The Take-Off

Have the group sit in any classroom formation you like. Give them each a sheet of paper and ask them to fold their sheet into an aircraft. Then have them write their name on one wing and on the other, they could write one question or expectation pertaining to the programme they’re attending.

Now tell the class to get their aircraft ready for take off and blow the whistle. They need to fly their planes towards each other making sure it’s not a short flight to the guy next door. It’s fun to watch the planes go all over the place crashing, lifting up high etc. Now tell them, this was a test flight and everyone needs to pick up one aircraft each again and this time the take-offs must be simultaneous. You can get them to do this 3 -5 times. Creates a bit of buzz and laughter in the room. Each person reads out the name and question on the aircraft and you get to the who’s who.

As a trainer you can either manage the expectations thru this activity, or get the aircraft fixed on the walls with blutack, informing the class that we will come back to base (the wall) during and at the end of the workshop and answer the questions asked. This helps review the learning and how well the participants have absorbed concepts etc.

Another “take” on the Take-Off exercise would be to have folks write reinforcement questions on the second wing.  When participants pick up an aircraft they can read off the name, question, and give their answer.  If they can answer correctly, they get a point; or they can hand it off to the group for a discussion.  

Here’s a challenge! I’m looking for a 5 minute competitive exercise that gets people working together, but also challenges them.

So many great ideas have come from the discussion, that I wanted to collect them and make them more available for our reference. Many thanks to all who contributed!

Helium Stick

This is quick activity that promises to be fun. I usually break my groups into two teams to add the element of competition. The challenge if for teams to rest a long thin plastic rod on every participants’ index fingers and slowly lower the stick to the ground. If anyone loses contact with the rod, the group must begin again. Here’s a link that describes the exercise: http://wilderdom.com/games/descriptions/HeliumStick.html [Note:  you can look for 2-6' plastic rods used to hold balloons at a party supply store] Posted online by Tammy Rahamut

Missing Piece

Get a fairly simple picture and photocopy it onto fairly heavy card. On the back draw random lines to make a home made jigsaw of 7 to 9 pieces. They should each be different having unique pieces. Cut up the pieces, then take the middle piece from each jigsaw and swap them so that none of the pictures will quite work out. Put each jigsaw in a zip lock bag. Either in teams or as individals it is a race to see who completes theirs first. Eventually they realize that they have to ask others to find their missing piece. Posted online by Dorothy Persic

Human Knot

Have two groups of 8-10 people stand in a circle shoulder to shoulder. They all reach their right hand into the circle and grab someone else’s hand (WHO’S NOT STANDING NEXT TO THEM)… Then do the same with the left hand-the left hand must grab someone different than the right hand. Then the exercise is to get untangled without letting go of one another’s hands. If you pit two teams against each other and see who can do it fastest, it quickly builds in some competition. You can have the groups do it twice. The first time around, have them do the exercise without speaking. Then let them do it using words. It’s a great example of communication, team building, and leaders emerge as well. You can also see who is more strategic in their thinking and who is more tactical. Posted online by Beth Standlee

Photo Finish

I found this one in Feeding the Zircon Gorilla . All you need is a rope for the Finish Lin and maybe a  Polaroid or Digital Camera (optional). The objective is for everyone on the team to cross the finish line at exactly the same time. Instructions: Everyone must start behind the starting line and go toward the finish line and cross the finish line at exactly the same time.  If someone finishes before or after anyone else, the whole team tries again from behind the starting line.  The team has an unlimited number of tries.
Teams like it because it shows how we can think the task is so simple and we can get it done without much fuss; yet, that tricky human stuff gets in the way. I’ve always had a rich debrief at the end of this exercise. Posted online by Bill Woodruff

Get them to Draw it

I give one person a piece of paper that has a circle, a square and a triangle drawn on it touching each other. I make sure I am careful to hold the paper so that the group cannot see what is on it. I then tell this person that their task is to get the group to draw what’s on the paper but they cannot use words that describe a shape (such as circle, square, box, triangle, pyramid etc.) After a few minutes of them being unsuccessful I take the drawing and turn to the group, show them the paper and say “Draw this.” This demonstrates that we all bring assumptions based on past experiences to current tasks, which can impede our success. (I never said the group couldn’t be shown the paper) Posted online by Bruce Cooper

