Each person writes a short résumé of things that did not work: a rejection, a project that was cancelled, a decision they would make differently. Then they present it as if it were an achievement. It sounds grim and is reliably the opposite — the room gets lighter, and the effect on how freely people raise problems lasts.
What it is good for
- Trust & safetyLowering the cost of admitting a mistake or asking for help.
- Leadership practiceGiving people a low-stakes place to direct, delegate and decide.
- CommunicationPractising clear hand-offs, active listening and saying the hard thing early.
What you need
- Paper, or a document each
The run sheet
Set the frame carefully (5 min)
Say what this is and what it is not. It is professional setbacks: rejections, cancelled work, decisions that went wrong. It is not personal confession, not anything still under formal review, and not anything involving a named colleague.
Write (10 min)
Three to five entries, each one line, in the dry format of a real résumé: year, what it was, what happened. No explanations yet.
The leader goes first (5 min)
Whoever is most senior in the room presents first, and does so without softening. This activity works or fails entirely on this step. If the senior person hedges, nobody else will go deeper than they did.
Round the room (15 min)
Two minutes each: read the entries, then say one sentence on what you would do differently now. Applause after each. Yes, actually applaud.
One group question (5 min)
Ask: did anyone hear a setback that they are currently afraid of? That question is where the trust gets built.
Facilitator notes
- Do not run this with a team that has just been through redundancies or a failed project with live blame attached. Wrong week, right activity.
- Anyone may pass, and you should say so before you start rather than after someone looks cornered.
- Keep it to one round. A second round turns it into a competition about who has failed hardest.
Debrief questions
Ask these immediately afterwards, not next week. Fifteen minutes of these is what turns the activity into something the team refers back to — see the debrief guide.
- What did you hear that you would not have guessed about someone in this room?
- What is one thing this team could do to make it cheaper to say 'this is not working' earlier?
Variations
Anonymous edition
Collect entries anonymously and read them out yourself. Lower trust cost, lower trust payoff — a reasonable first step for a team that is not ready.
Lessons wall
Instead of presenting, post all entries on a wall grouped by what went wrong. Useful before a planning session.
Access and inclusion
Entirely voluntary at every step. Avoid making the round-the-room order sequential and visible, which creates dread; pick the next speaker by asking for volunteers.
Running it remotely
Works well on video. Ask people to turn cameras on for this one if they are comfortable, and keep the group under ten so the applause is not awkward.