Teams & strategy
Worksheet
Before pressure
60–90 min
Solo / Team / Board
7
You can't create a different future while staying exactly the same.
Use this when you need to answer "what are we actually trying to build?" before the tactical work begins: ahead of a strategy refresh, a board planning day, or a leadership transition.
Time 60–90 minutes · Format Solo, team or board · Moment Before pressure
This exercise gets you out of the day-to-day long enough to think clearly about the future you're building. The goal is a story that feels human, specific and earned. One that makes decisions clearer and gives people something they can see themselves inside.
You don't need perfect answers. The aim isn't to predict. It's to create.
Before you start
Find somewhere quiet.
Format | Works well for |
On your own | Personal leadership direction, or preparing for a team conversation |
Leadership team | Surfacing different pictures of the future and where they align or diverge |
Board | Before a strategy refresh |
Small trusted group | Honest drafting before a wider conversation |
Step 1 · Picture the future (5–10 min before writing)
Choose a day and year in the future: 10, 20, even 50 years from now.
People are reflecting on the last several years. What changed, what mattered, what made a difference. Your organisation, team or leadership is part of that conversation.
You walk into the room. What are people talking about?
[What you see and hear in that room]
Step 2 · What's different now?
Describe what has genuinely changed. Avoid words like "innovation" or "transformation" unless you can say what they looked like in real life.
Prompt | Notes |
What feels different in the world around us? Healthier, stronger, fairer, more stable? | |
What problems have eased? What frustrations no longer dominate? | |
What are people experiencing now that they weren't before? Real, observable shifts. | |
What gives people hope? |
Step 3 · What part did we play?
What did we help make possible?
[Notes]
Finish these sentences. Pay attention to the verbs. They tell you a lot.
Prompt | Response |
"They helped us…" | |
"They were known for…" | |
"When things got difficult, they…" |
Where did we show courage? What did we protect? What did we build?
[Notes]
Step 4 · The hard decisions
No meaningful future happens without trade-offs.
Prompt | Notes |
What decisions changed our direction? What did we stop, or say no to? | |
What became more important than growth, comfort, speed or consensus? | |
What conversations did we finally have? What risks did we take that mattered? | |
What did leadership require of us that was uncomfortable at the time? |
Step 5 · Who did we have to become?
This is the part people often skip.
Prompt | Notes |
What changed in how we led? What became normal, and what became unacceptable? | |
What capability did we build? What did we have to learn? | |
What did governance or leadership start doing differently? |
If you're doing this for yourself:
Prompt | Response |
Who did you have to become? | |
What did you let go of? | |
What kind of leadership did people start experiencing from you? |
Step 6 · Write the story
Pull it together. Write one to two pages as though someone is looking back on this period from the future.
The best future stories sound human, include tension and trade-offs, feel specific and earned, and make people feel something.
Choose one to start:
- "By [year], people could feel the difference because…"
- "Looking back, the turning point came when…"
- "What changed us most was…"
- "We stopped trying to…"
- "People trusted us because…"
- "The future became possible when…"
Step 7 · Test the story
Don't protect your draft too quickly. Take it to people, not for approval, but to notice where there's alignment and where there's divergence.
Question | Notes |
What feels true? | |
What feels unrealistic? | |
What feels missing? | |
Where does it sound too safe? | |
What would need to happen for this to become real? |
Future stories get sharper when reality pushes against them a bit.
Step 8 · Final reflection
A strong future story creates both energy and responsibility. If it only inspires, it's probably too vague. If it only pressures people, it's probably too narrow.
Does your story pass this test?
Summary
Element | Notes |
Time horizon | |
Format used | |
Core change described | |
Hardest trade-off named | |
Who we had to become | |
What still feels uncertain | |
Next step with this story |
Back to the mahi.
Want support with what came up?
If you want to be ready before your own stormy day arrives, a Strategic Orientation conversation is a good place to start. No preparation required, just twenty minutes to work out the right next step together.