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CORE DECK

Core

Universal dysfunctions. Lands across sectors.

78 prompts · 205 responses

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PROMPT
The meeting that could have been an email was actually about…
A PowerPoint with 47 slides that opens with "Let's level-set."CORE

PROMPTS · 78

PROMPT
The meeting that could have been an email was actually about…
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Our digital transformation is really…
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The thing that got "deprioritized" this quarter was…
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Alignment means…
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Leadership's vision is…
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The real org chart is…
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The dashboard nobody checks tracks…
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Our change management strategy is…
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The pilot we're excited about will…
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What we call "governance" is really…
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Our strategic priorities this year are…
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The project we killed last quarter has returned as…
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The committee that owns this decision is called…
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What "user-centered" means in this org is…
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The reason this took nine months is…
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Our north star, in practice, is…
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Leadership alignment happened when…
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The framework we adopted last year is now used for…
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The thing we say in public vs what we say in the room is…
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"Data-driven" in this org means…
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The decision that's been 'in flight' since last April is…
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The report we generate every week goes to…
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The user feedback we actually responded to was…
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The team we renamed last year now calls itself…
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Our innovation agenda this year, replacing last year's, is…
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The person whose opinion ends the debate is…
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A successful meeting in this org requires…
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The 'DRI' on this project actually does…
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What happens when a decision requires input from a fourth team is…
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The external keynote we give describes the company that…
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The decision we've been 'iterating on' for six months is really…
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What we need before we can decide is…
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The phrase that appears in every meeting and resolves nothing is…
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The reply-all from the CEO changed our roadmap because…
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The consultant who arrived three weeks ago now owns…
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The person whose calendar the org orbits is…
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The pre-read for the pre-read is produced by…
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The recurring meeting we all resent ends with…
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Our commitment to 'discipline' shows up as…
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The framework we're rolling out this year is last year's…
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The methodology that renamed itself into the future is called…
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Our transformation office used to be called…
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After a nine-month review, the committee recommended ___.
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To improve efficiency, management replaced human judgment with ___.
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The audit uncovered 47 instances of ___.
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Please initial here to confirm you understand the risks of ___.
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Due to a clerical error, your legal name is now ___.
PROMPT
The consultant's 118-slide deck was mostly about ___.
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Our "people first" culture is built on ___.
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Before we can approve the project, we need a feasibility study on ___.
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The only thing standing between us and progress is ___.
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For security reasons, please dispose of ___ in the confidential shredding bin.
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This year's innovation award goes to ___.
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The emergency preparedness binder was missing one crucial item: ___.
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Welcome to orientation. Step one is ___.
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HR has reclassified ___ as team-building.
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The press release described it as "a bold new chapter in ___."
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The reorganization created a brand-new role: Vice President of ___.
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The annual report proudly highlighted our investment in ___.
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Due to budget constraints, the office holiday party will now consist of ___.
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We take your concerns seriously and have forwarded them to ___.
PROMPT
The pilot program was canceled after an incident involving ___.
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The strategic plan promises faster service through ___.
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To access the bathroom, employees must complete training on ___.
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The town hall ran 90 minutes over because of ___.
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The severance package includes two weeks' pay and ___.
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The onboarding survey asks how comfortable you are with ___.
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Effective immediately, all requests must include ___.
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The committee postponed the vote until we could address ___.
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The whole project could have been an email, but instead it became ___.
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[Pick 2] Our transformation strategy combines ___ with ___.
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[Pick 2] The merger failed when ___ met ___.
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[Pick 2] The new workflow requires ___ and ___.
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[Pick 2] HR says the conflict began with ___ but escalated because of ___.
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[Pick 2] Please choose one: ___ or ___.
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[Pick 2] The keynote promised both ___ and ___ by Q3.
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[Pick 2] For morale, management replaced free coffee with ___ and ___.
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[Pick 2] The policy update clarified the relationship between ___ and ___.

