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About Once Upon a Roll

Leadership development your team won't dread.

Hi, I'm Laura. I have sat through the assessments, the workshops, and the binders that get shelved the minute everyone walks out of the room. I built Once Upon a Roll for every leader who ever finished one of those and thought, that was interesting, but what am I supposed to do now?

Three people laughing over a cooperative card game
no experience necessary
A smiling game master behind a Dungeons and Dragons screen with tiny mushroom terrain
yes, those are tiny mushrooms
Friends toasting with champagne over a board game
a toast to the winning route
A true story:

I've spent hundreds of hours in leadership development training, and not one of them gave me a realistic place to practice.

We've all sat through the DISC workshops, the Myers-Briggs letters, the color quizzes. And while it's fun to get my business personality horoscope, the feedback I heard from leaders over and over was, "We have no idea how to apply this when the rubber hits the road, and we're experiencing real world challenges of leading our teams."

You don't necessarily need more training. You need more practice.

A sports team doesn't get good by watching a PowerPoint. They get good on the field, running drills until the hard stuff feels familiar. We don't give teams that in corporate. We expect people to walk into a high-stakes negotiation or a tense conflict and just perform. At Once Upon a Roll we use games to build realistic simulations that mimic what those calls actually feel like, because the brain holds onto what the body lived through far longer than anything it was simply told.

What we do instead

So we built a place to practice.

At our tables, leaders and teams work through the real challenges they face at work, wrapped inside a game that's genuinely fun to play.

A woman laughing while showing her drawing during a game of Telestrations
art skills not required
A tiny cat miniature facing down a giant winged monster on a game map
the cat is a full party member
Players gathered around a digital game table covered in miniatures
cooperative, not cutthroat
A game master mid-story at a candlelit table with gold skulls
the plot twist just landed
Laura prepping stacks of board games on a hotel bed
prepping games for your team
A giant glowing heart covered in handwritten messages
what community looks like
Our promise

What playing together actually builds.

Builds real trust
Breaks down silos
Readies people to lead under pressure
Laura smiling and holding a needlepoint pillow that reads Too Much of a Good Thing Is Wonderful
my life philosophy, in needlepoint
The person behind the screen

Meet Laura Khalil

I spent 13 years consulting for Fortune 500 companies like GE, Intel, Twitter, and Intuit, which means I've seen the inside of more conference rooms and awkward offsites than any one person should.

These days I'm a professional game master, a former fellow of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and certified in human behavior. I've facilitated well over 2,000 meetings, I run games nearly every week, and I have watched a table of strangers become a party more times than I can count.

Once Upon a Roll is based in the Detroit area and works with teams globally, both in person and virtually. I hope we'll share a gaming table soon. No sailboats. I promise.

Laura

Ready to develop leaders your team will actually follow?

Let's talk about what's really going on with your team and build a game plan to get there. It starts with a conversation, not a character sheet.

Let's build your game plan