Leading for Impact: Session 7
Facilitator Guide and Run of Show (note: no additional ROS document for this session)
Prework: Each team should already be working on a short (3-5 minute) presentation about their project;
that is the only prep work. Please do remember to bring your learning journals with you.
Learning objectives:
 Participants appreciate their learning and progress as individuals/teams/organizations
 Participants lay the groundwork for future learning and progress as a team/organization
 Participants feel a sense of closure on their first project and the classroom portion of the
program
Session overview: 7 hrs total time
Sections
Welcome, overview
Project presentations
Break
Milestone setting
Lunch
Teach-backs
Feedback survey
Break
“Do next”
Closing & celebration
Time
15 min
65 min
15 min
45 min
60 min
90 min
20 min
10 min
45 min
30 min
Cumulative time
0 hr 15 min
1 hr 20 min
1 hr 35 min
2 hrs 20 min
3 hrs 20 min
4 hrs 50 min
5 hrs 10 min
5 hrs 20 min
6 hrs 05 min
6 hrs 35 min
Materials
 Print
o Session 7 Presentation (Binder Copy)
o LFI Curriculum Summary – includes 3-5 key slides from each module
o 6-month survey
o Project milestone-setting handout
o Do next handout
 LFI commemorative Lucite blocks
 Cupcakes & champagne
Section
Welcome
Time
15
min
Flip charts/slides
Slide: “Today
marks the end of
the first phase of
our two years
together”
Slide: “Our
agenda for
today”
Project
presentation
panels
65
min
Slide: “Project
presentations”
Content
 Welcome everyone! When we first met together…Now,
we’ve…
 As a reminder, today isn’t an end, but a commencement –
the end of one phase, and the beginning of the next
[Slide: Today marks the end..]
o Reminder of the two-year arc of the program, and
the next 18 months
o Gatherings / convenings will continue, with the
next gathering in [insert date and topic]
o Meanwhile, we’ll continue to work with each of
you to round out your projects and set specific
project goals
 Our goals for today are two-fold:
o Look back: Appreciate our learning and progress as
individuals/teams/organizations
o Look forward: Lay the groundwork for future
learning and progress as a team/organization
 Roman god Janus will be our guide: God of transitions,
looking to the future and the past [Slide: Our agenda]
 Five actions for today [have this agenda pre-written on a
flip chart:]
o Present projects - (look back) hear from each
other where your project has led you
o Set milestones – (look forward) think as a team
about how to ensure your project takes root
o Teach Back – (look back) teach back some of the
material we’ve learned together
o Do Next – (look forward) focus on what you need
to do next, as a team. We’ve covered a lot of
ground since August, some of which you might
want to prioritize moving forward within your
organization
o Celebrate!
Pre-assign people into three groups, trying to split up organizations
as much as possible. In each group, have 2-3 organizations present
their project. Reserve separate rooms for the three groups to
minimize distraction.

For our first activity today, each team is going to tell us
about the project their organization has been working on,
with particular emphasis on what changes this implies for
your organization [slide 4]. Then we’ll have Q&A from the
other participants. As you listen to the presentations,
think about what questions a Board member or funder
might have.
2
o
Slide: “Project
presentations:
Panelists and
groups”

To keep the time manageable, we’re going to split
you up into three groups
o We’ve split up your teams so that, as much as
possible, someone from each team gets to see
each presentation; we’ve pre-assigned the groups
to make this easy [slide 5]
o You have 50 minutes in your groups—about 15
minutes per organization to present and do some
Q&A
Once settled in rooms, facilitators introduce panel
members and remind them to give a 3-5 minute
(depending on the size of the group) overview of their
project (each has been prepped ahead of time). Time them
to ensure things stay on track. After each presentation,
take 1-2 questions from the audience such that each team
has a total of 15-20 minutes of air time. Again, remind
them to think about what questions a board member or
funder might have. If no questions emerge, try pushing
teams on:
o What research did you do that led you to these
conclusions?
o What were the insights coming out of your
research?
o What is going to be the single most difficult part of
implementing these changes and how will you
mitigate it?
o Who in your organization will need to change
behaviors to make this happen?
o What new was put on their learning agenda as a
result of this work?
Closing group discussion on final question (time permitting, 3-5
minutes): When you take on your next project, what lessons
have you learned that you would share with the next Project
Lead?
Break
Milestone setting
15
min
45
min
Regroup together in main training room
Slide:
“Milestones title
page”


