Name what’s
in the way

You’re about to sort fourteen cards. Each card names a pattern that can slow an organization from acting on the challenges it faces — things like short-term pressure crowding out bigger stakes, or every unit protecting its own turf. For each card, decide how strongly that pattern operates where you work, and place it in one of three groups: blocking action now, present but manageable, or not really a factor here.

How it works
  • No account
  • Private to you
  • About 15 minutes
SH

Short-Horizon Pressure

Short-term performance demands crowd out long-horizon stakes.

What you might see

Decisions favor immediate financial returns. Slow-burning impacts don’t fit the reporting cycle.

Why it's worth fifteen minutes

In a CCL study of 1,080 employees in 36 countries, most organizations were dealing with several disruptions at once — workforce shortages, cyberattacks, climate impacts, political instability. What varied was whether employees could point to something their organization had actually done about it. Where they could, employees were more hopeful about their organization’s capacity to make a positive difference. That shared belief is the collective hope this tool is named after. Employees with that hope were more engaged and more likely to stay. What an organization said it valued mattered less than what its employees could see it do.

1,080

employees studied

36

countries

15 min

to complete

14

cards to sort

Where employees could point to something their organization had actually done, they were more hopeful about its capacity to make a positive difference. That shared belief is the collective hope this tool is named after. Employees with that hope were more engaged and more likely to stay.

Fourteen barriers to collective action

Each card names one pattern that can prevent an organization from acting on the challenges it faces. You decide which apply to your organization — and how strongly.

SH
Short-Horizon Pressure
Short-term performance demands crowd out long-horizon stakes.
SL
Solutionism
Waiting for a tool or technology to fix what only changed behavior will.
SP
Someone Else’s Problem
Treating downstream consequences as someone else’s problem.
RS
Resignation
“Nothing we do will matter.”
CN
Crisis Numbness
Too much going on to track which crises matter.
TS
Too Sure We’re Right
Confidence in our own playbook keeps us from questioning how we work.
MS
Mental Shortcuts
Falling back on familiar answers when the problem is complex.
SG
Signal Overload
Too many voices and viewpoints to even define the problem.
ED
Expertise Discounted
Expert judgment no longer settles disagreement.
SS
Source over Substance
Information judged by who’s saying it, not by what it says.
OC
Overwhelmed by Complexity
Too complex to believe we’ll ever solve it.
SQ
Defending the Status Quo
Those who benefit from things as they are have the leverage to block change.
SF
Stakeholder Fragmentation
The parties can’t agree on what the problem is, let alone the solution.
SR
Shared-Resource Dilemma
When everyone draws from the same shared resource, each acting in their own interest, the resource erodes for all — and no single party can protect it alone.

Three steps. One clear pattern.

Sort the deck, rank what matters most, and leave with the strategies that move it.

Step 01
Sort the cards
You will see fourteen cards, one at a time. For each one, decide whether the pattern it names is blocking action now, is present but manageable, or is not really a factor where you work. Go with what you honestly see today.
Step 02
Review and rank
Once every card is placed, you see all three groups together. You can move cards from one group to another, and you put your five critical cards in order from most to least critical. The groups need to hold five, five and four cards before you can confirm.
Step 03
Get your takeaway
Your five critical cards are regrouped by the strategy that addresses them, and each card comes with a question worth sitting with. You finish by writing down one thing you could do in the next thirty days.

Three things to keep in mind

When an organization does not act, something specific is usually in the way. Sorting the cards gives a name to what is blocking your organization, and you’ll end with a short report naming the pattern you’ve identified — a starting point for a conversation with your team, not a verdict.

Your sort is private. No sign-in or personal information is required. What you write is saved so you can come back to it on this browser, and sharing it is always your choice.
Sort what you observe, not what you think you should believe. The diagnostic value comes from honesty, including honesty about uncomfortable patterns.
Trust your first read. If a card immediately pings recognition, that’s data. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Don’t talk yourself into or out of placements.