The Lunch
and Learn.
Ten ideas, five minutes each, and a room that leaves with one thing to actually do. Nobody needs to have read the book, including you. Everything you need to run it is written on this page, in order, with the words to say.
What you
actually need.
Time
Sixty minutes. It also runs at forty five if you cut the sharing and keep the pairs.
People
Anywhere from five to fifty. Above about twenty, use pairs rather than open discussion.
To Print
The Framework, one page per person. That is the whole material list.
Preparation
Read this page once beforehand. That is genuinely it. You are a participant too.
Sixty minutes,
start to finish.
The One Thing That Makes This Work
Do not share out loud after all ten concepts. Pick three or four to open up to the room and let the rest stay in pairs. If you try to discuss every one you will be twenty minutes over and the last four concepts will get skipped, which are usually the ones that land hardest.
How to
open it.
Say this, or something close to it, in your own words:
We are going to go through ten ideas in the next hour. About five minutes each, so none of them get finished, and that is on purpose. You are not meant to leave here having solved anything. You are meant to leave with one of them stuck in your head. Almost everybody believes they are capable of more than they are currently doing. This hour is about finding the specific thing in the way, for you.
The Ground Rule
Seek truth, not praise. This only works if people are honest. The goal is not to impress each other, it is to grow. Make it safe to be real, listen without fixing, and let the hard answers be the ones that matter most.
The ten concepts,
four minutes each.
For each one: read the teach, ask the question, give people ninety seconds in pairs, then move. Watch the clock more than you think you need to.
Own It. Every Day.
Responsibility is where growth begins.
Teach it
Everything changes when you take ownership. The moment you stop looking outward and start looking inward is the moment you take back control. There is usually a reason something did not work, and the reason is often true. It is just that a true reason and a useful one are different things. If the cause sits outside you, you have to wait for it to change. If you own your part, you can act today.
Ask it
What is one thing you have been explaining instead of improving?
Time Is Your Edge
Your life is built by how you spend your time.
Teach it
You do not find time. You use it. Every day is a reflection of what you chose to prioritize, whether or not it felt like choosing. Most people who say they have no time have fifteen to thirty hours a week they cannot account for. Not wasted exactly, just unclaimed. You do not need more time. You need better decisions with the time you already have.
Ask it
If somebody looked at your calendar from last week, what would they say your priorities are?
The Comfort Ceiling
Growth starts where comfort stops.
Teach it
Discomfort is not a warning sign. It is a signal that you are growing. The path runs comfort, then fear, then learning, then growth, and almost everybody turns around in the fear stage and calls it being sensible. The hard part about a comfort ceiling is that nothing is wrong. A bad situation forces you to act. A fine one never does.
Ask it
What have you avoided in the last month because it felt uncomfortable rather than because it was wrong?
Train Your Inner Voice
It will push you forward or hold you back.
Teach it
Not every thought you have is true. Your inner voice speaks with total confidence and no evidence, and most people never stop to check whether it is right. Notice the difference between saying I did not handle that well and saying I am not a leader. One describes a moment. The other becomes a boundary you live inside. Whatever you put after the words I am tends to stick.
Ask it
What does your inner voice say in the second right before you hesitate?
Relentless Improvement
Reflect, adjust, and keep moving forward.
Teach it
The past is there to teach you, not trap you. There is a real difference between reflecting on something and reliving it. Reflection takes the lesson out and puts the thing down. Reliving runs the same footage again looking for a different ending. Everybody drifts off track. The only thing that separates people is how long they stay drifted before they correct.
Ask it
Think of something recent that did not go well. What is the lesson in it, as opposed to the story you have been telling about it?
Seek Truth. Not Praise.
The right people sharpen you rather than flatter you.
Teach it
Growth does not come from being told you are doing great. It comes from being shown where you can be better. You can protect your ego or improve your performance, and you do not get both. Most of us have somebody in our lives who will tell us the truth, and most of us have quietly stopped asking them.
Ask it
Who in your life tells you the truth, and when did you last actually ask them for it?
Unlock Your Hidden Gear
There is more available than you think.
Teach it
That moment where you feel like stopping is usually the moment that matters most, because it is where nearly everyone else stops too. The hidden gear is not another level of talent. It is another level of honesty about what you have actually been giving. Most of the time we are not out of capacity. We are just at the edge of what is convenient.
Ask it
Where do you already know you have more to give, and have simply not been asking it of yourself?
Lead Before You Are Asked
Leadership starts with how you lead yourself.
Teach it
No one is coming to lead you. If it is going to happen, it is because you led yourself there. And confidence is not built in big moments, it is built in kept promises. Every small thing you said you would do and then did is a deposit. Every one you skipped is a withdrawal, and the account it affects is whether you believe yourself the next time you make a plan.
Ask it
Where are you waiting for permission that nobody is actually withholding?
Finish What You Start
Starting is common. Finishing is rare.
