Team Building Exercises

The best learning comes from hands-on team building exercises. Use engaging training to teach the core values of collaboration and communication to your team members.

3
aug
1

How to Use Games to Create Microlearning Moments with Lasting Impact

Posted by Team Building Exercises, Teamwork Games2 Comments

I grew up playing lots of games. My siblings and I played (and fought over) Aggravation, Clue, Monopoly, Canasta, Tripoli, Old Maid, Spoons, and Euchre. Outdoors we played hide-and-seek, croquet, sardines, and Marco Polo. My passion for games stems from great memories of how much fun I had playing them as a kid.

But not everyone loves playing games. When I ask non-gamers what they don’t like games, the response I get most often is, “I just don’t see the point. Games are a waste of time.” This is unfortunate because games have the power to create a shared “ah-ha” for learners in a way that other tactics cannot. They teach without the preach.

Introducing a New Game

Last week I asked a group of teammates in the office to play a game I recently learned called “Kunja.” Kunja is an energizer game played by Boys and Girls Clubs by older kids and teens. You can see from the video that I enjoyed this game way more than my teammates. (I’m the one in red.) It involves chanting different phrases (Kun-ja, Bunny-Bunny, and Tokey-Tokey) in a specified order, depending on who is doing what. It gets silly fast.

My teammates humored me, but they were definitely not fans. They – without saying it in so many words – were in the “this is a waste of time” camp or the “this game is silly” camp.

Teachable Microlearning Moments

With a small amount of advanced thinking, I could have flipped this game into an ah-ha experience. I could have used those very attitudes (this is silly; this is a waste of time) to my advantage from a learning standpoint. Here’s the reflection I could have done to convert this from a simple distraction into a powerful ah-ha and microlearning moment:

  • “How many of you secretly worried about looking silly in front of your teammates?” Wait for responses and then point out, “Fear holds us back from lots of things. It might have held you back from simply letting go and having fun with others here. Other times it might hold you back from speaking up, sharing an idea, or doing something new that scares you.”
  • “How many of you felt silly – or thought this was a time waster that kept you from work?” Wait for responses and point out, “Laughter and shared silliness can build relationships. Strong relationships make for better teamwork. Better teamwork means better work product. Taking a break and cultivating laughter is often one of the most productive things you can do.”
  • “How many of you felt downright uncomfortable?” Wait for responses and make the point, “The more we put ourselves in uncomfortable situations the more confidence we gain that we can survive and thrive while being uncomfortable. You don’t grow when you are comfortable; you grow by deliberately making yourself UNcomfortable.”

Set up correctly, a game like this flips from “time waster” to powerful microlearning experience (for those who love the phrase). It takes five minutes to play. A good post-game reflection takes another 2-3 minutes, and the overall impact and retention of the learning points can be long-lasting.

Create Your Own Game

Don’t need a game of risk-taking? Then take the concepts from this game and alter the content to turn it into a learning game about something else. By swapping the chants in this game with ones such as “deadlines, emails, IMs” and shifting the game element from one of competition to cooperation, I could turn this into a great microlearning lesson on multi-tasking and its negative impact on productivity.

You get my point, here. Games can function as frames with you inputting content to reflect the learning need you have. Simple games. Powerful results. Minimal time required.

HRDQ-U and Sharon Boller are offering a FREE webinar August 8th at 2pm ET. Register now! 

This post was written by Sharon Boller.

20
jul
0

Does Gamification Actually Work? Yes, and Here’s Why

Posted by Experiential Learning Activities, HR Training, Human Resource Training, Leadership Games, Team Building Exercises, Teamwork Games2 Comments

written by Sharon Boller

I’m a big Twitter fan; I use it to curate content and pay attention to people whose opinions I care about and the trends I’m interested in. I believe in hashtags (#GBL, #gamification, #UX, #ATD, #DevLearn) as they help me easily curate content and monitor those trends.

Last week, on the #ATD “back channel” (conversation that gets created when you diligently use hashtags to share info on a particular topic, person, or event), the topic of learning myths was hot and heavy, largely due to Clark Quinn’s newly-released (and excellent) book on the same topic.

