If you’ve ever hosted a day-long meeting or workshop, you know that even the best gatherings sometimes experience a dip in energy.  To reboot the vigor in the conference room, here’s a quick and easy “energizer” that helps revitalize people without being too cheesy. It works best with a group of at least ten people. It’s called Stand Up/Sit Down and here’s how it works.

1. Announce that you’re going to lead a 90-second stretch break. Explain to the group that you will read a series of 12 statements and that they will be standing and sitting based on whether the statement applies to them or not.
2. Read the first statement and say, “If this applies to you, please stand. If not, remain seated”.  Give folks a moment to look around the room to see who is standing.
3. Read statement number two and say, “If this applies to you, please stand. If not, remain seated, or if you’re currently standing, sit down.”
4. Read the remaining ten statements, allowing time for people to sit and stand.

The great thing about this activity is that it can be easily tailored to fit the group. For example, if you have a group of sports enthusiasts, add several statements about local sports teams.

Here’s a sample that I’ve used recently:

Please Stand Up If…

• You have a cat
• You have a dog
• You love Mexican food
• You’ve seen the movie “____________” (name a recent popular movie)
• You are a fan of American Idol
• You’ve worked for [name of your company] for more than 10 years
• You like Thai food
• You have children
• You like to ski
• You enjoy gardening
• You golf
• You can name all of the 7 Dwarfs from “Snow White” (Answer key: Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Lucky, Dopey, Doc, Bashful)

For you cynics out there who think people will not play along—believe it or not, most people are OK with this activity because even if they despise “energizers”, they are looking for a way to move their bodies. And I’ve found once they start looking around at what other people’s hobbies are, they actually start to like it a little bit.

What’s your favorite meeting energizer?

photo credit: istockphoto.com © Tadej Zupancic

As a learning facilitator, I have a toolbox full of ice breakers, team builders and group facilitation techniques that have served me well over the years. Just the other day, I freshened up one of my favorite standbys called “Fun with Factoids” with the addition of audience voting technology. It worked so well that I want to share it with you in the event you are called upon to lead a multi-day meeting.

The Setting

A two-day work team meeting comprised of 28 professionals from across the globe.

The Pre-Work

A few weeks before the meeting, send an email to the group requesting that they provide you with an interesting fact—something that most people at the meeting don’t know.  Make it clear that the fact will be publicly shared.  Include a few examples: “I once won a hot dog eating contest at the Kansas State Fair” or “I have 35 first cousins”.

 After you’ve received all of the “factoids” create Power Point slides, one per factoid, with a multiple-choice format. See example below:

“I once won a hot dog eating contest at the Kansas State Fair” 

____ Polly Smith

____ George Jones

____ Angel Rodriguez

____ Dan Johannesan

The Process

Because the meeting I facilitated was multi-day, I spread the activity out across the two days, displaying 3 – 4 factoids at a time. Here’s the flow:

1. Show the Power Point slide.
2. Using an audience polling device, ask the audience to vote.
3. Show the responses (25% for Polly, 33% for George”, etc.).
4. Ask, “Will the real owner of (insert factoid) please stand up?” 
5. The person who submitted that factoid then tells a brief story about how that factoid came to be.

When I facilitated this recently it was very successful. We had an extremely tight agenda, with little time for socializing. This activity proved to be a great energizer in between meeting topics and it didn’t take a lot of time.

Modifications

• If you don’t have an audience response system, you could do the same format, but have people simply vote by raising their hands.
• I’ve also done this as a scavenger hunt, organizing all the factoids onto a sheet of paper. If you do it this way, it’s a one-time activity, with people circulating the room to determine which factoids belong to whom.

Discussion Questions:

Have you used this ice breaker before? If so, what other variations of this activity have you used? I’m especially interested in hearing ideas for audience response polling devices.

About a month ago, Michael Carty, editor for the United Kingdom’s XpertHR Employment Intelligence blog reached out to introduce himself and inquired if I would contribute an article to his blog series “If I Could Change One Thing About HR. . .”  I asked if he would consider a contribution that explores training and development. He graciously said yes and the post is up today.

Go on over and check out my contribution Make Performance the Goal of Your Training.

Thanks to Michael for this opportunity!

