Mirror Facilitator Guide

• Mirror creates perspective, not a verdict. Stakeholder input, synthesis, and AI guidance surface patterns, raise questions, and stimulate thinking. The Participant and Development Leader determine what matters and what to do with what they learn.
• The development conversation is the point. The portrait makes the conversation between the Participant and Development Leader rich, grounded, and productive.
• The Development Leader leads. The Facilitator guides the process, helps prepare the Development Leader, and supports the conversation without taking it over.

Five roles carry the developmental work of a Mirror reflection:

• Sponsor brings Mirror into the organization and stands behind its use, usually the CEO or another senior leader. The Sponsor typically stays constant as Mirror cascades through the organization.
• Development Leader leads the development conversation. They engage the Participant, draw out their thinking, add perspective, and help turn insight into development. This role changes as Mirror cascades. A CEO may serve as Development Leader for an executive, who then becomes Development Leader for someone on their own team.
• Participant is the person at the center of the reflection. They help identify stakeholders whose perspectives matter, engage with the resulting portrait, and decide what to do with what they learn.
• Stakeholders are the colleagues who contribute the perspective. Each responds through their own private link and joins the session where the group agrees on one consolidated portrait. Stakeholders work through links rather than accounts, so they are not sign-in roles like Facilitator, Development Leader, or Administrator.
• Facilitator guides the Mirror process. They help establish the reflection, support synthesis, run the stakeholder session where the group agrees on one consolidated view, prepare the Development Leader, and help the development conversation work.

An additional operating role keeps reflections moving:

• Administrator manages the mechanics. They set up and track Participants and stakeholders, distribute reflection links, monitor responses, follow up as needed, coordinate timing and materials, and keep the reflection moving through the process.

For a small number of Mirrors, the Facilitator may also serve as Administrator. As the number of Participants grows, the roles can be separated so the Facilitator can concentrate on work that requires judgment and facilitation.

The Administrator supports the process but does not determine stakeholders, interpret stakeholder input, or make development judgments unless they also hold another Mirror role.

Before using the app, settle three things:

• The period being reflected on.
• Who the stakeholders are.
• Who will see what.

The Development Leader and Participant typically determine the stakeholder group together. The Sponsor may also have input. As Facilitator, help them select people who have observed the Participant closely enough, and in sufficiently different contexts, to contribute meaningful perspective.

Make the Participant an active part of stakeholder selection. Their involvement creates ownership of the process and affects how they receive and work with the resulting portrait.

Before invitations go out, agree on:

• Who will be permitted to view individual stakeholder responses.
• Whether stakeholder names may or must be disclosed to the Participant.
• What the Participant will receive.
• What stakeholders will be told about confidentiality and attribution.

The recommended default is that individual stakeholder responses remain with the Facilitator and Development Leader. The Participant receives the synthesized portrait and may ask to see more, which is up to you to share or not, as follows:

• Mirror does not make confidentiality decisions for you. The Facilitator can see every response attributed by name, and nothing is automatically released to the Participant.
• What you and the Development Leader tell stakeholders about attribution governs. State the terms plainly in the invitation, communicate the same terms to everyone, and honor them throughout the process.

Even when anonymity has not been promised, we recommend withholding attribution until after the development conversation. Begin the development conversation with what stakeholders collectively see rather than who said what. After the portrait has been discussed, attribution may be shared if the Participant asks and the stakeholders are comfortable with it.

Assign an Administrator before collection begins. Make clear who is responsible for the mechanics from start to finish.

Once the stakeholder group and confidentiality terms are settled, the Administrator:

• Creates or confirms the Participant's reflection.
• Records the Development Leader, Facilitator, reflection period, and agreed stakeholders.
• Generates the appropriate Participant self-reflection and stakeholder reflection links.
• Keeps a record of which stakeholder receives which link.
• Distributes the links with the agreed instructions and due date.
• Monitors responses and follows up with stakeholders who have not responded.
• Notifies the Facilitator and Development Leader when collection is complete.
• Coordinates timing and materials as the reflection moves through synthesis, the stakeholder agreement session, delivery, and the development conversation.

This role carries out decisions made through the Mirror process; it does not make them.

Mirror accounts are approved individually, so each Facilitator, Development Leader, or Administrator signs in with their own account and sees the reflections they own or have accepted a role on. Stakeholders and the Participant do not need an account to answer through their private links.