Teach it
Picture a stonecutter hitting a rock. A hundred swings and nothing visible happens. On the hundred and first it splits, and it looks like that swing was the one that mattered. It was all of them. Most people do not fail. They leave too early, usually right at the point where the work stops being exciting and the results are not visible yet. Invisible is what progress looks like in the middle.
Ask it
What have you started and not finished, and can you name the exact point where it stalled?
Leave People Better
Significance is who is better because of you.
Teach it
Success is what you achieve. Significance is who is better because of you. Think of the person who had the biggest impact on your life. You had them in mind before I finished that sentence. Now think about what they actually did. Almost nobody names a grand gesture. It is usually that they took you seriously before you had earned it, or told you the truth when it would have been easier not to. Which means the bar is much lower than we think, and they probably have no idea they did it.
Ask it
Who made you better, and what specifically did they do? And who might be able to say that about you?
How to
close it.
This is the part that determines whether anything happens on Monday. Do not skip it to buy back time, and do not let the last concept run long.
Pick one. Not all ten. One of those landed harder than the others, and you already know which one it was. Write it down, then write one thing you will do about it this week. Make it small enough that you cannot talk yourself out of it, and specific enough that you will know on Friday whether you did it.
Then go around the room and have each person say their concept and their one action out loud. That is the whole close. It takes about eight minutes for a group of fifteen if you keep it to a sentence each.
Why Out Loud Matters
A commitment made in your head is a thought. Said in a room full of colleagues, it becomes something somebody might ask you about. That is the entire mechanism, and it is the difference between a nice hour and a change somebody actually makes.
If you want one more layer, ask everyone to name the person in the room who will check in with them on Friday.
The four things
that usually happen.
Nobody talks
Almost always a group size problem rather than a people problem. Switch to pairs immediately and stop asking the room. In pairs, everybody talks. Then ask for one pair to share rather than volunteers.
One person talks the whole time
Thank them, then say you want to hear from somebody who has not spoken yet, and wait. The silence feels long to you and normal to everyone else.
You are running behind
Expected. Drop the open sharing on concepts you had not flagged, keep the pairs, and protect the close. Ten rushed concepts and a real close beats six thorough ones and no commitment.
It gets more personal than you expected
That is a good sign, not a problem. Do not fix anything. Thank them, hold the room steady, and move on when it is time. The ground rule covers this, which is why you say it at the start.
Clarity without action changes nothing. Pick one concept, be honest, then do something about it.
Everything you
need to hand out.
All free. Copy them, print them, put them on a screen.
The Lunch and Learn Workbook
Fourteen pages, one per concept, with the idea, the question, and lines to write on. Print one per person. This is the main thing to hand out.
Download PDF →The Framework
All ten concepts on one page, with how they build on each other and three daily questions. The one thing to print for every seat.
Download PDF →The Printable Playbook
For anyone who wants to keep going afterwards. One page per concept with room to write.
Download PDF →Quote Cards
Eleven cards. Useful on a screen between sections or handed out at the end.
Download PDF →The Comfort Ceiling Assessment
Send this out afterwards. Twenty five questions, scored, and it gives people somewhere to go next.
Download PDF →Go
deeper.
An hour starts something. These finish it.
The Book Club Guide
Ten sessions of thirty to forty five minutes, one per concept, with discussion questions and a challenge each week.
Download PDF →The Team Playbook
A six module session for the people you lead, in a workplace version and a sports version. Good next step after the hour.
Both Versions →All the Formats
The boot camp and the ten week program are in build. Same material, more room to work it properly.
See the Workshops →Bring Chris In
If you want the keynote, a facilitated day, or something built around what your organization is trying to change.
Start a Conversation →Run it with your people.
The same ten concepts at five different levels of commitment. Every guide is written so the person running it takes part rather than instructs, and nothing is gated, licensed or paid.
The Lunch and Learn
All ten concepts at five minutes each, with a full run of show. Nobody needs to have read the book.
Open the Guide → 60 to 90 minutesThe Workshop
One concept worked properly. A question, silence, tables of four, and a commitment from every person.
Open the Guide → Ten x 45 minutesThe Book Club Guide
One session per concept, built to be run by anyone in the group. Everyone needs a copy.
Download It → One dayThe Boot Camp
All ten condensed into a day, or two half days. The group leaves with a written plan.
Open the Guide → Ten weeksThe 10-Week Program
One concept a week with real life in between. The version that changes how a group operates.
Open the Guide →Seventeen free guides for managers, sorted by the problem — first 90 days, feedback, hard conversations, retention, onboarding, meetings, retreats and change. Browse the guides, or pick the concepts your people need and get a session order back.
Choose Your SessionsSeen On
Chris has taken this material onto morning television across the country, and writes for Forbes and Inc.
When I’ve got something worth sending.
Just a story or an idea I picked up that I think will help you.
Sometimes that’s twice in a month. Sometimes it’s not for a while.