RESPONSES · 205

A PowerPoint with 47 slides that opens with "Let's level-set."CORE
Three VPs waiting for someone else to decide.CORE
The org chart we inherited from the 2019 merger.CORE
A KPI chosen because it's measurable, not because it matters.CORE
Whoever at the table has the longest tenure.CORE
A SharePoint migration with a cover letter.CORE
The one thing the customer actually asked for.CORE
Three teams agreeing to keep doing separate things in parallel.CORE
The slide deck we show external partners.CORE
Whoever trained the new VP before they got promoted.CORE
The metric that used to matter in 2019.CORE
Sending a calendar invite titled "Kickoff — Part 2".CORE
Run in parallel forever.CORE
A RACI chart nobody signed.CORE
A pre-read nobody read before the pre-read meeting.CORE
Whatever the new head of strategy worked on at their last company.CORE
The SharePoint site we migrated to Notion, then back to SharePoint.CORE
A fifteen-person working group with no decision rights.CORE
The vendor our CEO met at Davos.CORE🌶️ HOT
A quarterly offsite that generates one new acronym.CORE
The system of record we keep a spreadsheet next to.CORE
An innovation lab that hasn't shipped anything since 2023.CORE
A "quick sync" that requires a forty-minute context document.CORE
The roadmap we present externally, painted over the one we run on internally.CORE🌶️ HOT
The decision matrix that arrives at the conclusion the CEO wanted on Monday.CORE🌶️ HOT
Thirty minutes of pre-reads, read in the meeting.CORE
A capability we renamed three times without changing.CORE
A steering committee that steers nothing.CORE
Our post-merger integration, year four.CORE
The town hall where nobody asks the question everyone came to ask.CORE
Our user research sample of six, weighted toward people who email us.CORE
The version that got deleted in the rename.CORE
A "strategic partnership" that's a shared Slack channel.CORE
Running it through legal twice just to be sure.CORE
A decision deferred to Q2 so we can 'gather more signal.'CORE
Everyone nodding, then emailing their objections separately.CORE
A follow-up meeting to decide when the decision meeting happens.CORE🌶️ HOT
The person who actually decides, who wasn't in the room.CORE🌶️ HOT
Deferring until the new Chief of Something starts in six weeks.CORE
A pre-alignment call about the alignment call.CORE
The 'no' that nobody will say out loud.CORE
A pilot extended for the third time.CORE
A board deck with the same three slides we used last year.CORE
A CEO LinkedIn post with 'thrilled to announce' in the opener.CORE🌶️ HOT
The keynote where we describe what we'd build if we weren't us.CORE🌶️ HOT
A new logo on the old problem.CORE
An internal newsletter nobody edits.CORE
A dashboard built by someone who left in 2022.CORE
The KPI review that reviews the KPI, not the outcome.CORE
A target hit by renaming the denominator.CORE🌶️ HOT
NPS measured against people who already left.CORE🌶️ HOT
The quarterly report that nobody questions because nobody reads it.CORE
A baseline we set before the pandemic.CORE
The Excel file three teams hold a different version of.CORE
Our north star, currently at 91%, carefully.CORE🌶️ HOT
Six weeks shipping the tool, eighteen months reshaping the team around it.CORE
An adoption number counted by logins, not actions.CORE
Building what the vendor demo'd, not what the users asked for.CORE🌶️ HOT
Our customer journey map, drawn without a customer.CORE
The feature the loudest customer demanded.CORE
A 2,000-response survey that confirmed what it was designed to confirm.CORE🌶️ HOT
A service blueprint that stops at the front door of the org.CORE
'Meeting the customer where they are,' meaning the same intake form.CORE
A redesign that kept the worst part.CORE
A 'fast follow' that never follows.CORE
'Customer Success,' replacing customer service with a cheaper contract.CORE🌶️ HOT
A new name for the team that does the same thing, worse.CORE
A 'modernization' that's the same process in a new tool.CORE
A retro of the retro we ran last quarter about the same issue.CORE
'AI-enabled,' meaning we put a chat box on it.CORE🌶️ HOT
Our 'lean transformation,' now on its third consultant.CORE🌶️ HOT
A 'digital' prefix on three things that weren't.CORE
The word 'agile' inside a Gantt chart.CORE
A workstream renamed a pod renamed a squad renamed a tribe.CORE
Whoever the CEO had dinner with last week.CORE🌶️ HOT
The CTO's Substack, read by the team as scripture.CORE🌶️ HOT
Whoever built the first version and no one's allowed to touch.CORE
The senior's direct report, unofficially running strategy.CORE
Which airplane you shared on the way to the retreat.CORE🌶️ HOT
The ex-McKinsey partner who started Monday.CORE🌶️ HOT
A Slack DM to the VP's old office-mate.CORE
The consultant's deck, cited as if it were research.CORE🌶️ HOT
Whoever's been here longest and hasn't been promoted out.CORE
Sixteen slides of context before one recommendation.CORE
A status update written to perform status, not describe it.CORE
A briefing for the brief.CORE