The account that creates a reflection owns it. The owner invites collaborators by email, either in the Who else is involved section on the setup page or later from the roles panel on the reflection hub. The colleague must sign in with the invited email and accept the invitation before access opens. Assigning a role does not send an email; send your colleague a separate message asking them to sign in. One person may hold several roles. An Administrator-only collaborator can manage setup and links but cannot read responses or the portrait. The creator has all capabilities, so use a separate invited Administrator account when content must stay private. The owner can also transfer ownership to another Mirror account, choosing which roles to keep, when the person who set the reflection up is not the one who will carry it.

Each reflection draws on the pool of Mirrors purchased for the organization it belongs to:

• Creating a reflection holds one Mirror from that organization's pool, so drafts cannot accumulate without limit.
• It is spent when the first synthesis is generated.
• Deleting a reflection before any synthesis returns it to the pool, so setup and collection can be restarted freely. Deleting after synthesis does not return it.

Additional Mirrors may be added during an organization's engagement period and draw from the same organizational pool.

Purchased Mirrors may be used during the twelve-month engagement. Unused Mirrors expire at its end and do not carry forward. Access ends with the engagement unless an extension is arranged with IntelliVen.

An approved new facilitator can use one introductory Mirror through their first organization. Accounts used only to accept collaborator roles do not receive their own Mirrors. Contact IntelliVen to arrange additional Mirrors for the appropriate organization; sharing a signup link again does not grant another Mirror.

Consultants and HR partners often run Mirror for more than one client organization. Mirror keeps client organizations separate through Organizations. Each organization has its own sponsor, engagement dates, pool of purchased Mirrors, and reflections.

How to work with them:

• Create an organization for each client before setting up reflections. Enter its name, sponsor, and any useful note. You do not enter engagement dates: the twelve-month term starts automatically at the first successful synthesis in that organization. Existing engagement dates are preserved.
• Every reflection is created against one organization, chosen on the setup page. The organization cannot be left blank, because the reflection draws from that organization's pool.
• For a reflection that is not part of a client engagement — someone in your own firm, or an individual you are working with directly — create an organization for your own practice and run those reflections there.
• Individual reflections, teams, divisions, and cohorts within the same client organization draw from the same Mirrors. Separate client organizations need separate engagements; a team is not a separate pricing unit.
• All reflections is grouped by organization, so one account can hold several engagements without mixing them.

Access follows the reflection, not the organization: collaborators you invite to a reflection see only that reflection. Invite each client's Development Leader and Administrator from within that client's reflections only, so no one gains visibility across engagements.

If a client requires that no consultant account hold their reflections, have someone inside the organization create the reflection and invite you as Facilitator. Ownership stays with them; your access ends when the role is removed.

1. Open Set up a reflection and choose the organization with available Mirrors.
2. Enter the Participant’s name and role. The field called Review period describes the work being reflected on (for example “Q3 2026”); it is not the organization’s engagement term.
3. Add optional context and the agreed stakeholders. Four to ten works well; the maximum is twenty-five. Do not put client matters or other sensitive details in the context.
4. Under Who else is involved, assign colleagues’ roles by email if needed. Naming someone in a descriptive field is not a substitute for assigning access.
5. Select Continue. On the reflection hub, review names, the self-reflection link, cover note, and stakeholder links before sending anything. Use Edit details to correct setup.

Return through All reflections to find your work across organizations. If Mirrors have run out, contact IntelliVen for that organization rather than creating another organization to bypass its limit.

When several people in a team or cohort are all reflecting together, use Set up a team reflection instead of creating each portrait individually. You enter the team once, and Mirror creates a reflection for every member and generates one packet of links per person.

How to set it up:

• Choose the organization the team belongs to. Every member's reflection is created inside that organization and draws from its pool, so a team is simply a set of reflections under one client engagement.
• Enter a shared reflection period (for example, “FY26” or “Q3 Leadership Cohort”) and optional context that every stakeholder will see.
• Add each team member with their name, role, and any stakeholders outside the team who should also give input on that person.
• By default, everyone reflects on everyone, and each person also gets their own self-reflection. Uncheck any pairing you do not want.
• Click Create reflections and links. Mirror produces one reflection per participant and one private packet of links per person, ready to copy and send.

Each participant's reflection uses one Mirror from the organization's pool, counted when the first synthesis is generated for that portrait, so the organization needs at least as many available Mirrors as there are members. The team builder currently supports up to fifteen members per set; larger cohorts can be split into multiple team sets under the same organization.

The permanent link to any team set is saved on the All reflections page, so you can return later to reopen or re-send the packets.

Invite the agreed stakeholders and make the purpose clear. They are contributing perspective to help someone learn and develop. Encourage them to be candid, specific, constructive, and grounded in what they have personally observed.