I’m pleased to announce the launch of a resource that focuses on my core passion: helping people grow professionally. Learning and development professional Benjamin McCall has launched a new e-book called What We Teach How We Learn. The book features ten essays from people in the world of learning and development. Inside this book, you get 32 pages of articles about engagement, presentation tips, empowering individuals to learn and approaches to learning in the workplace. True to his training background, Ben has also included an “article reflection” page after each essay and a compilation of learning and training diagrams at the end of the book.

The authors come from a broad spectrum of the human resources discipline: HR executives, training professionals, leadership consultants, and learning development practitioners.

You can download the free e-book here.  Please share it.  The only thing I ask is that you not alter it in any way and be sure to give my colleague Ben the credit due for the huge task of sourcing, compiling and editing this work.

You can see the list of authors at Ben’s site RethinkHR. These are smart people to get to know in the Human Resources, Leadership and Training field. Check them out.

Disclaimer:  Yes, my essay is featured in the book. I received no compensation for writing my essay, nor is Ben paying me to promote it.  My payment is the gratitude of being featured in the company of so many great professionals.

“How do we begin to change the culture of expectations in our organizations where instead of being held accountable for participating in learning and development activities, people will be held accountable for applying and using and changing their job performance?” –Robert Brinkerhoff

This quote appeared in the August 2010 issue of T+D magazine. Brinkerhoff was a panelist along with several other industry experts on training evaluation at the ASTD 2010 International Conference & Exposition.

I’ve been a huge fan of Bob Brinkerhoff for many years because of his high-quality blend of academic research with practical front-line applications. Nearly two decades ago, I first attended a conference break out session offered by Bob on evaluating the effectiveness of training. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing him speak on how to get people to use the stuff we teach them after they leave the training room and re-enter the real world. He’s conducted research that proves what we corporate trainers experience every time we facilitate a learning session:

Employees who have managers that support the training experience report higher usage of the skills taught during the class—or, “training transfer”, as the training industry calls it.

My own anecdotal evidence supports this as well. In one large-scale leadership training project I helped develop, we built in a “check in” system that connected the training participants to their supervisors throughout the six-module learning series. Participants were accountable for creating action plans, reviewing them with their supervisor and then sending their “Action Sheets” (with the supervisor’s signature) to the session facilitator.  At the end of the session, guess which participants reported higher number of attempts at new skills and better overall success in using the new leadership behaviors? You got it— those who consistently returned their Action Sheets and had conversations with their supervisor.

So what does “support” look like? What’s an über-busy leader to do when trying to maximize his or her training investment? Many training professionals (including me) counsel using a simple Before/During/After approach.

Before the Training.  Arrange to talk with your employee a week or two before the session starts.  Ask:

• What are two objectives you have regarding attending this session?
• How are we going to ease your workload for the time that you are gone?
• After the training, how do you plan to communicate with me about what you learned?

During the Training. Think there’s no role for you to play while he’s at training? Think again. What you do while your key contributor is away speaks volumes about your commitment to continuous learning. Resist the urge to calll or text him while he’s in the class. It sends conflicting signals. When others in the organization squawk because your key contributor isn’t available to put out their fires, stand strong. This training is an investment in your employee. Lastly, be sure to find a way to ease his workload while he’s gone. “Just find a way to squeeze it all in” isn’t acceptable coaching advice.

After the Training. Review what the two of you discussed in the pre-training meeting. Make a plan for revisiting progress on the learning objectives in a 30/60/90 day format.  If possible, find a way within two weeks of the training for the training participant to recap or demonstrate what was learned.  Ideas:

• If it’s a technical skill that was taught, ask for a demonstration
• If it’s a “people skill” ask the person to list scenarios in which she would use this skill
• Ask the person to create a 5 minute recap at the next department meeting on “3 Things I Learned that Will Benefit the Team”

There are so many other ways you could facilitate training transfer. I’d love to hear about them:

• If you’re a leader who sends people to training sessions— what steps do you take to ensure that your team members actually use the information they acquired during their training experience?
• If you’re an individual contributor—how do you maximize your learning experience?

Photo credit: © Lars Lindblad istockphoto.com

Jen's Favorite Training Toys

Today I’ve got my Corporate Trainer hat— if you do too, I want to know:

Do you use toys in your classroom session?