Object memory

Create a list of at least 30 words. They can be words related to your topic, or just random words of things (iPod, pencil, cell phone, candy, rock, etc.). Project the list on the screen, give everyone 1 minute to remember as many words as they can. After 1 minute, hide the list on the screen and ask people to write down as many words as they remember. See who can remember the most. Next ask people to share their list with one or two other people to come up with a master list. They will quickly see they remembered more words when they collaborate.  Debrief and discuss assumptions about working individually vs. collaborating.  Posted online by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D.

Arm Wrestle

In this quick and easy activity, pairs are set up in what looks like an arm wrestle challenge. It’s up to each team of players whether they approach it as a “wrestle” or as an opportunity to create more value for both.  The debrief uncovers our tendency to make assumptions and approach negotiations as a win-lose game. More here…

Group Juggling

Maybe you could shorten this one to five minutes.  Start with one ball, in groups of 7 or more (I’ve done it with 19), ideally an odd number. Groups of five will make it much easier and quicker, for reasons you’ll see below.  The challenge is to figure out a way to keep as many balls in the air as possible. As soon as they add a second ball, they’ll see the need to communicate and problem-solve; at some point two balls will come to the same person. Setting the rule that you can’t throw to the person next to you, how many balls can the group juggle?  Throwing and catching one ball with two hands, the group should be able to keep the same number in the air as the number of the people in the group (plus one, if they don’t through simultaneously).

Here’s the most common “solution” to maximizing the number of balls in the air:
1) They figure out that they have to throw to the same person every time, then
2) They figure out they need to keep their eyes on the person throwing to you, then
3) They may figure out that the optimum path of the ball is a star pattern, although I’ve seen overlapping loops (especially a group with even numbers of jugglers).

Pit groups against each other. Typically the group that listens and integrates ideas well beats a group with a dominant “leader”, just as in the knot exercise. Posted online by James Foley

Your listening . . . are you paying attention?

After people have been working together for a while I ask them to stand back to back and describe what the other is wearing. It creats a lot of energy and laughing because they realise that although they have been in a workshop for an hour or longer, they haven’t really paid attention to or observed others properly. It takes only a couple of minutes but feedback is good. Posted online by Heather McLaughlin

Alphabet Exercise

Allocate a number of letters of the alphabet to each group and then give them 5 minutes to find as many objects as possible they can point to in the room that begins with one of their allocated letters. No real rules so you find some people can get very creative, bringing items in from outside the room, naming parts of the body (e.g. pupil/cornea..), emptying their handbags to find items, etc. Creates great energy and fun. Posted online by Noreen Clifford

Roundtable Roulette

Preparation: My first question was about what topics to cover.  In answer this, I sent out a survey prior to the event, asking several questions about top issues facing this group of small business owners.  With the data, I was able to devise spot-on table topics and create table signage in advance.

Facilitation: I began by presenting the results of the survey and highlighting some of my observations (while they ate breakfast). Next I explained how the “roulette” would work and introduced the topics in the following manner:

Explanation

• Tell participants they will have 10 minutes (or 15 minutes — I found 10 to be a little brief) at each of 2 (or 3) tables of their choice.
• Explain that participants will have three tasks: 1) quickly introduced themselves; 2) select a note-keeper; 3) discuss challenges and best practices regarding their topic. Let folks know they will repeat this process 2 or 3 times, and that all discussion highlights will be shared at the end of the session. (Don’t forget to equip note-takers with flip charts, tabletop easels, index cards, or note pads).
• Review the table topics. If you come prepared with too many, quickly survey the group by a show of hands to find out which are most popular.