The Gantt that expanded to cover the Slack channel.CORE
Three ways of tracking the same backlog, none current.CORE
A 60-minute kickoff for a one-day task.CORE
Weekly regroups about what the weekly regroup is for.CORE
The data team, but we're still waiting on the data.CORE
A Slack channel with 312 members and 2 readers.CORE
A 'North Star' that used to be a 'True North.'CORE
An 'agile transformation,' which is last year's 'digital transformation,' which is 2018's 'innovation program.'CORE🌶️ HOT
A 'Center of Excellence,' renamed three times since 2019.CORE
A fresh 'operating model' that's the old org chart with new role titles.CORE
An 'OKRs 2.0' initiative launched by the team that didn't finish OKRs 1.0.CORE🌶️ HOT
The Chief of Staff whose calendar is the org chart.CORE🌶️ HOT
The VP whose one question at the all-hands became Q3 priorities.CORE🌶️ HOT
The contractor who joined six weeks ago and already presents at EC.CORE
Whoever had lunch with the CFO last Thursday.CORE🌶️ HOT
A ten-line email from the board chair that outranks the strategic plan.CORE🌶️ HOT
A pre-read of the pre-read, circulated in advance of the circulation meeting.CORE
Three sync meetings to plan the sync meeting.CORE🌶️ HOT
A retrospective about last retrospective's action items.CORE
A weekly status report nobody opens, generated by a process nobody owns.CORE
A Jira ticket titled 'Align on Jira hygiene.'CORE🌶️ HOT
Strategic ambiguity.CORE
A pre-meeting for the meeting.CORE
The wrong attachment.CORE
Five levels of sign-off.CORE
A portal that redirects to another portal.CORE
The 14th version of the same spreadsheet.CORE
An unreadable org chart.CORE
"Per my last email."CORE
A task force with no tasks.CORE
Provisional approval pending approval.CORE
Stakeholder feelings.CORE
A password that expires during setup.CORE
A typo with legal consequences.CORE🌶️ HOT
The good stapler.CORE
A printer jam with authority.CORE
Leadership visibility.CORE
A risk register full of vibes.CORE
An invoice from the future.CORE
A locked suggestion box.CORE
A workflow shaped like a maze.CORE
Respectful noncompliance.CORE
A support ticket marked "resolved" by faith.CORE
A commemorative spreadsheet.CORE
An optional mandatory meeting.CORE
Recurring confusion.CORE
A confidential PDF named FINAL_v2_REAL.CORE
Cascading accountability.CORE
Emergency laminating.CORE
A hallway conversation mistaken for strategy.CORE
A compliance webinar nobody survives.CORE
The red stamp of destiny.CORE
The illusion of choice.CORE
A deputy vice acting associate director.CORE
A one-page summary of the 80-page summary.CORE
Calendar Tetris.CORE
A coffee budget disguised as innovation.CORE
An intern with full production access.CORE🌶️ HOT
An auto-reply loop between departments.CORE
A reimbursement odyssey.CORE
A white paper written in panic.CORE
A lunch-and-learn about burnout.CORE🌶️ HOT
The ceremonial clicking of "Reply All."CORE
A pilot project with no landing gear.CORE
The same meeting in a different room.CORE
A 2FA code sent to a landline.CORE
A frozen shared drive.CORE
The official font of disappointment.CORE
A merger of two incompatible calendars.CORE
A decision postponed until morale improves.CORE
A policy exception exception.CORE
Three consultants in a trench coat.CORE🌶️ HOT
The vague threat of escalation.CORE
Unauthorized optimism.CORE
An action item with no verb.CORE
A dashboard that raises more questions.CORE
A draft press release for a thing that does not exist.CORE🌶️ HOT
An accountability matrix no one acknowledges.CORE
The cursed conference room.CORE
Paperclips under enhanced monitoring.CORE
A very brave use of Comic Sans.CORE
A legal review of the joke.CORE
The annual sacrifice to Procurement.CORE
A printer that senses fear.CORE
An inspirational pie chart.CORE
A memo that ends with "etc."CORE
The security training video from 2009.CORE
A biometric stapler.CORE
A budget-neutral miracle.CORE
A standing desk with sitting-desk energy.CORE
Interdepartmental finger-pointing.CORE
A form that requires its own form.CORE
A color-coded nightmare.CORE
The ethics hotline voicemail.CORE
Polite panic.CORE
A secure envelope marked "not secure."CORE
The official template of despair.CORE
A six-week fast track.CORE
A smoke test conducted entirely on hope.CORE
Legacy chaos.CORE
An office plant with more authority than you.CORE
A one-hour conversation about fonts.CORE
The project tracker no one is allowed to update.CORE
A mandatory fun survey.CORE
A deeply unserious KPI.CORE
The ceremonial use of the word "synergy."CORE
A cross-functional misunderstanding.CORE
The ninth reminder about the first reminder.CORE
A hallway printer held together by policy.CORE
An "urgent" email from 2017.CORE
A shared inbox nobody owns.CORE
An org-wide reply-all incident.CORE
Operational theater.CORE
A procurement cycle longer than childhood.CORE🌶️ HOT
A draft marked final marked draft.CORE
A parking permit for a remote job.CORE
The phrase "circle back."CORE
One tiny checkbox.CORE
A subcommittee on committee reform.CORE🌶️ HOT
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