I’ve been bringing what I call Fiddle Toys to my classroom learning sessions for nearly 20 years and they’re always a hit.  I find that giving learners something active to do with their hands not only helps them stay mentally focused, but it also is a help to those who are kinesthetic learners. Even grumpy, non-engaged participants will eventually loosen up a bit and find a reason to touch one of the items placed in the center of their table.

Because toys do wear out, I’ve been looking at refreshing my stash. That’s prompted a reflection on my criteria for appropriate Fiddle Toys.

My fiddle toys must be:

• Durable
• Quiet
• Safe—can’t pinch people or somehow “rub off” on them with ink
• Something that doesn’t invite too much “play”/interaction with another person

Also, a common toy that I’ve seen used is something “filled”—squishy items filled with gel, liquid or sand.  I’ve tried them all and have given up. Believe it or not, I’ve seen all three types destroyed by someone with just a tad too tight a grip.  You can imagine the mess.  At that point, the toy creates more distraction than focus. 

The biggest hits over the years of “typical” toys have been:

-Mini-Etch-A-Sketch

-Silly Putty

-Rubick’s Cube

-Slinkys

-Pipe cleaners

I’ve had also great success going to my local novelty shop, Kent Novelty. The prices are so much cheaper than any other retail outlet.  As a bonus, a trip to the novelty store is an instant stress-reducer. I took a picture of what’s in my Toy Bag (you knew I’d have one, didn’t you?) My favorites are shown above. A few other tips:

1. Aim for 2-3 extra toys per grouping of six people.  Nobody likes to feel like they got the “last toy of the bunch”.
2. Pay attention to the most popular toy and be sure there’s one at every table. I’ve even heard people negotiating for different toys during breaks.
3. Make the toys part of an ice-breaker. Put the same toys with varying colors (say, “stretchy guys”) on the table. Ask everyone to take a toy and create new discussion groups according to the color of the toy they selected.

So, if you’re looking to increase your classroom participants’ focus and participation, try tossing a few toys in to the mix and see what happens. Encouraging people to be childlike (curious, experimental) with the toys make indeed decrease their tendency to be childish (immature, uncooperative).

ENLIST YOUR AUDIENCE TO MAKE THE LOAD LIGHTER

Ever go to a conference break out session and experience 90 minutes of lecture, paired with the never-ending Power Point slide deck?  It’s not a very engaging experience, is it?  Now, imagine attending a four-hour conference break out session, with 70 other people in the room with you. This was my situation recently as I facilitated a communications break out session at a client’s internal leadership conference. Knowing that conference attendees want to be engaged in their learning, I decided to get creative with the management of the session’s discussions. Here’s what I did and it worked beautifully.  If you are ever in a situation that requires you to work with a large audience, give this “Sector Director” format a try.

Prior to the Session

Divide the room into “sectors”. For example, in my session, the hotel meeting room had nine round tables in it. So I created three “sectors” with 3 tables each: Red, Green Yellow. On each table, I placed a piece of colored card stock (red, green or yellow) in a place card holder on the middle of each table.

I then selected three chairs (one within each of the sectors) and taped an envelope to the underside of it.  Inside the envelope was a note that said, “Congratulations! You’ve been promoted to Sector Director. Please come to the front of the room for additional instructions.”

At the Session’s Start

Towards the start of the session, explain that you want to ensure that all participants have a chance to have their voices heard. In order to do that, you as the facilitator are going to seek assistance. Tell the group to reach under their chairs. Bring the three people who find the envelopes up to the front of the room. Introduce them and say, I’ve promoted (names) to Sector Director.  They will help me manage group discussions.  Brief the Sector Director on their duties. To keep the remainder of the group occupied during this 3-5 minute briefing, give them a question or issue to discuss that’s related to your presentation topic.

Here are the tasks that Sector Directors can help you with: 

• Distribute hand outs. 
• Lead discussions within their sectors.
• Facilitate debriefing of other activities. For example, one activity had my participants pairing up with two or three other people throughout the room to gather data. Then, I sent them back to their sectors to report their findings.
• Helping round up people and get them back from breaks.
• Ensuring that table groups selected a spokesperson for large-group report outs.

Encourage the Sector Directors to delegate if needed. For example, if the Director doesn’t care to write on large flip chart paper, she can ask someone from her Sector to take over that role.

Does It Work?

