What one hour can start — the 5 Guiding Principles at the Innovation Roundtable, Munich

Why this hour existed

The Innovation Roundtable brings senior leaders from the world's largest companies together around what actually moves organisations forward. The Munich edition, hosted at Amazon HQ, asked a timely question: as companies pour resources into AI adoption, what happens to the human culture that has to carry it?

Our answer fits in one hour, and it involves no slides about culture. Psychological safety is the condition that lets people experiment, speak up and fail intelligently — everything AI adoption demands of a workforce. Everyone in that room had heard the concept. The hour existed so they could feel it.

What we delivered

A one-hour experiential session built on the 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV: Yes, And · Do Not Judge Yourself · Do Not Judge Others · Embrace Failure · Make Each Other Look Good. Stefan Pagels Christensen of IMPROV Communication and Dr. Andreas E. Wagner of Amazon facilitated together, connecting the principles to the EPIC Leadership framework — Empathy, Purpose, Inspiration, Connection.

Twenty-five executives spent the hour doing — exercises that demand full attention, honest reaction and quick recovery. Each person closed by writing a WISDOM commitment (What I Shall Do On Monday): one specific behaviour to change back at work. Everyone who opted in then received the 5 Guiding Principles reflection material and the EPIC Leadership ebook to keep the commitment alive.

What the participants told us

The room committed to changing its language. Asked what they would do differently on Monday, six of the twenty respondents — unprompted, independently — named the same micro-habit: replacing "yes, but" with "yes, and". One committed to "track that I don't say Yes, but or No, but." Another five committed to listening before forming an opinion. For a one-hour session, that convergence is the headline: the room left with a habit you can catch yourself doing mid-sentence.

Which principles resonated most.

Principle named as most resonant	Mentions
Yes, And	8
Make Each Other Look Good	5
Do Not Judge Yourself	4
Do Not Judge Others	4
Embrace Failure	1

Make Each Other Look Good taking second place is unusual for an introduction session, and the reasoning was thoughtful — one respondent called it "the kind of atmosphere that everyone wants for themselves"; another described it as "an eye-opener to understand the power of it".

The self-awareness ran deeper than the clock suggests. In sixty minutes, senior leaders noticed how much they hold back ("I tend to not say something because it's too obvious"), what perfectionism costs ("I focus too much on performing well and not making mistakes, which might impede creativity and agency"), and what letting go returns ("I become much more creative, present, and connected with others when I stop overthinking and trying to control everything").

In their own words

Use more "yes and" instead of "yes, but" in meetings. With that show more curiosity and interest in other people's point of view. — Anonymous respondent, on what they'll do differently

Repeat the last thing my conversation partner tells to reaffirm, and speak after 2 breaths. — Anonymous respondent

I felt absolutely stupid at the beginning and thought, why on earth did I join… — Anonymous respondent, who by the end described understanding how deliberately one can shape the atmosphere of a group

I'm comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. — Anonymous respondent, on what they noticed about themselves

I noticed how much emotional safety and awareness impact both how I feel and how I perform. — Anonymous respondent

What happened after the hour

Every respondent opted in to continue — a 100% opt-in rate for the reflection material and the EPIC Leadership ebook. Responses to the survey kept arriving for two and a half weeks after the session; people came back to it days later, unprompted.

The most telling signal sits in the commitments themselves: three respondents independently committed to bringing the experience to their own teams — trying the exercises, raising it in their management team, carrying the spirit of the session into how their team works. One hour became the start of several.

Bring this to your organisation

An hour like this works wherever leaders have heard plenty about psychological safety and felt very little of it: conference sessions, leadership offsites, the opening of a larger programme. And an hour is deliberately a beginning — the behavioural change that lasts comes from the full journey: pre-training activation, experiential deep-dives, and the structured follow-up that turns a good hour into a different Monday.

Source: anonymous post-training survey, April–May 2026. 20 of 25 participants responded.