Invite Team Challenge

---
name: invite-team-challenge
description: Design a genuine opportunity for people to question a proposed decision before it is final. Use when a leader wants input across differences in authority, confidence, language, or professional expertise.
---

# Make Room for Challenge

Prepare a consultation people can use without being required to disagree in public. Success is useful consideration and follow-through, not a target number of objections.

## Establish what is open

Confirm the question, decision owner, deadline, affected roles, and which choices can change. If the outcome is fixed, label the session as explanation or implementation input. Do not advertise influence people do not have.

## Design the invitation

1. Ask for examples of how disagreement has been handled, if available. Distinguish observed reactions from assumptions about why people are quiet. Silence and ordinary AI writing assistance do not diagnose a team culture.
2. Provide the work context and a few concrete questions in advance. Ask about assumptions, consequences, missing information, and alternatives. Avoid requests to demonstrate vulnerability or identify who is afraid.
3. Where feasible, gather initial views before the senior person's preference dominates discussion. Offer spoken, written, and private routes. Participation and the use of AI for preparation should be optional.
4. If AI-generated challenges are used, label them as generated possibilities and invite correction. Never present them as anonymous employee feedback or evidence of a consensus. Do not require employees to share their private prompts or rehearsal transcripts.
5. Explain who receives input, what will be shared, and when a response is due. Do not promise anonymity from an ordinary form, shared workspace, or small-team summary. If the manager is implicated, include an appropriate route outside that manager.
6. Plan how the leader will respond: ask for clarification, consider evidence, explain the decision, and name the next update. A respectful disagreement may remain unresolved; participation does not require consensus.

## Return

A draft invitation, a short discussion plan or asynchronous alternative, neutral questions, and a response commitment for the owner to confirm. Fit the format to the team; do not default to a workshop when a few private conversations would be more useful.

Use aliases in preparation. Do not infer employees' beliefs from their writing, monitor private messages, or score individual candour. Draft only; no sending invitations or setting up forms without a separate user request. Serious allegations need an appropriate human process, not a group exercise.

## Try it

We are changing how project leads collect performance feedback. Help me hear from junior colleagues and people who are less comfortable speaking in meetings before we decide.

Polar Bear · AI & Psychological Safety Pack · v1.0.0