I facilitated the communications session three times over a two-day period, which presented me with nine Sector Directors. I gave all nine of them the chance to opt out, but none did.  Eight of the nine did a fantastic job and the ninth one needed just a bit of prompting to stay on task. In my opinion, the extra 10 minutes of session time needed to set up this format was time well-invested. The smaller sector groups were able to have more focused conversations, with people feeling more like they could contribute. Additionally, I had an extra three pairs of hands to help me get the 70 participants re-focused after the Sector Discussions.

Next time you’re asked to facilitate a large discussion—in either a learning or meeting context, consider delegating to your audience.  You’ll find that indeed, “a few extra hands” do make the work of managing discussions a bit lighter.

Should roles plays be part of your trainer's tool kit?

Over at the HR Bartender, Sharlyn Lauby has declared role plays in the training classroom passé, declaring Nobody Likes Role Plays. I agree with her assertion the traditional format in which the trainer announces, “Now, let’s put what we just learned into practice” and calling up two training participants to the front of the room for a “performance” will elicit little beyond eye rolling, self-conscious mumbling and/or over-the-top “acting.”  However, I’m not quite yet ready to throw out role playing as a valuable learning tool.  As a learning facilitator who has led supervisory and management skills programs for twenty years, I’ve had actual success with role plays. (Shocking, but true!)  Or, rather, success using my version of role plays.  You see, I don’t use the format that Sharlyn dislikes.  I dislike it too and have subsequently morphed the role play into something more effective. So let’s examine the role play in more depth before we decide whether or not to jettison it completely. 

Is It the Right Tool?
The role play is an instructional method, and therefore a tool.  As with any tool, if it’s not used properly, it has the potential to do more harm than good.  Just because participants don’t respond well doesn’t mean the tool is faulty; perhaps it’s the way the tool is being used. Before you decide to abandon the use of the role plays, be sure that it’s being used in the way it’s designed to be used.  There are advantages and misuses of role plays; be sure that a role play clearly supports your instructional objectives.  Moreover, keep your audience in mind. It’s true that no matter how you structure a role play, some learners simply will not respond well to that learning format. For example, I find that most executives are quite resistent to role play (perhaps for the reasons listed below). Conversely, if structured properly, role plays have worked well for my front-line supervisory audiences who are accustomed to a “hands on” approach.

Why Do People Resist Roles Plays?
I believe there are two main reasons people abhor role plays: situational context and fear. Typically, the role-play scenario isn’t detailed enough for the role player to convincingly come up with a dialog that flows naturally.  The role-player often lacks the context or situational background to sound convincing while carrying on a conversation in front of a group.  Layer in any new skills she’s been asked to demonstrate (“remember to build in the 6 Key Actions to Giving Feedback”), and there’s just too much detail to remember.  Add to that the highly inhibiting fear factor of looking foolish in front of one’s peers and it’s a recipe for a stilted, ineffective demonstration.

What’s Does an Effective Role Play Look Like?
The key to creating a skill demonstration that works is to remove the barrier of situational context and minimize the fear of looking foolish. Here’s how you as the learning facilitator can do that:  

Build a role play into a case study. This has worked very well for me when conducting supervisory skills classes. Create groups of 3-5 people. Give them a case study scenario featuring a typical supervisory challenge— for example, an employee counseling situation. Ask the group to create an action plan. When debriefing with the entire group, there’s usually a point where someone chimes in with a question or challenges the suggested action plan. This is the time to do a “role play”. Here’s the key: you as the facilitator are part of the role play. Say something like, “you know, I can see you’re struggling with what to say if the employee counseling session gets tough. How about if we walk through how that conversation might go? I’ll be the supervisor.  Who wants to be the employee?” Then, you can do a casual “walk through” of the conversation. Don’t even call it a “role play”; I think that phrase automatically puts people on edge.  One of the things that people object to (as Sharlyn points out) is being “on stage” in front of the whole class.  If you suspect this is the case, then just have the conversation partner remain in his seat as you have the conversation walk-through.

Here’s another twist: If facilitating with a co-trainer, then both facilitators can participate, thereby removing the participants’ from the demonstration altogether.  Over the years, I have been very fortunate to have worked with several highly-skilled co-facilitators. Some of the most rich and memorable group discussions have occurred after the two of us have played out a tense supervisor/employee situation for the class to critique.

