Workshop pre-work email

Send the work before the chairs fill.

A workshop pre-work email is a contract, not a reading list. Time, place, what “done” looks like, three tasks that fit in twenty to ninety minutes, and what to bring. Bracketed words are yours. Do not add a paragraph about how excited you are.

Subject lines without heat. No exclamation points.

Three tasks, numbered. If you need seven, you do not have pre-work. You have a course.

Tell them what the room is not: not a slide review, not a brainstorm, not optional after minute ten.

If they cannot come, they write you so the chairs are honest.

1. Leadership offsite — 90 minutes of prep

Send 48 hours ahead with the results one-pager attached. Matches the half-day offsite agenda.

Subject: Thursday offsite — 90 minutes of prep, not a pre-read pile

Team —

We lock the next two quarters on Thursday, 9:00–1:00, [west room]. This is not an all-hands and it is not a slide review. Phones go in a bowl. If you cannot make the full four hours, tell me by Tuesday noon so we can reset the room — partial attendance kills this format.

Before you walk in:

1. Print the attached results one-pager. Circle the three numbers that still surprise you. Bring the paper, not a tab.
2. Write six facts on stickies (I will have extras): three about the market, three about us. A fact is something the person who disagrees with you would still nod at. Not “we need to move faster.”
3. Come with one thing you believe we should stop doing this quarter. You will say it out loud.

We will leave with at most three bets, named owners, and a sentence the rest of the company will hear on Friday. If that makes you nervous, good — bring the nervousness, not a counter-deck.

See you Thursday.
— [Your name]

2. Ninety-minute working session — twenty minutes, not a novel

For a cut-the-list room: three bets, owners, stops. Pair with the workshop run of show template.

Subject: Pre-work for [Cut the list] on [date] — 20 minutes

Hello,

You are confirmed for [Cut the list: three Q3 bets].

When: [date], [10:00–11:30]
Where: [room / link]
Length: 90 minutes
For: people who can kill work, not only add it
Run by: [Your name]

What we are after
Three bet sentences. One owner each. A stop-doing list with a name beside every kill. A 48-hour action per person.

Please do this before you arrive (20 minutes):

1. List every named Q3 bet you still hear in the building. Ten is fine. Twenty means we already failed.
2. Circle the three you would keep if the rest had to die. Write one sentence for each: who it serves, what will be true by [end of quarter], what you would starve to pay for it.
3. Bring one thing you are willing to stop this month. You will say it.

Bring a pen. Laptops stay closed except the scribe. You do not need a deck. A notebook is enough. The workbook will be in the room.

If you cannot come, write [you@company] so the chairs are honest.

[Your name]
[Your role]

3. Cohort kickoff — hospitality with a clock

Send a week ahead. Pre-work here is identity and a first artifact, not a syllabus dump.

Subject: [Cohort name] kickoff on [date] — what to send me by [day]

Hello,

Kickoff is [date], [9:30–12:00], [room]. Full name, [N] people, [N] weeks. We start on time. We end on time. The workbook is printed; you do not need a laptop in the first hour.

Before you arrive, do this (30 minutes):

1. Reply to this email with four lines: the name you want in the room, the job you actually do, the problem you walked in carrying, and one thing you are not willing to fake for [N] weeks.
2. Send or bring one artifact of recent work — a memo, a deck page, a ticket, a photo of a whiteboard. We will look at real pages, not biographies.
3. Read the one-page covenant attached. If you cannot live with a line, write me before Tuesday. We will not workshop values in the room.

Bring: the artifact, a pen, whatever you need to be in a chair for two and a half hours. Leave: the twelve-slide introduction to your function.

If you cannot come, write [you@institute.org] by [date]. Empty chairs change the cohort. I would rather know.

[Your name]
[Cohort lead]

Send once. Do not send a reminder that restates the whole letter. If you must bump, one line: “Still on for Thursday 9:00. The one-pager is the only attachment.”

What to cut before you hit send

A second attachment they will not print. One packet.
“Feel free to” and “as you see fit.” Tell them the task.
A brand paragraph about the firm, the course, or Places.
A calendar blob with no outcomes. Time without a job is a hold.

In Places, the pre-work email lives on the public kit, next to paper and the live run. Copy it from /t/offsite. No studio. The letter and the workbook describe the same room.

Start the offsite live — the 48-hour letter is on the kit · Or the 1:1s kit · Participant workbook · Offsite agenda · All guides