Table Topic Discussions

• For the first round, have folks stay at the table where they ate, and tell them to begin.
• Be sure to announce time as it’s running down, so they can plan accordingly.
• Alert the group when time is up, and instruct them each to find a new table. When all are settled into their new tables, have them begin their roundtable — intros, note-keeper selection and discussion.
• If time allows, repeat for a third round.

Review

• At the end of the session, go topic-by-topic and have note-keepers (or other participants), share the best practices and suggestions.
• Record these on a flip chart, take notes, or collect the notes, so that you can circulate them later.

Notes and Facilitation Options

Be sure to gauge your group as the roundtable is going on.  You won’t know how they are doing unless you walk around and listen in.  You may need to adjust time up or down depending on how long the “quick” introductions take.  If folks are having trouble moving from “challenges” to “solutions” You might also need to specifically ask groups to come up with 3 concrete suggestions. You might also choose to have tables record their suggestions on a flip chart, tabletop whiteboard, or on index cards, so they can more easily be shared later.

]]> http://blog.trainerswarehouse.com/?feed=rss2&p=1459 0 http://blog.trainerswarehouse.com/?p=1459 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/trainerswarehouseblog/~3/lTok57fgetA/ http://blog.trainerswarehouse.com/?p=1446#comments Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:08:33 +0000 Susan Landay http://blog.trainerswarehouse.com/?p=1446 I’m surprised when I talk to college students and professors these days and hear that lectures are still a common method of instruction.  This week, however, I came across two sources that challenge  the  old tradition.  The first was a study of Astro 101 (that is, Introductory Astrology) teaching methods, which explored ways to improve the effectiveness of very large mega-classes sometimes averaging over 1,000 students.  The second was an article recently shared by Kim Marshall in his weekly  Marshall Memo. Perhaps the tide will soon be shifting, as it should, away from lecturing.

The Astro 101 Discovery

Cutting to the quick, here’s the overview of the study’s findings:

“Classes that spent 25 percent of their class time (or more) using interactive learning strategies averaged more than twice the normalized gain scores as compared to classes that spent less than 25 percent of class time teaching interactively. Furthermore, we found no correlation between student learning gain and type of institution or class size (even in a class of almost 800 students, as we discuss in detail below).”

Read full study synopsis here.

The article: “Twilight of the Lecture”

In this thoughtful Harvard Magazine article, Craig Lambert describes how Harvard professor Eric Mazur, who had been teaching a popular introductory physics for seven years, found out that his success as a teacher was “a complete illusion, a house of cards.” In 1990, he gave his 150 students a simple test to check their understanding of one of the most basic concepts in physics – force – and only a third of them passed. “After a semester of physics,” he says, “they still held the same misconceptions as they had at the beginning of the term.” They could recite Newton’s Third Law and apply it to numerical problems, but when asked about the forces at work when a heavy truck collides with a light car, they mistakenly said that the truck exerts a larger force.

Mazur flailed around for an explanation: “Maybe I have dumb students in my class. There’s something wrong with the test – it’s a trick test!” But in the end he had to face up to the fact that although he had been delivering polished lectures and doing artful demonstrations and getting excellent course evaluations every year, his students weren’t learning the most important things he was supposedly teaching. Mazur went over the conceptual test with his students, trying twice to explain the basic physics principles. No success. Students remained obstinately confused.

“Then I did something I had never done in my teaching career,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Why don’t you discuss it with each other?’ It was complete chaos, but within three minutes, they had figured it out. That was very surprising to me – I had just spent 10 minutes trying to explain this. But the class said, ‘OK, we’ve got it, let’s move on.’” The magic he had witnessed was peer instruction – those who understood the principles did an excellent job explaining it to their clueless peers. Why were some students so much better at explaining than him? “You’re a student,” he says, “and you’ve only recently learned this, so you still know where you got hung up, because it’s not that long ago that you were hung up on that very same thing. Whereas Professor Mazur got hung up on this point when he was 17, and he no longer remembers how difficult it was back then. He has lost the ability to understand what a beginning learner faces.”

