Lead Your Team Through a “Bonfire Moment”

The Bonfire Moment

In this one day workshop we call The Bonfire Moment. We guide people through a structured reflection process where they’re able to seek feedback on how they show up in the work. They’re able to talk about you know, “What are some of the preferences I have in the way I approach the work? What are ways to resolve conflict with me? What are ways to give me feedback?”

And so it invites people to really have the awkward conversations that they wouldn’t naturally have, but to have it in a safe, structured environment where everyone’s approaching The Bonfire Moment with goodwill and interest in making, you know, improvements in the team.

4 Blocks for the Workshop

The Bonfire Moment is made of four blocks. Block one is “face hard truths.” In this block, we invite folks to reflect on how are they showing up in the work and how are other people perceiving them in this work. It’s a chance for people to uncover your “bad breath zone,” which is the weaknesses that everyone knows you have, but perhaps you’re oblivious to.

Block two is “notice hidden dynamics.” And in this block, it’s sixty to ninety minutes of you sharing with your team. What are the ways in which I like to come to this team and operate and do my work? Why am I here? What motivates me to be here? What are ways that you can give me feedback or resolve conflict with me? What are some of the hypothetical scenarios where this team breaks up because of the human dynamic and how might we mitigate some of that? This is a time where you write up what we call “the user guide,” which is almost like a manual of how one can actually work most effectively, with you.

Block three is called “drop the masks.” And this is my favorite part of The Bonfire Moment. We bring the team around a digital bonfire where we have them sit around beanbags and have them reflect on, “What are the insecurities that plague me in the work that we do?” And then we had them reflect on “What are the two or three ways by which we mask up and we cover up these insecurities?” It’s either optimism, strength or detachment.

Optimism is when you approach the team with a lot of positivity, helpfulness, wanting to just paper over some of the issues and just talk about how things are going to be bright and things are going to be great.

Strength is when you approach these moments of insecurity by showing prestige, puffing up and showing strength, showing that we’ve succeeded before we will succeed again.

Detachment is when leaders will want to be incognito, want to show calm and independence, perhaps be a little bit absent from the team.

And if you think about these three masks, some of them could actually be very useful. It’s useful to show optimism. It’s useful to show that we’ve succeeded before. It’s useful to maybe give people the space to to deal with some of these challenges. But there is also a dark side to wearing these masks.

The last block is “resolve unspoken issues.” And in this block, we invite teams to read through a list of what we have seen as the biggest source of drag and a source of, you know, pain and conflict in a team. We invite them to then explore with a group, how might we approach these moments?

So these four blocks really constitute this one intense but hopefully productive day with your team. When teams go through this experience, they often leave the conversation feeling exhausted, but also feeling reconnected and somehow hopeful about the future that they can build together.