The 5% Shift — A Technique for Tackling the First Answer Trap
'Not So Fast' article series on how to challenge default answers
Time for the last approach in the ‘Not So Fast’ series of techniques for tackling the First Answer Trap. If you haven’t read the first article in the series yet, you can take a moment and peruse that one for a bit on why our brain defaults to familiar and easy thoughts.
And if you missed the other techniques, you can catch up on how to run the 3-Pass Approach and Reframe Roulette before (or after!) you dive into this one.
When guiding people past the first answers, many times, it's difficult for people to go from mild to completely wild all in one thought. The 5% Shift method helps people move beyond the default in small, intentional, and manageable increments.
Leading The 5% Shift is a way to nudge a team towards something better without forcing a huge transformation all at once.
When to use the 5% shift
✨ Help focus on progress over perfection.
✨ In an effort to avoid all-or-nothing thinking.
✨ When you want to invite in tiny experiments instead of full solutions.
✨ There is resistance to change (you may or may not know this ahead of time.)
How to Facilitate The 5% Shift
Before leading this approach, there are some things you should consider and prepare:
Make sure you've gotten some default answers for your challenge from the group already; those should be your inputs!
Set the tone for the session in a way that welcomes imperfection. I love using an activity like Bunny Behind Your Back, to get everyone in the right mindset.
Step 1: Start with the First Answer
Just like the other techniques, start with that default answer from the first gut-feeling responses! You can land on one that the group wants to transform.
Step 2: Share the 5% Shift Prompt
Offer one single prompt to guide the shift exploration. This way it allows small nudges all in the same direction. You can select this prompt ahead of time as the facilitator, or have the group select the best for their specific goals on the spot in the session.
Here are some suggestions for prompts to get your thinking started:
What would make this 5% more energizing?
What would make this 5% more human?
What would make this 5% less stressful?
What would make this 5% simpler?
What would make this 5% more doable without burning us out?
What would make this 5% easier to teach to someone new?
As you share this prompt with the group make sure to add that we are looking to iterate in small 5% shifts. Ask the group what small, intentional change could move this forward.
⚡️ Facilitator Tip: Give the group insight into what will happen next and explain the flow of the following three rounds of exploration. Here's how you might introduce that, "We'll do this in three rounds. In the first round, you'll name one 5% shift, just a small tweak. Then, we'll iterate again. Now that that shift is in place, what's the next small move? And finally one last time before we reflect."
Step 3: Exploration of Shifts
Now it's time for those three rounds of exploring the 5% shift. As you enter each round, you can remind people that they don't have to develop an entirely new 5% shift for each round; they could also deepen the shift from the last round.
How you run these shifts depends on how much time you have, how well you know the participants, and how they engage best.
Here's one option for structuring it with a blend of individual and small group work.
Round 1: Give individuals about 5 minutes on their own to think about and document their 5% shift, encourage people to land on one 5% shift here individually they can bring forward.
Round 2: Have individuals bring their first 5% shift to a small group discussion. Invite people to build on their first shift. Layer in another 5% shift based on their conversations with their group. (variation: you can also do this with partners instead of small groups)
Round 3: (could be optional) but adding a third shift helps. Have individuals bring their second 5% shift to a small group discussion to chat through and get ideas for how to add one more 5% shift.
🧠 Optional Variation: If you’d rather not stick to the same 5% shift prompt each time and would prefer different frames, you can vary the 5% shift prompt for each round.
Step 4: Reflect Together
After the three rounds you can bring everyone back together with their 5% shift responses. They should individually have one form each round.
First, have people put their shifts on a physical or virtual wall to be visible to all.
Next, consider a clustering activity to group similar ideas and see what themes emerge.
⚡️ Facilitator Tip: Some shifts may cluster, and some may stand alone, and that's ok! Don't force clusters. Let things come about naturally.
Then, as the group reflects together, consider the following questions:
Do you see any shifts that complement each other? How might we connect these?
Did anything surprise you about the shifts you are seeing shared?
What do these shifts tell us about what we really value as a team?
What might a win look like for [enter a specific shift or shift theme here]?
If you could instantly make one shift happen tomorrow, which would you pick?
Step 5: Try Something
Wrap up by inviting experiments. Moving from our individual reflections to a shared experiment is a great step towards trying something new collaboratively.
Prompt the group as a facilitator first about where we’ve landed and where we are headed, “We’ve generated a lot of 5% shifts individually, brought them together to find themes, and now we are going to choose one or two shifts to try together as a team.” Remind the group that trying these shifts isn't about doing it perfectly. It's an experiment.
How you guide the group to choose, depends on the vibe you want for the session. Think about if you want something structured, fast, playful, reflective, deep, or a combination of vibes.
Structured and fast:
Classic Dot Voting - you might prompt with a question like, vote on the idea that naturally pulls you in most.
Hell Yeah/Maybe/Absolute No - a way to quickly sort ideas, your Hell Yes is a complete energy let’s do this, Maybe is more of a could work but not sure yet, and your Absolute No is there’s no energy here, let’s scrap it.
Structured and deep:
How/Now/Wow Matrix - this one is a nice way to sort and to go a little deeper. Your Now are things you can implement now and are a bit more obvious, your Wow are exciting, new or novel ideas, and the How are Interesting ideas but you’re not sure how to do them yet.
Playful and reflective:
Fire or Fizzle - focuses on the energy a shift brings. Fire is high energy and exciting ideas, and Fizzle means low energy and excitement. You can vote on the Fire ideas after surfacing one or two main ideas.
Try this approach with your own teams and in your collaborative sessions and see how you can guide them through transformations of ideas! I can’t wait to hear how it goes for you. 🙌
✨ Here’s to breaking routine, welcoming the weird, + workshopping with wonder. ✨