Though gamification is not in Clark’s book, gamification came up on the #ATD back channel as part of a discussion on learning myths… and people were suddenly questioning whether it is a myth: “it doesn’t really work.”

Whoa.

As someone who has been immersed in the arena of learning games and the gamification of learning – and whose product and custom solutions have earned Brandon Hall awards because of the results they produce and who wrote a book on how to design effective learning games – I was understandably concerned by this line of conversation.

A Gamification Myth

In the instance of a recent Twitter conversation, truth emerged that some of the “myth” comments about gamification stemmed from a single study that one astute Twitterer, Shannon Tipton, called “full of holes as Swiss cheese.” The study authors did not provide any information about the two lessons being compared except for this: 1) the lessons were supposed to teach students how to divide fractions, and 2) one was called “basketball divide fractions” lesson and the other was simply called “divide fractions.”  The authors used their proprietary platform to conduct a controlled, randomized study to compare two lessons that teach students how to divide fractions.

The study suggests (but does not directly say) that one lesson was gamified in some fashion, but we aren’t told how. The other lesson was not gamified. The results overwhelmingly favored the non-gamified lesson. Kids learned faster and performed better on subsequent fractions tests that required them to divide fractions. The gamified approach resulted in lower test scores, even though kids spent longer in the lesson by choice. The authors indicate this increased amount of time spent on the lesson was 100% voluntary; the assumption they seem to want readers to have is that students had more fun doing one lesson than the other. From that single study that omits tons of relevant information, some folks conclude, “gamification of instruction doesn’t work.”

What’s Missing From this Study?

Let’s think about what we don’t know here:

  • The quality of the game/gamification design: How many game elements did they use? Were they used optimally? Was the gamified solution too complex so students’ expended too much brain power figuring out rules and too little learning fractions? Or was it motivating the wrong behavior? (e.g. Rewarding progress versus mastery. In scenarios that focus on rewarding progress, learners earn points simply by completing a problem. Getting the problem correct is not a criteria for earning a reward. Learners could also have been rewarded for speed, which could push them to guess the right solution rather than truly make an effort to solve for the right answer.)
  • The equivalency of the quality of the instructional design across the two solutions: Were both lessons, in fact, teaching identical principles and using some of the same techniques? Did they each have solid instructional design? (Example: did they both employ worked examples, which reduces cognitive load and increases learning efficiency?)

What the study illustrated was the basketball dividing fractions was less effective in helping students perform well on a fractions test than the lesson that did not include the gamified elements used in the basketball lesson. If I were a game designer on that lesson, I would want to go back to it and figure out what I’d done wrong in gamifying the lesson. I would not be ready to assume that gamification itself was the problem.

How to Effectively Use Games & Gamification

Bad gamification or game design is going to yield bad results just as bad instructional design is going to lead to poor results. That doesn’t mean gamification or games don’t work. So how do you use games and gamification effectively? Here are some principles that will help you maximize efficacy:

1. Keep game complexity simple, particularly when you are using a game to support relatively short lessons.
Do not over-complicate a learning game or gamified lesson with lots of game mechanics (aka rules) or game elements. Elements are things such as rewards, scoring, chance, strategy, resources, cooperation, competition, aesthetics, theme, and story. Doing so increases the cognitive load on your learner and makes it harder, not easier, to learn. (See this explanation of cognitive load theory, which was first identified by John Sweller in 1988.)

2. Reward players for performance, not completion.
If you are going to award points within the game, those points need to come from demonstrating knowledge or skill, not just progress. (See Karl Kapp’s book on the Gamification of Learning and Instruction. There’s an entire chapter on research studies and another on how to use rewards effectively – and what not to do.)

3. Be cautious with leaderboards.
Leaderboards can be fun, but be sure you focus on more than who is on top. Consider letting people see more about themselves rather than just what other players are doing. We are all very interested in ourselves so we like to see our rank relative to others, improvements we’ve made over time, personal bests, etc. We also like being part of a team. So consider team-based comparisons (e.g. by location, role, etc.) as opposed to just head-to-head individual comparisons.