The key to learning, concluded Mazur, is being an active explainer rather than passive sponge. “The person who learns most in any classroom is the teacher. From cognitive science, we hear that learning is a process of moving information from short-term to long-term memory; assessment research has proven that active learning does that best.” The key is taking new information and applying it to real situations, connecting it with personal experiences, projects, and goals, taking personal ownership of it. As

Mazur began to rethink his lecture-centered approach, he realized that instruction is a two-step process: first, new information is transferred from teacher to learner; second, the learner makes sense of and assimilates the information. “In the standard approach,” he says, “the emphasis in class is on the first, and the second is left to the student on his or her own, outside the classroom. If you think of this rationally, you have to flip that, and put the first one outside the classroom, and the second inside. So I began to ask my students to read my lecture notes before class, and then tell me what questions they have, and when we meet, we discuss those questions.” Mazur projects these questions onto the screen and students respond with clickers. If 30-70 percent of students don’t answer correctly, he has them find a person sitting nearby who got a different answer and argue about it. After 2-3 minutes, Mazur re-polls the question, and almost invariably, the number of correct answers improves dramatically. Students are solving problems they don’t fully understand, which is just what Mazur wants. “Let’s turn our students into real problem solvers,” he says. “In a real-world problem, you know where you want to get, but you don’t know how to get there… Most tests and exams at Harvard are not like that; they are questions where you need to determine what the answer is… It’s the opposite of a real-life problem, because you know the prescription, but you don’t know the answer.”

Mazur’s students sometimes complain that his tests ask them to solve problems they’ve never encountered before. He tells them, “If you had done a problem of this kind, then by definition, this would not be a problem” – which definitely takes students outside their comfort zone. “It’s not easy,” he says. “You get a lot of student resistance. You should see some of the vitriolic e-mails I get. The generic compliant is that they have to do all the learning themselves. Rather than lecturing, I’m making them prepare themselves for class – and in class, rather than telling them things, I’m asking them questions. They’d much rather sit there and listen and take notes. Some say, ‘I didn’t pay $47,000 to learn it all from the textbook. I think you should go over the material from the book, point by point, in class.’ Not realizing that they learn precious little by that, and they should actually be offended if I did that, because it’s an insult to their intelligence – then, I’m essentially reading the book to them.” Mazur says the architecture of college lecture halls also works against peer learning. He believes elementary classrooms, with four students sitting at desks facing each other, are far better set up – as long as the teacher assigns a well-thought-out group activity. “That’s how we learn,” he says. “For some reason we unlearn how to learn as we progress from elementary school through middle school and high school.” Mazur is not a fan of student course evaluations; he considers them popularity contests and thinks they should be abolished. “There is zero correlation between course evaluations and the amount learned,” he says. “Award-winning teachers with the highest evaluations can produce the same results as teachers who are getting fired.” What matters is how much students are learning, and that’s not picked up in student surveys.

Mazur has become something of a Johnny Appleseed for interactive instruction, giving almost 100 talks around the world each year and influencing untold numbers of instructors to change their approach. When he speaks about pedagogy, he asks listeners to think about something they’re really good at and reflect on how they attained a high level of proficiency. About 60 percent of people say it was because they practiced a lot. Strikingly, nobody mentions lectures. Mazur likes to quote Camus – “Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.” – and he’s on a campaign to get teachers to stop lecturing. “The danger with lucid lectures – of which we have so many on this campus, with so many brilliant people – is that they create the illusion of teaching for teachers, and the illusion of learning for learners. Sitting passively and taking notes is just not a way of learning. Yet lectures are 99 percent of how we teach!” Education is more than just the transfer of information, he concludes. If that were all there is to it, web-based instruction could do the job – sites like Khan Academy. “They have 65 million users,” says Mazur; “it’s a force to be reckoned with. But ultimately, learning is a social experience. Harvard is Harvard not because of the buildings, not because of the professors, but because of the students interacting with one another.”

