Kyle, great piece, thanks for sharing. Hopefully anyone so inclined will resist turning this into a mandatory exercise, but many others will borrow it.
Also brought back memories from when I commanded an Army Basic Training Company. Periodically I would pull in a member of each platoon for a sensing session, a combination of open discussion and written comments/questions. The discussions were hardly revealing, but the freely written comments were. I felt it allowed me a bit of insight to things I might not see. Total anonymity as best I could. At one point a concern was raised that I took to my battalion commander. When I explained the reason for my concern he immediately wanted more info on my sessions, which I gladly shared. Then he said I needed to send the written comments to him following my sessions. I refused as it violated the conditions I set up to produce them, that any comment was just 1 on 1 between me and whoever wrote it. When he became insistent I told him I wouldn’t hold any more as it violated that trust. He agreed. Fortunately he agreed. Not only were the sessions enlightening, sometimes quite entertaining. Laughter is always good.