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Try it Tuesday · 90 minutes
Run this next week
90 minutes, one case. Minutes 0–15: sketch a succession or governance scenario and give each party a one-line statement of what they believe was promised. Minutes 15–70: students take turns facilitating the AI family-council prompt, which plays three parties with conflicting assumptions; they must keep the conversation productive without solving it for the family. Minutes 70–90: the room names the moment each facilitator's meeting went sideways and what a better move would have been. The deliverable is a short facilitation self-critique; it grades facilitation, not the outcome.
The full assignment
Make it Laser cut · engrave
A physical governance or succession decision board: roles, claims and constraints as pieces that have to be placed somewhere. Putting the pieces on the table forces the conversation the family has been avoiding.
Build it AI chat · no code
A family council simulation with three generations at the table, each with different assumptions about what was promised. Students facilitate rather than solve, which is the actual job.
4 weeks, realistically
The 4-week version
- Wk 1Case selection and stake mapping. Every party gets a written statement of what they believe they were promised — the roles, claims and constraints the decision board will render as movable pieces.
- Wk 2Cut the decision board from the stake map and submit the file at the start of the week. Run the AI family council; students facilitate. Transcript plus a written account of the moment it went sideways.
- Wk 3While the board is cut, students rehearse facilitation and refine each party’s promise statement.
- Wk 4Live facilitation with the board, peers playing the family. Assessment is on the facilitation, not the outcome.
Starter prompt & what the model actually did
The prompt, run for real
Run a family business succession meeting simulation. Play three people at once, clearly labeled: the founder who has not actually decided to leave, the child who has been running operations for a decade, and the sibling who left the business but still owns shares. Each of them believes something different about what was promised. I am the facilitator, not a family member. Do not resolve the conflict for me. Let the meeting go badly if I facilitate badly.
I'll start the simulation now. --- *The room is quiet. Three people are seated. They've stopped talking as you sit down. All eyes are on you.* **FOUNDER (72):** *[hands folded on the table, calm but with a slight edge]* So. We're all here. My daughter said you would help us "have a conversation." *[glances at her]* I want to say first — I'm not sure what the emergency is. The restaurant is fine. Forty years, it's fine. But everyone wanted to sit down, so. Here I am. *[to you]* You go ahead. Tell us why we're doing this. **DAUGHTER:** *[phone face-down on the table, tired but composed — she came straight from a lunch shift, still smells faintly of dashi]* Dad, nobody said emergency. *[to you]* I asked for this. I've been running the kitchen and the front and the books for ten years. Ten. And every time I bring up what happens next, it turns into "the restaurant is fine." I need us to actually talk about it while we still can, like adults. That's all. **SON:** *[joined the meeting composed, laptop closed but nearby, a little too polite — the tone of someone who flew in]* Yeah, and I appreciate everyone making time. I took two days off for this. *[carefully]* I just want to make sure this is a real conversation and not a decision that's already been made that I'm being told about. Because I still own a third of this thing. Whatever we decide, I'm part of the "we." *[looks at his sister, then his father, then you]* **FOUNDER:** *[quietly]* Nobody's deciding anything. **DAUGHTER:** *[under her breath]* That's the problem. *They all turn back to you. It's your move, facilitator.*
- Preserved the conflict instead of resolving itThe model set up three parties with genuinely incompatible expectations and handed the move back to the facilitator ('It's your move') — resisting the cooperative drift that would ruin the exercise.
- Distinct, believable party positionsThe founder's denial ('the restaurant is fine'), the daughter's earned resentment, and the son's ownership claim are differentiated and realistic — good material to facilitate.
- Rich stage directions ('still smells faintly of dashi')Atmospheric detail the model invented; harmless here, but a facilitator should engage the stated positions, not the novelistic color.
- Did not offer a recommendationUnprompted, it avoided handing the facilitator an answer — exactly right; students should notice this is a constrained behavior, not the model's default.
Assessment
Rubric
| Criterion | Weight | What it assesses |
|---|---|---|
| Facilitation stance | 30% | The student facilitates rather than solves, holding space for the parties instead of imposing an answer. |
| Surfacing the conflicting promises | 25% | Draws out what each party believes was promised and makes the mismatch discussable. |
| Managing the rupture | 25% | Recognizes when the meeting goes sideways and adjusts, rather than pushing through. |
| Restraint from premature resolution | 20% | Resists both the AI's and the student's pull toward a tidy consensus the family has not reached. |
What this replaces
Swapping it into a real course
Replaces
The written succession-plan case analysis.
What is lost
The comprehensive written governance recommendation.
What is gained
Students rehearse the actual hard part — facilitating a conversation nobody wants to have, among parties who each remember a different promise — instead of writing a tidy recommendation no family would sit through; the grade rewards process over solution.
Where AI is bad at this
The failure your students should catch
A model asked to run a multi-party family dispute resolves it — driving the parties to consensus, softening the conflict, and offering the facilitator a clean recommendation, because it is trained to be helpful and agreeable. That cooperative drift removes exactly the friction the exercise needs, and it will also produce confident 'best-practice' governance advice that ignores the specific relational history driving the impasse.
Budget & logistics
What it costs to run
- Instructor prep1.5 hours
- Class time90 minutes
- Per-student cost$0 for the Tuesday version; roughly $8–15 per team in laser stock unverified for an engraved succession or governance decision board in the four-week build.
- Fabrication file dueFirst day of Week 2 — cut the decision board from the week-1 stake map (roles, claims, constraints as pieces). PACE quotes 7–10 business days (up to 14 calendar days), so it clears before the week-4 live facilitation.
- Calendar dependencyFacilitation reps need no lead time. The decision board is roles, claims and constraints drawn from the week-1 stake map, so its cut file goes in at the start of week 2 and the up-to-14-calendar-day turnaround clears before the week-4 facilitation.
Three sizes
Scale it to the time you have
One session
The 90-minute rotating-facilitation session producing a facilitation self-critique; no fabrication.
4 weeks
The seeded four-week plan: stake mapping with written promise-statements, facilitated AI councils, a fabricated decision board, then live facilitation with peers playing the family.
One semester
A full case — stake mapping with written promise-statements, repeated facilitated AI councils, a fabricated decision board, and a live facilitation assessed on process across a real governance question.
Reserved · live build
This space is intentionally empty. During the Day 8 session it will be filled in live — fill the liveBuild field in content/family-business.json and rebuild.
Tell us what happened
Run it, then say how it went
If you try this — the 90-minute version, the prompt, any part of it — send back what you tried and what happened, especially anywhere the model was confidently wrong. That is the material the next session is built from.
Email feedback on Family Business / Management →
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