Thanks for those overviews, there are a lot of common
themes in moving this work forward [cite a couple that you
heard]
Now that we’ve looked back, let’s take some time to look
forward. As you all know, the work of your project is just
beginning and we’d like to take some time to think hard
about what you’d like to achieve over the longer-term with
the work we’ve started together and what that will take.
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
Slide: “Establish
the key goals..”


Slide:
“Milestones:
Some examples”
What we’re going to do is develop some milestones for
your project work over the next 3-18 months. We’ve
developed a template to help you do that. [Slide: Establish
the key goals…] Orient people to the milestones template
Why are milestones important?
o They clarify what you need to get done and when:
Your project may still feel like visions for the
future—setting milestones can help translate that
into concrete steps and actions.
o They help you stay on track: you can return to
these milestones to track progress toward goals,
and understand where to focus on problemsolving to accelerate action
o They help us follow along: We’ll be checking in
regularly over the coming months, and we will use
these milestones as a guide for what to check in on
and figure out how we can best support you
So what do we mean by milestone? They are
representations of the key activities that need to happen
to ensure your project is progressing and being
implemented. Here are some examples [Slide: What is a
milestone?]
o Facilitator’s note: Coaches might spend some time
before this session thinking through the key
milestones for their clients using the elements of
the change checklist to identify areas of risk they
should focus on (i.e., stakeholder engagement,
talent needs, etc)

You’re now going to have 30 minutes to fill out this
milestones template for your project. Each team should
have copies of the milestones template on your table—
one person should take the role of scribe to capture your
discussion. Your Bridgespan coaches will collect these
drafts (or at least take pictures of them) at the end of this
exercise so we can continue the conversations with you in
our next project check-ins.

[After 30 minutes] Let me ask you to think about the
single biggest “ah ha” that this raised for you (strategic,
not tactical). Give people a minute to stew, silence OK; if
you know there are solid examples, cold call folks; if it
doesn’t really work just move on.

We’ve captured what you have today for your project
milestones, and will be following up to get any
modifications after this session. Remember that as we
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check in with each team over the next 6 months (and
beyond), we’ll use these milestones to see if you’re on
track, and to help talk through any obstacles that you
might encounter that are preventing you from making the
kind of progress that you would like.
Lunch
Teach back
50
min
90
min
Optional continuation of milestone setting discussion
Slide: “Teachbacks title page”
Coaches pre-assign organizations to specific classroom
modules—where possible identifying areas where teams have
used the content in their project work or other setting. There
are usually more modules than teams—pick the modules that
are the best fit to this cohort. There are a few that work less
well for this exercise (i.e., funding, aligning the org), so only
assign them if an organization has particular interest/need.



Slide: “Teachbacks:
Instructions”

Slide: “Teachbacks: Module
assignments”
Okay, time to look back again. Now what we’d like to do is
spend some time reminding ourselves of all of the content
we’ve covered together over the past six months.
What we’re going to do is ask each of you—as a team—to
teach us one of the modules from the curriculum, which
we have assigned to you.
Why are we doing this? A few reasons:
o All kinds of research shows that the best way to
internalize learning is to teach it
o All leaders have a role as teachers; we hope you see
part of your charter is to bring others along within
your organization
o In so doing, you are going to broaden the impact of
this program and your work
o It’s also a good reminder for us all as we think about
the work we want to do going forward over the next
18 months—both in our second project and in other
ways.
Okay, I’m going to show you what your assignments are in
a minute. What you’re going to do is [Slide: “Teach-backs:
Instructions”
o Prepare a 5- minute lesson to share with some group
of your staff. It can be everyone or a specific group—
like middle managers—you pick.
 Make sure you focus on effectively covering the
main teaching points. The Bridgespan facilitator
who taught this module will be giving you
feedback after you deliver it!
o Then you are going to teach it back to the rest of the
class—so pick 2 people from your team to present.
And it can’t be the CEO or the project leads.
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