Terry Aladjem of Harvard’s Bok Center concurs: “The live classroom is still the best medium for a student to truly be known as an intellectual being and to engage with other such beings. You learn from your peers in all walks of life. Students have always hidden in their rooms; social media can keep them in their rooms longer.” The way to coax them out of their rooms and into each other’s minds is to make classroom learning a social experience. Over the last 20 years, Mazur has gathered extensive data on this “flipped”, interactive approach. Among the findings: – Students’ conceptual understanding of physics is three times better; – Students’ long-term retention of factual knowledge has improved significantly. “In a traditional physics course,” says Mazur, “two months after taking the final exam, people are back to where they were before taking the course. It’s shocking.” – The achievement gap between male and female students closes. – Students in interactive courses are much less likely to transfer out of science, technology, engineering, and math concentrations.

“Twilight of the Lecture” by Craig Lambert in Harvard Magazine, March/April 2012 (Vol. 114, #4, p. 23-27), http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/03/twilight-of-the-lecture; Mazur’s book on this subject is Peer Instruction, which is summarized in Marshall Memo 241.

1. The love of truth
2. Honest
3. Courage
4. Fairness
5. Wisdom

Admittedly, I’m also a graduate of Yale University, where the motto is “Lux et Veritas,” that is Light and Truth. The article, “Colleges Should Teach Intellectual Virtues” by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe, was synthesized in this week’s Marshall Memo.

Five Virtues That Schools Should Model and Teach

In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, Swarthmore College professors Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe say colleges and K-12 schools need to go beyond teaching knowledge, academic skills, and critical and analytical thinking and instill certain intellectual virtues. Here is their list, which they say is exemplified in KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools and Harvard Medical School’s third-year program in a Cambridge, Massachusetts hospital:

• The love of truth – “When a significant minority of Americans reject evolution and global warming out of hand, the desire to find the truth rather than ‘truthiness’ cannot be taken for granted,” say Schwartz and Sharpe.

• Honesty – “Students need to be honest because it enables them to face the limits of what they themselves know, encourages them to confront their mistakes, and helps them acknowledge uncongenial truths about the world,” say the authors. This goes beyond refraining from plagiarism and cheating; it means facing up to ignorance and error and accepting reality.

• Courage – This is standing up for what one believes is true even when other people disagree – including those in authority.

• Fairness – Students need to evaluate the arguments of others fair-mindedly. “They need humility to face up to their own limitations and mistakes,” say Schwartz and Sharpe. “They need perseverance, since little that is worth knowing comes easily. They need to be good listeners because students can’t learn from others, or from us, without it.”

• Wisdom – This, say Schwartz and Sharpe, “is what enables us to find the balance between timidity and recklessness, between carelessness and obsessiveness, between flightiness and stubbornness, between speaking up and listening up, between trust and skepticism, between empathy and detachment. And wisdom is also what enables us to make difficult decisions among intellectual virtues that may conflict. Being fair and open-minded often rubs up against fidelity to the truth.”

How do we teach these virtues? Primarily by example, say Schwartz and Sharpe – in how teachers ask questions, how we pursue a dialogue, when and how we interrupt, how carefully we listen, and how often we admit that we don’t know something. “We are always modeling,” say the authors, “and the students are always watching.”

 

“Colleges Should Teach Intellectual Virtues” by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 24, 2012 (Vol. LVIII #25, p. A72),  http://chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Should-Teach/130868/”

After 10 years of their marriage, a couple had a son. They were very happy and loved the child more than anything. They looked at him for hours while he slept, pampered him, and protected him like a rare jewel. The son meant the world to them.

One day as the husband was getting ready for work, he saw a loosely capped bottle of cough syrup. He asked his wife, who was in the kitchen at the time, to keep the bottle in a safe place away from the son. He then left the house. Somehow, the wife missed what he said and the child drank the whole bottle of cough syrup. When the wife saw her son lying unconscious almost lifeless on the floor she freaked out, called an ambulance,  and rushed him to the hospital.

On her way there, she called her husband, so he could meet her. The doctors took the son, the love of their life, to the operating room. Each minute that passed was like hundred years. At last, the door opened and the doctor came out of ER. They learned their son had passed away due to medicine overdose. Together, the two went into the ER. The husband looked at the dead body of the son, starred at it for a minute, then looked back at the wife and uttered 4 words, ‘___ _____ ______ _____.’