Where the Administrator distributes the invitations, the Facilitator and Development Leader remain responsible for the purpose, framing, confidentiality, and attribution terms communicated in them.

On the hub, use Edit note to adapt the cover note to your purpose, due date, and confidentiality terms. Use Copy invite beside each name to copy the message with that person’s link, then paste it into your own email or message. Link only copies just the link. Mirror never sends invitations or reminders for you.

For a whole team or organization, you can write the cover note once instead of editing it reflection by reflection. Open the organization from Organizations, choose See its reflections, and use Cover note for everyone → Edit once to apply the same note to every open reflection there. Write{participant} where each participant's name should appear; it is filled in per reflection.

When one colleague is asked about several people in the same set, send them one message rather than several. On that same filtered reflections page, open Invites by stakeholder to see each stakeholder with the participants they cover and how many responses are still pending, then copy a single email carrying every unique link that belongs to them. Remind recipients that their links are personal and must not be forwarded.

Send the Participant their separate Copy self link. Monitor Pending and Responded on the hub and follow up yourself. A copied invitation is not a sent invitation.

Treat reflection links as assigned records. Each stakeholder link belongs to a specific stakeholder. Before distribution, verify the Participant, stakeholder, reflection period, and link assignment. Maintain the tracking record until collection is complete.

Stakeholders, including the Participant through their self-reflection, are asked the same five questions:

• What is this person especially good at?
• What has this person contributed?
• How has this person grown?
• What should they focus on next?
• What other input or advice would help?

The self-reflection uses the same five prompts, rephrased in the first person. This lets the Participant compare their own view with what colleagues see.

The Administrator monitors participation and follows up as needed. The Facilitator determines, with the Development Leader as appropriate, when the collected perspectives are sufficient to proceed.

From the hub, open Read or download all stakeholder inputs (PDF)to review the originals. They are read-only here: only the respondent’s private link can edit their answers. Use the inclusion control to withhold an input when warranted, not simply because it is uncomfortable or differs from the majority. Withholding does not delete the original. If a portrait already exists, rerun synthesis and check the edited draft and exports to ensure they no longer carry the withheld input.

Select Continue to synthesis, then Generate the synthesis. The app allows this after one stakeholder responds, but that is not a recommendation to proceed with one voice: four to ten stakeholders is the usual target. Review readiness with the Development Leader. Look for:

• Recurring themes and areas of broad agreement.
• Different or competing perspectives.
• Strengths worth building on.
• Development opportunities worth exploring.
• Questions that could help the Participant and Development Leader go deeper.

Treat the synthesis as a thinking aid. Review it against the underlying stakeholder input. Consider whether it fairly represents what was said, what may need clarification, and what remains unresolved.

For late responses or a changed selection of inputs, return to synthesis. Leave Keep my edits checked and use Fold in the new reflections to retain your edited wording while incorporating new input. Uncheck it to Regenerate from scratch. Save an export of important edits first. Rerunning does not use another Mirror.

The Participant’s self-reflection stays out of the collective portrait. If submitted and included, it supports the separate Self view vs. collective viewpreparation section. This is not in the shared brief; export it separately with Download comparison only if appropriate. You may proceed without a self-reflection.

Open Companion from the reflection hub, original inputs, synthesis, or editing page. Ask a suggested question or type your own and send it. It uses the current reflection as context; it does not automatically change the portrait. Copy any wording you choose into the editor yourself.

• Good questions to ask: What themes recur? Is anything missing or overstated? Is this phrased fairly? How might I word a hard message so the Participant can hear it?
• Treat answers as suggestions. You decide what goes in the portrait, and the stakeholders agree on the final view together.
• Keep confidential details out. Avoid client names, matters, or other sensitive specifics in your messages.
• Messages are limited. The panel shows how many messages remain for your account. Contact IntelliVen if you need more; clearing the conversation does not replenish your messages.
• Clear or close deliberately. Use “Clear this conversation” to remove the saved conversation for this reflection. Closing out the reflection also deletes its Companion history. Save any notes you need first.

The Development Leader reviews and edits the synthesis into a draft reflection for the stakeholders to consider. The draft should capture the collective perspective as accurately and constructively as possible, but it does not become the group's reflection until the stakeholders have reviewed and agreed to it together.

Before it becomes final, convene the stakeholders as a group to review the edited reflection together. This step is required because Mirror is designed to produce a collective reflection, not merely an AI summary of individual comments. Meet live, in person or by video, with the draft in front of everyone.

Do not substitute individual review for the group session. Sending the draft around for separate comment produces silence or light edits and leaves no one owning the message. The purpose of convening is to hammer out a single consolidated view that the group has argued through and stands behind together.