Feedback survey
20
min
Paper surveys to
hand out to
participates

Okay: let’s see what you’ve got!
o Before beginning your lesson, remind us who we are
as an audience and why we might care about this
content. What’s in it for us?
o Keep each team to a strict 5 minute limit
o After each group presents, the Bridgespan facilitator
who presented that module provides some feedback,
focusing on the key teaching points.
o If there is time, ask one question of the audience, e.g.:
 What worked about that lesson?
 If you were actually teaching this, what would
you do differently?
 What might be something to watch out for
when teaching this topic to your staff?

Ask each participant to fill out paper survey on LFI
program and projects. Remind participants of how much
we value their candid feedback.
Stand at the door and collect surveys as people leave for
their break. Please make note of any absent participants
so we may follow up.

Break
Do Next
10
min
45
min
Slide: “Do next
title page”



Slide: “Do next:
Across the topics
we’ve covered…]
o You will have 25 minutes to prepare your presentation
Here are your assignments [Slide: “Teach-backs: module
assignments”
The good news is that we’ve made it eas(ier) for you! In
your classroom materials for today, you will see that we’ve
compiled the “Cliff’s Notes” version of the curriculum—for
each module we’ve captured (1) the main teaching points
and (2) the 3-5 key slides.
Okay—you have 20 minutes (return to the instructions slide
so teams can review during the exercise)
Okay, time to look forward again. Let’s talk about what
we are going to do together for the next 18 months!
Over the next few months, after these classroom sessions
end, our interactions with you will shift. While we won’t
be meeting with you weekly to work on your project, we
won’t be going away either. We will likely be checking in
with you at least once a month, and then—before you
know it—we will be launching your second project!
We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last six months
together [Slide: Do next: Across...], and in some cases we
started conversations that we weren’t able to finish
because of the demands of your projects. Now that the
intensity of the project has subsided, it’s worth time to go
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

Slide: “Do Next:
Instructions”
back to some of those conversations and continue to
apply your learning.
What we’d like you to do for the next few minutes is
review the curriculum, and identify the places where you
would like to continue the work. For each module, there
are a few ways you might consider:
o Design: For a given model, you might still need to
define what this looks like for your organization. For
instance, you may have started to draft your Theory
of Change but not really pushed it to a place where
it’s useable. Or you may have started to talk about a
dashboard but still need to do the work to develop it
fully.
o Implement: What tools can start using on your work
right now? For your Theory of Change, what
decisions are you making right now as an
organization that could be aided by your TOC? Are
there decisions where using the RAPID tool would
make things more efficient right now?
o Share: Two things you might think about:
 Which tools would you like to teach to others in
your organization? For instance, is there an
opportunity to use the People Styles framework
with a group of managers to increase effective
communications?
 What work have you drafted in the classroom or
project that you might want to share with
stakeholders to get input or use as a
communication tools. Some we’ve seen be
powerful are your Theory of Change, your
Program Alignment matrix, etc…
o Project #2: I’d also like you to think about where you
want to go deep for your next project. Your second
project will operate much like the first one, but
without these classroom sessions – just our team
working with your team. The next project could drive
further into an area of exploration from your first
project, e.g. fleshing out a new programmatic
approach in more detail; or you might tackle a very
different topic such as delving more deeply into
leadership development.
[Slide: Do Next: Instructions] For this exercise, I’d like each
team to reflect together and commit to picking a few
action steps you’d like to “Do Next” as a team to apply the
learning we’ve done together.
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
Start by taking 5 minutes to do some thinking individually—
look at the curriculum and identify two things:
o What options should your team consider for Project
#2?
o What other topics would you like your team to
continue to work on? How?
 Then, spend 20 minutes sharing your thinking and coming
up with a shared list of 2-3 items and project ideas.
o Capture your thinking on the template we’ve
provided—your Bridgespan coach will be collecting
them (or taking their picture) at the end.
 Coaches should sit with their teams to help each determine
the most critical areas of focus for next six months.