The story stops here, and the facilitation begins.

Ask the participants, ‘what did the husband said to his wife?’  You will hear multiple replies, which will depict anger, frustration and negative emotions. Once participants are done commenting show them the slide with the answer and begin your discussion about empathy.

The husband looked back at the wife and said, ‘I love you darling’.”

Additional points to emphasize:

1. Both had lost the son, both were deeply grieved
2. Mother was going thru the pain of loosing the son and the agony of how the husband would react.
3. Husband could have spared a minute and put the cough syrup bottle at a safe place himself, but he didn’t. So he likely feels responsibility too, and cannot shift all the blame on the wife.
4. The son cannot be brought back. Damaging one relation at the expense of other is not wise.
5. They will manage the grief better by doing it together and by understanding both their pain and the others.

Posted on LinkedIN by Slawomir Zielinski

Business Education

BIZ WIZ^® - a business education game, teaching business overview, serving customers, measuring success, financing, operations, forecasting and more. (the Universal, self-study edition is $59.90; the simulation is $1295.)

Cash Flow 101: How to get out of the Rat Race, by Robert Kiyosaki – a cash flow, financial independence game; includes 3 CDs and a true-to-life board game that teaches you how to invest. ($195)

Communication and Listening

Colourblind – by RSVP Design

Wearing blindfolds to ensure total dependence upon the quality of their verbal communication, and holding a collection of small, irregular, coloured plastic shapes, a group works together to gather information that will allow them to solve a puzzle. For groups between 4 and 28 players. ($424)

Challenging Assumptions – by RSVP Design

So simple but such a powerful message! This activity lasts between 10 and 20 minutes and is an ideal way of raising the awareness of a group of learners about the pre-conceptions and assumptions we bring into new situations. In the puzzle context, they make assumptions about what colors go together, about what side of the piece is the top, or about where corners and edges go. ($139)

Teamwork

Card Deck Challenges

The four games in this category all use decks of “clue cards,” which participants are dealt. While players can verbally share what’s on their card, in order to come to a team solution to the challenge, they may not show or trade their cards.

Zin Obelisk – teams must work together to solve a complex problem (download notes and create-your-own cards)

Counter Intelligence – by RSVP. Participants are dealt a few task cards, each of which contains one clue about the way a pile of colored tokens should be arranged to form a specific shape and distribution of colors. Information printed on the cards can only be shared verbally and must come up with their final solution within 15 minutes. ($111.00)

Guess Who? – A team problem solving challenge. There are two sets of 9 clue cards that provide enough information to solve each problem. When the information is shared, the problem can be solved. Most groups find a solution in less than 10 minutes. ($44.95)

Murder Mystery Game  – to improve communication skills, team building, problem solving, leadership, and more. Distribute the 27 clues among the participants. By sharing information, your group should be able to identify the victim, murder weapon, time and place of the murder, and motive. But, the true learning comes when they discuss the techniques that helped or hindered their process.  ($44.95)

More Team Games

Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine , by Scott Simmerman. A game of inter-team collaboration. The setting is modern-day Southwestern U.S. Outfitted in Cowboy hats and bandannas, teams search for gold from the famous Lost Dutchman’s Mine. The exercise draws out issues of quality, leadership, systems, communications and a variety of other organizational issues. Team size is 5 or 6 people; no limit to the number of participants. ($995 or $1695)

Pandemic -  Designed by Matt Leacock.  This is a collaborative board game in which four diseases have broken out in the world and it is up to a team of specialists in various fields to find cures for these diseases before mankind is wiped out. Players must work together, playing to their characters’ strengths and planning their strategy. For example, the Operation Specialist can build research stations, which are needed to find cures for the diseases. The Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal 5.  (20 minutes explanation, about 60 minute game) ($34.99)

Toxic Waste Transfer – Using only the handles of the ropes attached to the transport basket, ten students work together to move and dump toxic waste into the neutralizing containers.($118.00)

