Manager Mentor
Am I the Problem?
“Self awareness hurts. Play anyway.”
That’s the tagline for Stefani Okamoto’s new card game — yes, a card game. Not another book or AI vibe-coded tool.
When I interviewed Stefani last year, I called her “America’s champion for managers” — because of her pioneering work at Microsoft and ServiceNow in support of manager development. “Managers future-proof a culture,” she told me then.
Her recently released card game — Am I the Problem — is a true outside-the-box idea to help managers come to grips with what is arguably the most important success factor in managing: self-awareness.
“Self awareness is the number one skill people need to have in order to be strong leaders of others,” Stefani told me. “A lot of the leaders think they have it, and a lot of leaders don’t have it, and so I wanted to create something that was designed to push leaders beyond the point of the surface level of saying that I am self‑aware.”
It’s exactly this point of getting “beyond surface level” awareness that makes Am I the Problem such a timely and different idea. It’s timely because 80+ percent of all first-time managers get no formal training for the job. Embedded within this game are 120 introspective questions about leading a team based on Stefani’s career experience. More on these later.
It’s different from a book or e-learning course because the game is a group activity, and it’s harder to hide your true self when you’re with other people.
That’s the whole point of Stefani’s game: to get a team of people to think out loud about themselves in a group setting. For managers looking for an offsite or workshop team-building exercise, this game takes some courage but that’s what leading is all about.
“I designed the game to push leaders to think a little bit more deeply about who they are and how they lead,” she told me. “I wanted it to surface real behaviors and blind spots — patterns a lot of leaders don’t even realize that they have.”
Manager Homework: How Self-Aware Are You?
I got the game and could tell immediately it asks important and thoughtful questions about how a team works together and how a manager leads the team. And to be clear: the game doesn’t put the manager on the spot. Everyone plays.
I asked Stefani if I could share some of the questions to provide a flavor of the game — and also give readers of this newsletter a homework assignment. Self-awareness is really about understanding how your behaviors impact others. I know for myself, it literally took me more than a decade to understand how not to be defensive.
I encourage you to discuss these sample questions in some way with your team. Tackle them in your upcoming staff meetings to see how Am I the Problem works, and whether this would be a good team exercise for you.
As you read the questions, consider this advice from Stefani: “If you can’t answer the question, or if you can answer it quickly, that’s pretty telling — because it means that you aren’t thinking deeply enough about how you’re showing up on the team.”
Each of the 120 questions comes on cards that are organized into self-awareness themes. Here are four themed examples. How would you answer them?
Theme: Pause & Reflect — For table discussions, storytelling and group insight.
Theme: Leading with Light — Cards that celebrate the good — without the humblebrag.
Theme: Mirror Moments — For leaders ready to face the truth behind their tone, timing, and presence.
Theme: Electric Truth — For leaders brave enough to laugh at their own dysfunction.
“Shit”: Am I the problem?
“I’ve had so many leaders deflect issues,” Stefani says. “I wanted to create something with enough questions that somebody would finally crack through and go, ‘Hold on a minute, shit, that’s me. I’m the problem.’”
You might be. But self-awareness is where to start — you can't fix what you don't know. Am I the Problem is where you start.
Want to know how you score on the behaviors that earn respect? Take the free Six Drivers self-assessment:
How to be a Great First-time Manager: The Culture Platform
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The corporate ladder has been dismantled rung by rung by AI. For millennials and gen-z, the predictable career path has vaporized — and most managers are navigating it alone, without any formal training.
I’ve managed about 5,000 people in my career, and was consistently ranked in the top quartile of all managers at Cisco, one of the world’s best places to work. I’ve walked in your shoes as a manager.
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