After 25 min: Now, I’d like one person from each team to
come up here to the white board and put yellow stickies
with your org name on it in the areas where you are
considering a project and pink stickies where you are
planning to take other actions
o Facilitator should draw a matrix on the board that
replicates the curriculum schedule with boxes for each
topic—helps to give this feedback to each individual
group during the exercise and then again to the whole
group when you ask people to come up to the board

Slide: “Looking
forward…”
Slide: “Learning
journal
reflection”
Facilitator makes some brief observations about trends you
see in where people are putting their stickies (make sure to
take a picture)
 Thank you; this is incredibly helpful to us as we work with
you over the next six months and the next two years

Remember this is the end of this part of our journey
together, but it continues for the next 1.5 years [Slide:
Looking forward…]
o We will be in touch with each CEO to solidify your
next steps and make a plan for the flow of our
support over the next few months
o Of course, don’t forget to complete your project
milestones and share that with us

And as we mentioned this morning, the next gathering will
be [insert details]. We’ll send you the specifics and a
calendar invitation soon.

Now let’s do with some individual reflection. You’ve
identified as a team your organizational priorities to do
next; now I’d like you to think about what you want to do
next as an individual. And while you do this, we will pass
out some bubbly beverages to you. Take out your
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journals and take 5 minutes to reflect back over the past
six months on two questions [Slide: Learning journal…]:
o How will you change your personal practices?
o How will you further the connections you’ve made
with others outside of your organization?
Closing ceremonies 30
min
“Slide: Let’s
celebrate! Cover
page”
Slide 20 “Six
word stories”;
Slide 21 “Closing
question”
Lucite blocks

Okay, now it’s time to have a little celebration! I love this
day because it shows us how far we’ve come together—
let’s take some time to celebrate that journey! (insert
some thoughtful reflections about the achievements and
accomplishments of this group—perhaps do a toast?)

To show our appreciation, we want to bring you inside the
Bridgespan fold by sharing with you a few of our traditions.

The first is our six-month award: Every employee, after
their first six months at Bridgespan, receives a Lucite block
to commemorate the hard work and learning they have
accomplished on a very steep learning curve. All of you
have put in that hard work with us over the past six
months, and we are honored to share that tradition with
you (read what the block says).

The other tradition we want to share with you is the sixword story. Are folks familiar with the six-word story? It’s
an age-old tradition of using just a few words to describe a
situation in a way that says a lot more. It’s a very popular
literary contest. Here are a few to bring it to life [Slide: Six
word stories].

We use the six-word story a lot a Bridgespan, often at
milestone moments, partially to keep a bunch of motor
mouths succinct, but also because it can be a powerful way
to share how we feel about each other. We’ve written a
six word story for each of you and would like to share
them with you.
o [Coaches hand out 6-month blocks one team at a
time and tells 6-word stories + brief kind words for
each team]

At this point, consider doing one last group activity, a
couple of options:
o Give people two minutes to think of their own sixword story and invite 2-3 people to share theirs
o Go around the room and ask people to share one
word about how they are feeling (1) about the past
six months and (2) about the next six months
(could break up the room between 1 and 2)
o Something else creative?
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
On that note, thank you to each of you! To celebrate the
end of this phase, we’ve got more champagne / sparkling
cider and also some delicious cupcakes – please stay and
enjoy a toast with each other

We will stay in touch over the next few weeks, and see you
together all again in XX!
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