Marble Maze – 6 people must lead a marble through this heavyweight, durable maze, without letting the marble fall into a trap. The 3 maze inserts differ in shape and difficulty; and the two varying-sized marbles keep the challenge exciting. ($146.00)

Memory Maze – Teams must work together to uncover the invisible path on a large floor grid. Square by square, they move through the grid from start to finish, starting over each time an incorrect square is stepped on. Increase the difficulty by setting two teams against each other, or having them beat the clock. ($99.00)

Project Management – Planning and Implementation

Simbols – by RSVP Designs. Players receive printed coloured cards which have to be assembled, under challenging conditions and a tight time-frame, into a specific, finished pattern. The participants must quickly establish an efficient method to describe the cards they’ve been dealt, then determine the correct way to lay them out. All interaction is verbal until the last minute, when it’s time to “launch” their solution, laying out the cards in correct pattern, before the deadline. Requires 45 minutes, plus debrief.  ($525.00)

Process Improvement

Pass the Chicken – by ACT. In this strategic planning and process improvement game, teams must pass around a bunch of squawking animals. The activity is conducting in 4 rounds during which teams try to improve their process and efficiency. ($129.00)

What Goes Around Comes Around – by ACT. In this incremental process-improvement game, teams must simply pass a beach ball from one group to the next without “dropping the ball.” Dropping the ball has dire consequences in this game, just as in the workplace. ($199.00)

Pass the Ball, Pass the Buck – by ACT. This is a fast-paced game of passing multiple objects back and forth, up and down the line of team members starts out easy and gets complex very quickly. The sheer number of objects being passed becomes the team’s greatest challenge. . . as well as the competition.  (199.00)

Leadership / Management

Leadout: An experience in Leadership – A leadership simulation based on growing grapes.

The simulation uses a land acquisition scenario that presents every challenge found in high performing work groups. Leadout® is built upon the timeless practice of growing grapes. Each participant receives part of the information needed to make sound decisions. They can share it, sit on it, or give part of it away. Every move the individual makes affects the group and the final outcome.  The challenge is for the team to make quality decisions while confronting everyday organizational problems. ($595)

Negotiation

T-Trade (by RSVP Design; $509)

This exercise is designed to be used in a context in which business negotiations are important for success in achieving individual or organisational goals. It illustrates the need to build strong relationships between groups as they try to achieve individual goals, maintaining dialogue over a series of rounds as they negotiate for scarce resources. T-trade involves three groups, each trying to achieve the best business outcome for themselves but needing to ‘make deals’ with other groups in order to be successful.  The exercise takes some time if the negotiation process is allowed to develop and build. The basic exercise needs 90 minutes, plus time for briefing and de-briefing. Ideal numbers are three teams of 3-6 people, each working in a separate location.

Selling Skills

Winning the Selling Game – a large format boardgame for sales training ($595)

Posted by guest blogger, Betty Lochner, Cornerstone Coaching & Training

It may sound overly simple, but adding purposeful appreciation towards others can be one of the most powerful communication tools you can hone.  People want and need to feel appreciated [whether you're in a training session, classroom, or working in your office].  People will respond better, and perform better when they are genuinely valued.

1. Caught Ya!

Catch someone doing something right and recognize them for it. For example, say something positive when someone picks up a poster that has fallen down, someone holds the door for you, or someone cleans your dish in the sink. You can go one step further, even giving them a small gift, like a small bag of candy, and leaving it with a short note.

2. Validation

Validate someone for something they did for you that made your life better or easier. For example, someone may retrieve coffee when you’ve left it lying somewhere, a neighbor smiles when you walk by, your office mate offers to help with a project, etc.  Start with the description of what they are doing.  For example, “you are so thoughtful to bring my coffee to me,” “you are always so helpful,” “you always greet me with a smile.”

3. Share Your Gratitude in Front of Others

Tell someone, in front of someone else, or better yet in front of a group, “You did a great job!” Another good way to express your gratitude is to send a note or e-mail, or make a call to that person’s boss and tell them the same thing. For those for whom public recognition is uncomfortable, a word in private will let people know that you do notice and appreciate. Don’t we all wish our co-workers, customers, friends, would find ways to show their appreciation for our work more often?