4. As much as possible, align the game element choices you use to the learner’s actual job context.
In other words, avoid competition in a game if the job requires cooperation/collaboration. If you want to incorporate “chance” into a game (and this is a handy game element for balancing out gameplay), make sure you use it appropriately. This means matching the types of chance a player encounters in the game with the way chance occurs in the real world.

For example, if you are teaching project management, a great use of chance is to have it come up as a factor that requires the player to consider alternate strategies. “One of your teammates just called in sick. Identify two other viable strategies for meeting today’s deadline.” “Your client just called to say she’s going to miss her deadline. She asks, ‘How can we still hit the ultimate milestone. I don’t want the project to slip overall.’ What do you do?” (Play to Learn, the book I co-authored with Karl Kapp, outlines how to combine learning design and game design together to maximize the impact and efficacy of games.)

5. Make the in-game goal align with the learning goal in a reasonable way that “makes sense” for the learners who will play your game or complete your gamified lesson.
Again, mirror job context. If the real-world scenario is to achieve certain quality ratings for a medical facility, for example, mirror that goal within the game. This reduces cognitive load on your learners as they don’t have to distinguish what’s true in the game from what’s true in their job context. This blog post on playtesting features a game where we worked hard (via multiple iterations) to get our game goal and rewards just right to maximize learning.

6. Stop thinking you have to make the game super “fun.”
Fun doesn’t really matter if the focus is on optimizing the learning outcomes. What matters is relevance and a game design that reinforces and enhances the instructional design. A game needs to be “fun enough” to keep your player/learner involved in that game. You also need to re-think what “fun” is. Kevin Werbach of the Wharton School of Business does a great job of breaking down what people actually find fun and it includes things such as strategizing, problem-solving, and collaborating – all skills required in many jobs.

Additional Resources
Want more guidelines on effectively using games or gamification in instruction? Check out these resources:

HRDQ-U and Sharon Boller are offering a FREE webinar August 8th at 2pm ET. Register now! 

1
nov
0
webinar diversity works interactive

New Webinar! Diversity Works: An Interactive Exploration into Diversity Awareness

Posted by Diversity, Team Building Exercises, Teamwork GamesNo Comments

We are excited to announce our upcoming webinar!

Event Date: 11/8/2017 (2:00 pm EDT- 3:00 pm EDT)

The need for businesses to create an inclusive environment and support workplace diversity are more important than ever. Diversity Works leverages the science of learning to create opportunities for conversations that matter. The workshop is designed to get adult learners out of their seats and into station-based activities catered to distinct learning preferences, interaction types, and technology options. Part experiential, part social, and part emotional, the Cafeteria Learning style model encourages learners to explore and absorb content at their own speed and direction. It puts learners in the best position to succeed.

In this one- hour webcast, learn how to create conversations that matter! Attend this session for an overview of Diversity Works and have a chance to ask the designer questions about how this unique, interactive, and learner-centered workshop can work for you.

Participants will learn 

  • How Diversity Works differs from other diversity workshops.
  • Why Diversity Works works!
  • An overview of the 12 activities.
  • How to facilitate Diversity Works.

Attendees will also receive a special offer after the webinar on the Diversity Works workshop found at HRDQ.com!

Save your seat! 

Jillian Douglas is co-founder and chief learning officer at Idea Learning Group. With more than 20 years of experience in adult education, Jillian has a passion for conceptualizing and delivering operational, managerial, and leadership-focused employee development programs. She also facilitates classroom learning and conducts speaking engagements on a wide variety of topics related to adult learning and development. Jillian is the co-author of Let Them Choose: Cafeteria Learning Style for Adults and Diversity Works.

2
aug
0

New Webinar! Untangling Talent and Teamwork

Posted by Coaching Skills, HR Training, Human Resource Training, Team Building ExercisesNo Comments

We are excited to announce a new webinar!

