plant a flag on it.

   ❌ Instead of this	✅ Try this
   Selling your idea	Ask permission to share: “The way you’re describing this reminds me of another program that hit the same wall. Can I tell you how they handled it?”
   Prescribing the solution	Share an example / case study: “What about the way they did it might transfer to you?”
   Deciding for them	Ask for their choice: “Your scores are here. What would you like to do? I’ve got a few ideas for where we could start — want to hear them?”

   This runs on cognitive dissonance: when someone says yes to hearing it, they’re more likely to listen and act, because they want to stay consistent with that yes. Same reason you don’t ask a six-year-old “do you want to brush your teeth?” — you ask “blue toothbrush or green?”

8. ✅ Accountability Checks

   

   Part 3 — Keep it moving. Accountability isn’t someone standing over your shoulder. It’s buy-in plus a way to see progress. These are sentence stems — starting points. Rebuild and reinterpret them in your own words for your people:

   1. “How will we beat the necessary evils?”
      Full example: “I get it — you don’t want to be part of this system. But if we don’t play the game, we lose. So what are the necessary evils we have to get done to make this work for you?”
   2. “What must be true for ___ to occur?”
      Full example: “What would have to be true for that change to actually happen?” Their answers — even the off-base ones — give you something to measure.
   3. “How will you know ___ is working?”
      Full example: “How will you know your hard effort is paying off?”

   Because the ideas are theirs, they’re more likely to act on them — and every time one of your suggestions works, you bank a little more trust.

   Anchor — Emotional jujitsu Don’t meet their weight head-on or it’s a fight. Lean back, take their weight, and guide it somewhere productive. The energy for this comes from compassionate detachment — zoom out, build a little compassion, stay patient.

9. 🎯 Action Storm — Practice Being Detectives

   Back in your breakouts: share the change you’re trying to make and what you’ve tried so far. Be detectives for each other — ask How questions, dig for the root issue, and plant a seed or two. Practice on people you trust before you need it in the room.

10. ✨ 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, we’re more likely to do it or believe it.

Resources and Links 📚 From the reading list

🏆 Won the River Crossing challenge? Pick any title from Chris’s reading list. Winners: email Chris with an address and which book you want!

Sources📌 The research behind today

• Robert Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers — author · book
• Implementation intentions — Gollwitzer (1999); accountability — Matthews (2007), Dominican University
• Cognitive dissonance — Festinger (Britannica)
• The 4F Debrief — Roger Greenaway, Active Reviewing
• Quality Rated — Georgia DECAL
• “An Irritating Truth” — The Simpsons Movie (2007)

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