4. No Special Reason

Give a note to someone for no special reason. Say something like, “I’m glad you are my son”; “I’m glad you are here”; “Your smile made my day!” I received an e-mail from a new boss about a week after I started and all it said was, “We are lucky to have you on our team.” I think I still have that note.

5. Group Appreciation

This may be one that is out of the comfort zone for some, but it can be a very effective way to connect.

Get in a circle with your work group or family. Start with one person, and share one thing you appreciate about that person. As you go around the circle, each person adds something different or elaborates on something for that same person. As you go around the circle, each person adds a comment. You continue around the circle until everyone has commented on that person. Then go to the next person in the circle and do this exercise until everyone has received an appreciation comment from each person.

Some examples might be, “What I appreciate about you is how you always greet me with a smile”; “I appreciate that you always meet your deadlines and I never have to remind you”; “I appreciate you for always being willing to help me in any way”; “I appreciate that you do the dishes without asking”; “I love your smile”; “You are a fabulous cook.”

Bonus: This exercise also can be a great esteem builder for kids. I used this for my Girl Scout troop and the kids loved it. You can also get creative, make a poster for each person, and have everyone say something positive about that person on the poster. My daughter still has the poster we made for her years ago.

6. Group Meetings

Have everyone in a group (staff meeting, family reunions, etc.) write down something they appreciate about someone in the group. Put the pieces of paper in a bowl and draw one for a simple prize, candy, coffee, or a silly trophy that is passed around from meeting to meeting. For the appreciation notes left that weren’t drawn, give them to the person with a short verbal thank you.

At one of my jobs, we passed around a Dilbert doll to the person who did something helpful or special that week. Sometimes we “enhanced” his appearance by adding a hat or sticker before passing him on. Dilbert became a prized possession. (He even was kidnapped for a while and we had to pay a ransom to get him back). When I left my job there, I was given Dilbert as a going away present. I still smile every time I see him on my shelf.

7. Weekly Note

Every Monday morning, or any specific day, write one hand-written note to someone you appreciate for something they did. I keep inexpensive cards in my desk drawer and start each Monday with writing one note. I put a reminder note on my calendar and try to make it the first thing I do. I always feel good afterward. And, no matter how many times someone gets a note, they still love it. I almost always get a comment back from the recipient. And no, no one has ever gotten tired of getting a note of appreciation. It can be a very powerful team-building tool as well.

8. Remember Birthdays

This may sound silly, but whether we admit it or not, we all love to have our birthday remembered, especially by someone you don’t expect. Keep a file of birthdays on your calendar of friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc. Keep cards on hand and simply sign your name and give (or mail) it to them. It takes very little time and has a huge impact on relationships.

9. Write a Letter; Make a Call

I use this exercise in workshops and usually meet some resistance at first. It is out of the comfort zone for many. But, for those who have the courage to try it, it is a very powerful exercise for both people involved.

Sit down and write a thank-you letter to someone for whom you feel gratitude. Describe their qualities that had an impact on your life, such as courage, loyalty, support, kindness, wit, or persistence. Then call or visit that person and read your heart-felt description. Thank them for being an influence on your life.

10. Remember Names

Make it personal! Remember their name and say it. Don’t tell yourself and others that you are bad at names; that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When I met the president of Whitworth University, Bill Robinson, for the first time, it was on a student visit with my daughter. When I met him again a year later, what stood out to me was that he remembered my name. Apparently, Bill is quite notorious on campus and beyond for remembering people’s names. I was so impressed that I have stepped up my effort in working on this skill.

Betty Lochner is the Owner and President of Cornerstone Coaching & Training. She specializes in personal and organizational transformation and is the author of  Dancing with Strangers: Communication skills for transforming your life at work and at home. To find out more about Cornerstone’s services and offerings visit our website: http://www.cornerstone-ct.com