Run this with your team as often as you like, on us until 31 December 2026. Tell us who you are and the activity opens. We won’t email you, and we won’t add you to any list. Your team doesn’t need to do this. They just scan the code and pick their cards.
What we do with this
What we keep. Your name, your email and the date.
Why. So we know who is using our free tools, and so we can reach you if something goes wrong with one.
Where. In our own database (Supabase, Sydney). It never goes into our marketing list, and we never sell it or pass it on.
How long. Until you ask us to remove it, or until we retire the tool.
Your team. Everyone who scans the code gives their name and email too, and sees this same panel. What they write on their own phone stays on their phone. We count the cards chosen, kept apart from any name.
A week holds more feeling than most teams ever name. The wins get celebrated, the hard moments get skipped, and by Monday we’re all pretending last week didn’t happen. The Weekly Retro gives everyone a safe, simple way to say how the week really felt. It’s the simplest and most impactful conversation you can have with a team, and it opens every workshop we run.
What it is
Each person picks one black card and one white card from the Emotional Culture Deck for how they felt last week, then shares the card and why. Black cards are the feelings we want more of. White cards are the ones we’d rather not feel. Both belong in the room.
Pick one black card for how you felt last week. Share it, and why.
Pick one white card for how you felt last week. Share it, and why. Then follow up: What did you learn from your white card feeling last week? How might that unpleasant feeling be helpful next time it comes up?
If you have room, go deeper with steps 3 to 6 from the guide.
Close with a bright spot and a one-card check-out.
How to run it
In a room. Put this on the screen and lay a deck out on the table. People can pick from the deck, from the screen, or on their phones.
On Zoom, Teams or Circle. Share this screen. People scan the QR or type the link to pick on their phones and keep their cards in front of them while they talk. On the screen, tap a card to choose it, just like the phone. It sits under the cards and on the share slide that follows. Tap it there to show it large while someone shares.
A big group. Run the picks together, then send people into pairs or small breakout rooms to share.
How to hold it
The leader goes first. Your honesty sets the depth for everyone else. If you pick Confident and Overwhelmed and tell the real story, the room will follow you there. Listen more than you fix. Thank each person. A feeling shared isn’t a problem to solve in the moment.
What if
Someone doesn’t want to share? Let them pass, and come back to them at the end if they’d like.
Two people pick the same card? Lovely. Ask what the same feeling looked like in each of their weeks.
It goes somewhere heavy? Slow down and thank them. If it needs more care than the room can give, offer a one-to-one afterwards.
You want to run it every week? Please do. It builds into a ritual, and the patterns across weeks become the conversation.
This is a new, interactive style of tool. It’s a prototype and it’s free for now. One day it may sit inside a model we’re still deciding on. Everyone who scans the code gives a name and an email on their own phone before they pick. We count the cards chosen, kept apart from names, and whatever anyone writes in Go deeper stays on their phone.
Pick one black card and one white card for how your week felt, then keep them in front of you while you share.
The question
How have you felt this past week?
Step 1 · Your black card
Think about your last week… Pick the black card that best describes how you felt last week.
Step 2 · Your white card
Think about your last week… Pick the white card that best describes how you felt.
Go deeper · just for you
The conversation.
Answer what you want and skip what you don’t. Whatever you write stays on your phone, and goes onto a page you can keep.
Step 3
Share a story about why you felt each of those feelings last week. Describe what caused those feelings to surface for you.
Step 4
What’s one thing you could change or do to help you manage or cope next time you experience that same unpleasant feeling?
Step 5
Describe three things that went well last week. What role did you play in them going well?
Step 6
What’s one thing you learned last week that you can use to improve how you do things this week?
This page doesn’t keep a copy of anything you write here. It stays on your phone until you save or send it.
Yours to keep
Carry this into the week.
Save it to your phone or send it to yourself, so the week you just named does not disappear by Monday.
riders&elephants · WEEKLY RETRO
How my week felt.
Rehumanising workplaces, one conversation at a time. · ridersele.com
My cards
How my week felt
My black card
My white card
Then ask
What did you learn from your white card feeling last week?
How might that unpleasant feeling be helpful next time it comes up?
Hold these up or keep them in front of you while you share your cards, and why.
If you go deeper
Tap Go deeper on your own to answer these on your phone and save them.
3. Share a story about why you felt each of those feelings last week. Describe what caused those feelings to surface for you.
4. What’s one thing you could change or do to help you manage or cope next time you experience that same unpleasant feeling?
5. Describe three things that went well last week. What role did you play in them going well?
6. What’s one thing you learned last week that you can use to improve how you do things this week?
Whatever you write on this phone stays on this phone. We count the cards chosen, kept apart from your name and email, so nothing you pick is traced back to you. It’s a new, interactive style of tool, a prototype and free for now. Made with The Emotional Culture Deck by riders&elephants.