Treat the opening summary as a rough draft only. It is machine-made scaffolding meant to give the group something to react to. Expect to throw it out and replace it with wording the stakeholders write together in the session, or to drop it entirely if the sections that follow say it better.

In the session, work through the reflection section by section. Ask each stakeholder to say what they agree with, what they would sharpen, what is missing, and what they cannot support. Resolve differences out loud. Where the group cannot reach agreement, decide explicitly whether the point is dropped or presented as a genuine difference of view. Close by confirming, out loud, that every stakeholder can stand behind the final wording.

The Facilitator runs the session and keeps it constructive. The Administrator coordinates the meeting, distribution, responses, and materials as needed.

The Development Leader captures the group's decisions and edits the reflection accordingly, then circulates the final version so the stakeholders can see their conclusions reflected.

This is the point at which individual perspectives become a collective communication. The goal is a final reflection the stakeholders have agreed to as a group, that represents what they want the Participant to hear, and that the Development Leader is prepared to deliver on the group's behalf.

The Development Leader then prepares for the conversation:

• Decide what to emphasize and in what sequence.
• Prepare the messaging or talking script that will accompany the written reflection.
• Identify questions that will help draw out the Participant rather than simply explain the document to them.
• Anticipate areas that may require context, clarification, support, or deeper discussion.
• Decide who should participate in the conversation. Most reflections will be discussed one-on-one between the Development Leader and Participant. For a CEO, for example, it may be appropriate for the ELT or another stakeholder group to participate.
• Schedule enough uninterrupted time for a substantive development conversation.

In the editor, check that your changes have saved, then use View the final brief. The page’s label does not certify stakeholder agreement; that remains your responsibility. Use Download PDF for the agreed portrait or Download editable draftfor further work outside Mirror. Check the downloaded material before sharing, especially quotes, attribution, and any stakeholder appendix.

Once the Development Leader confirms the reflection is final, the Administrator coordinates delivery to the Participant and the scheduled conversation. Give the Participant the final reflection shortly before the meeting, allowing enough time to read and absorb it while keeping the written reflection and development conversation closely connected.

The Development Leader leads. The Participant does most of the reflecting. The Facilitator supports the process.

The Participant comes to the conversation having had an opportunity to read the reflection. Begin by drawing out what they saw and experienced in reading it rather than immediately explaining the document.

• What stood out?
• What resonated?
• What surprised you?
• What would you like to understand better?
• What do you think the stakeholders most want you to take from this?
• What does this cause you to think about differently?

From there, the Development Leader uses the prepared messaging, stakeholder perspective, and their own judgment to add context, clarify meaning, ask push-up questions, and help the Participant work through what matters.

The Facilitator supports the conversation without taking it over. Make room for reflection. Draw out before interpreting. Clarify before advising. Keep important issues in play long enough to be understood.

A Mirror reflection creates value when insight affects what happens next. The Participant and Development Leader should leave with a shared understanding of what matters and what, if anything, the Participant intends to work on.

Keep the focus narrow enough to be useful. Clarify:

• What the Participant wants to develop.
• Why it matters.
• What they will do differently.
• What support they need.
• What the Development Leader will do to help.
• How they will know whether progress is occurring.
• When they will revisit it together.

The Administrator records or coordinates agreed follow-up dates and materials as appropriate. The Development Leader remains responsible for the development relationship.

Return to those commitments in regular development conversations. Notice what is changing, ask what the Participant is learning, and provide support, guidance, and accountability. When useful, repeat Mirror later with an appropriate stakeholder group to see what has changed and what deserves attention next.

The value of Mirror is what the Participant and Development Leader are able to see, discuss, learn, and do because of it.

Mirror is not a system of record. It is a working space for one cycle. The brief belongs wherever the organization keeps development records; the raw reflections behind it do not need to live on, and part of why stakeholders speak candidly is that they will not.

Once the development conversation has happened and the brief has been exported, open the reflection hub and use Close out. Closing a reflection clears the stakeholder reflections, the portrait, and any Companion history. It keeps only the participant's name, the period, the stakeholder roster, and the date. Stakeholder links stop working.

The roster is kept on purpose. When the next cycle comes around, most of the same people are likely to be asked again, so entering the participant's name during setup offers last cycle's list to start from. Names and dates only: nothing in a kept roster indicates what anyone said.

Closing out is recommended rather than forced, and a new cycle draws a fresh Mirror whether or not the earlier one was closed. If a reflection is left open, it simply stays in the owner's inventory until it is closed or deleted.