Skip to content

Chronotype

Running a chronotype session in 60 to 90 minutes

A session plan that turns the grid into a team conversation, with what to say and what is better avoided.

This plan works from the group grid: you open a session, everyone answers from the same link, and the grid updates as answers come in.

Create a session →

Free, no signup, from 3 participants.

See how a group session works

What chronotype is, and what it is not

Chronotype refers to a sleep-wake rhythm preference, studied in chronobiology, notably with the Horne and Östberg questionnaire (1976). The four-animal model (lion, bear, wolf, dolphin) comes from psychologist Michael Breus (The Power of When, 2016): it popularises the morning-evening spectrum for the lion, the bear and the wolf, while the dolphin describes light sleep, not a position on that spectrum. This test is an independent test inspired by that model, not Breus's questionnaire nor Horne and Östberg's, and it is not a diagnostic tool.

In a workshop, these four names can serve as a shared vocabulary to talk about schedules: at which times each person says they feel more on form, and at which times less. It supports a discussion; it does not measure the person. The answers partly describe the schedule each person already keeps, not only a natural rhythm. This questionnaire has no reference group, and we have run no study of the stability of its results (test-retest).

What this questionnaire does not allow

  • saying how a person or the team will succeed;
  • building teams or assigning roles by profile;
  • comparing two people on the same axis: answers are forced-choice with a fixed total, so each person's four scores are read against each other, never against someone else's;
  • assessing, hiring or justifying a decision about someone;
  • reading the result as a measure of sleep or as medical advice: it is a self-assessment questionnaire, and it says nothing about a sleep disorder.

The session plan

  1. Minutes 0 to 10, the frame.

    State the goal: talk better about schedules, not rank each other. Say that chronotype supports a conversation about stated habits and preferences, that a first name is optional and that nobody will have to announce theirs. Share the link or the QR code.

  2. Minutes 10 to 25, taking the test and reading alone.

    Everyone answers on their own, then reads their result page in silence and notes one sentence that fits them and one that does not.

  3. Minutes 25 to 40, the grid.

    Show the grid and first ask what people see in it, before any interpretation. Then read the make-up as questions about the calendar: a frequent chronotype, a chronotype that is rare in the split, moments when many say they feel less on form at the same time. Each reading is a hypothesis the group confirms or sets aside. The grid puts each person in a single box of a continuum: two close people can land in two boxes, and an empty box does not mean nobody has that rhythm. The dolphin describes light sleep, not a schedule: do not read it on the calendar. A uniform map can partly come from the imposed schedule.

  4. Minutes 40 to 55, the discussion.

    Do the "where this profile got me wrong" exercise below, then ask this question: "In which recent situation did our way of working help us, and in which did it get in our way?"

  5. Minutes 55 to 60, the commitment.

    The group picks a single concrete action for the month, based on what was said, not on the animal names: moving a time slot, or deciding that a topic is handled in writing rather than live. It is a rule for the group, never a schedule assigned to a person according to their profile. Whoever carries it volunteers: the grid does not appoint anyone.

  6. 90-minute variant.

    Between minute 40 and minute 70, go through the typical weekly calendar in sub-groups of three or four: which slots seem impractical, judging by what each person chooses to say about their rhythm, and which one could we move as a trial? Each sub-group reports back in one sentence, then keep twenty minutes for the commitment.

The "where this profile got me wrong" exercise

Everyone rereads their description and picks out two sentences: the one that describes them least well, and the one that could describe almost anybody. Pool the second ones, without saying which profile they come from.

This is the Barnum effect, described by Bertram Forer in 1949: a general enough description feels personal to most people. Spotting it together is a reminder that the result is a starting point, and makes it legitimate not to recognise oneself in it.

Why start from a real situation

A meta-analysis of debriefs (Tannenbaum and Cerasoli, 2013) links going back together over a specific work episode with better performance afterwards, mostly in simulation studies (medical and military). It does not cover chronotype or any profile tool: that is why one question in the plan starts from a real, recent situation, and this plan promises no effect on the team.

To avoid during the session

  • guessing or announcing out loud the chronotype of a colleague who has not shared it, or locking someone into theirs ("you are a wolf, so you are late");
  • reading out to the group the first names from the facilitator-only list;
  • commenting on a pair of named people, or comparing two members on the same chronotype;
  • assigning a person a time slot, a task or a role according to their chronotype: slots are decided with the group, not in place of people;
  • drawing from the grid a judgement on what the team is worth or will achieve.

Did this help? If you keep a resource page for your students, trainees or colleagues, you are welcome to mention Profilia (profilia.app) there. That is all: nothing to sign up for, nothing in return.