Of course, these suggestions require that you as the facilitator be comfortable with this type of public “acting”.  If you’re not, no worries, you can still employ a certain level of practice in the face-to-face learning environment. Here’s another idea that may work and it takes the trainer out of the role-play equation.

Tag-team role-play. As mentioned above, a major impediment to any sort of public practice is that people fear looking foolish. After all, it’s an impromptu situation—and the learner is thinking, “What if I don’t know what to say?”  To help ease this concern is a technique called the “tag team” approach.  If you decide to conduct a role-play in front of the entire group, then give the person in the “lead” role (say, the person role-playing a sales person) the chance to call “tag”. If that person gets stuck during the role play, he or she can turn to his classmates and a) call a time out to confer and get ideas, then resume the role play or b) ask another team mate step in.  The overall approach to this format sends the message: this is practice, not a performance. It assures the participants that it’s ok to get stuck and ask for help. To make it more fun, and free-wheeling, I’ll sometimes bring in an old-fashioned service bell to ring when they get stuck.

What’s the Bottom Line?
The role-play need not be passé. With a few modifications and judicious use, they remain an excellent way for classroom learners to “try on” new behaviors in a safe environment.  As an instructional designer, just be sure that you are using them in the proper way.

Photo credit: © pixhook /istockphoto.com

Yesterday I was talking “shop” with two colleagues.  We’re all in the business of helping develop leaders and the talk turned to instructional design.  One of us asked, “How do you go about finding an instructional designer who also has deep experience in creating leadership programs for senior-level staff?”  

We noodled this idea around for awhile. . .  “Is it more difficult to create solidly designed content for senior leadership?”  Here’s where we ended up: as with many things in life, creating good content is always about the art and the science of it.

 One way to picture this issue would be:

I have a lot of leadership development readers out there.  What do you say?  Do you agree or disagree? How would you draw leadership development?  Send me your artwork (jmiller@people-equation.com) and I’ll post it!

One of my favorite experiential activities for management training is an oldie but goodie called the “Boo/Yay” exercise.  In it, two volunteers separately try to guess a per-determined task such as walking to the front of the room and picking up a marker. The audience is instructed to give the volunteers feedback to help them decide if they are moving closer to the task— they are to yell a disapproving “Boo!” to volunteer A and an encouraging “Yay! to volunteer B.

The feedback varies in one other way as well.  For volunteer A, the audience “boos” when the person moves away from achieving the task. When moving in the direction of the correct task, the group will remain silent. Therefore, the message is:

Boo = doing it wrong, need to change course

Silence = doing it right, keep going

For volunteer B, the audience cheers “Yay!” when the person’s moving in the right direction and say nothing when moving in the wrong direction. Volunteer B’s message is:

Yay = doing it right, keep going

Silence = doing it wrong, need to change course.

 When we debrief the activity we ask the volunteers for their reactions: How did it feel to be “Booed?” How did it feel to be “Yay-ed?”  The volunteer who was booed typically says he/she felt demoralized after awhile and tended to hesitate, not wanting to continue to make “mistakes”.  The volunteer who was yay-ed says he/she appreciated the support from the yays.  The silence wasn’t too troubling, because it gave her some space to think and figure out how to proceed next.

This activity sets up a rich discussion for the pros and cons of providing encouragement or criticism. We explore the roles of a manager— to coach, provide feedback and in some cases discipline.  All of these managerial tasks are vital to developing employees’ skills to the fullest, yet the way in which they’re employed will determine the manager’s effectiveness. I encourage managers to reflect upon this question: when you interact with your employees, do they feel “Booed” or “Yay-ed”?

The act of encouraging employees to bring out their best is a nuanced one.  Some employees will view too much “Yay-ing” as insincere cheerleading.  Others have a very high need for feedback and encouragement. The type and amount of encouragement needed may also be driven by generational issues.  Much is being written about Millenial employees’ need to get constant feedback due to their hi-tech, hi-touch upbringing. 

In the end, it comes down to paying close attention to the varying needs of each individual employee.  Pay attention to if your praise was well-received.  If not, consider how you might alter it next time— praise in private rather than public?  More low-key rather than effusive? Written versus spoken praise?

However you employ your encouragement, continually return to this touchstone: are you a Boo or a Yay manager?