Start by choosing a spectrum you’re going to use. For example:

• Strongly Agree ↔ Strongly Disagree
• Most Important ↔ Least Important
• Satisfied ↔ Unsatisfied

When creating the prompts, remember they should not be framed as a question, but instead as statements that people will assess their alignment with.

Example: Use the Strongly Agree ↔ Strongly Disagree scale and ask the group to respond to where they fall on the following statements:

• Today has been a pretty good day.
• My career is a huge focal point of my life.
• I like my job most days.
• Work/life balance is important to me.
• I know how to relax.

Generally we’d also advise considering the ordering of your prompts carefully.

• Keep the first statement light! It’s mostly there to orient members to the structure of the prompts you’re going to be giving.
• Ask the more “vulnerable” statements in the middle.
• End on a statement that segues you into the next part of the meeting.

Inviting debriefs might sound like:

“I see we’ve got a few people over on strongly agree and some on strongly disagree. Would anyone like to share more about why they placed themselves where they did?”

If you have a lot of people standing in the same spot: ”Did anyone else who put themselves on that side of the spectrum have a really different reason?”

If you want to highlight different experiences: “Anyone who placed themselves on the opposite end of the spectrum want to share why they placed themselves there?”