This content was created by Dave Kashen. This content was uploaded by Dave Kashen. This is a YouTube video titled "The Exercise That Made our Whole Team Cry #innergame #workculture #fortune500" (uploaded 2025-11-18). The excerpt is a first-person recounting by a single speaker (labeled SPEAKER A) describing a team-building activity called an "acknowledgement party" where participants moved from asking for acknowledgements to giving them, producing an emotional, two-hour session in which team members (including John, Katarina, Roshni) and the speaker were deeply moved. The speaker also describes taking the experience home to his wife and references a colleague named Dave as the person who knew this would happen; the topic centers on work culture, vulnerability, and the personal impact of structured appreciation exercises.
Chapters
And we waited, we made it slowly. I mean, 30 minutes in the first round, right? Uh, it was painful. And I, I'm like, Dave's like, stop this, like, whatever. And so we keep going and the second round it's like 10 minutes. So people start getting a little more comfortable and somewhere through the second round, rather than asking for acknowledgement, when people came, they say, oh, I wanna ask for, but you know, before I do that, actually, John, I really wanna acknowledge you for running the New York office. Like you're doing a fantastic job and it's great to see X, Y, and Z. And then, you know, Katarina says to Roshni, like, oh, you're a mom. You just had a baby and you're also the CFO of the company. Like, that's really impressive. And I think about that a lot. I've never shared that with you. Now all of a sudden, like, and I'm getting chills telling this story right now, this, it starts to go around the table, popcorn around the table. It's 2 hours. Everybody's crying and everyone is, everyone stopped asking for acknowledgements and instead giving each other acknowledgements that they've never said to each other after many, many years of working together. And it was one of the most powerful things. And like, I went home to my wife, right? And I'm like, I acknowledge you for this, I acknowledge you. And she starts crying. She's like, oh my God, you've like been— we know each other forever, I've never— you've never said any of those things to me. And it was just— and there was appreciations and acknowledgments, but it was— everybody walked away feeling seen and, and felt in a way that had never happened. And, and I think I looked at Dave, and oftentimes he does these things, I'm like, oh, you knew that was gonna happen. He's like, yeah, that's, that's called a acknowledgement party and, and you start by asking for it, but then very quickly everyone turns and starts giving it. And I, it was just a, it was just a beautiful moment. Um, that I, that I like, it was one of the most powerful shifts for me as a person to see and feel that.