Event Date: 09/27/2017 (2:00 pm EDT- 3:00 pm EDT)

In our highly competitive culture, teamwork is often impacted negatively by the individual members’ efforts to ensure they receive recognition and compensation for their personal creativity.  While valid and important, leaders are often baffled as to how to integrate the individual goal into the team culture and communications and still improve the quality of teamwork.

Join experts Marcia Hughes and James Terrell as they explore ways to diagnose where the individual needs of the members (talent) get tangled up with the collective productivity of the team and how to sort them out.

Participants will learn

  • Understanding why talent and teams tangle
  • Combining the roles of being an individual performer and a good team member
  • Applying the right metrics for diagnosing teams
  • Strategies to expand the talents of teamwork

Save your seat! 

Marcia Hughes is president of Collaborative Growth and serves as a strategic communications partner for teams and their leaders in organizations that value high performers. She weaves her expertise in team development and emotional intelligence throughout her consulting, keynotes, facilitation, and coaching. She is co-author of The Emotionally Intelligent Team, The Handbook for Developing Emotional and Social Intelligence, Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Facilitator Guide Package, which includes the TESI® Short, A Coach’s Guide to Emotional Intelligence, and Emotional Intelligence in Action, 2 ed. and author of Life’s 2% Solution.  Hughes is co-creator of the Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey® (TESI®). She is a certified trainer in the EQ-i 2.0 and EQ-360, the Pearman and Risk Type Compass and provides Train the Trainer training and coaching in powerful EQ delivery.

James Bradford Terrell is Vice President of Collaborative Growth where he applies his expertise in interpersonal communication to help a variety of public and private sector clients anticipate change and respond to it resiliently.  He is co-author of The Emotionally Intelligent Team, The Handbook for Developing Emotional and Social Intelligence, Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Facilitator Guide Package, which includes the TESI® Short, A Coach’s Guide to Emotional Intelligence, and Emotional Intelligence in Action. He coaches leaders, teams in transition, and senior management, using the EQi 2.0, the EQ 360, and other assessments. James is co-creator of the Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey® (TESI®). James provides train the trainer workshops and educates coaches and team leaders on how to develop the insightful interpretation and application of EQ results.

17
may
0

4 Practices to Tap Your Superpower of Human Connection

Posted by Communication Styles, Corporate Team Building Games, Team Building ExercisesNo Comments

By Michael Lee Stallard

It’s encouraging to see more leaders identify human connection as a primary factor contributing to their organization’s sustained success.  Fortune magazine recently recognized Theo Epstein, President, Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball and the Cubs organization, as #1 on its world’s greatest leaders list. Last year the Cubs won the World Series and broke the franchise’s 108-year World Series title drought, the longest in professional sports.

According to Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated writer and author of The Cubs Way:

“Theo Epstein, once known as the number-crunching wizard who broke the championship curse of the Boston Red Sox, built [the Cubs] with an emphasis on people who would create the right ethos. The story of the Cubs’ championship would not just be about 2016. It would be timeless. It would also be about the power of human connection—teammates to teammates, teammates to fans, generation to generation.”

Previously I’ve written about Cubs manager Joe Maddon and the Chicago Cubs’ culture of connection. In a future article I will present a detailed description of the Cubs’ culture based on Verducci’s observations in The Cubs Way.

For now I’d like to focus on a pattern I’m seeing. As I read through Fortune’s world’s greatest leaders list, it jumped out at me that a number of the top leaders recognized are intentional connectors who create cultures of connection.

For example, note that the #3 rated leader is Pope Francis who is well known for being intentional about connecting with people and, I believe, is working to create a culture of connection in the Catholic Church.

The #4 rated leader is Melinda Gates who is without doubt an intentional connector. I highly recommend watching Ms. Gates’ outstanding commencement speech at Duke University, her alma mater, in which she describes the importance of connection to thrive in life.

In many fields, leaders and thought leaders are discovering the superpower of connection.  Consider healthcare. Kate Otto, author of Everyday Ambassador and co-founder of the organization Everyday Ambassador, recently wrote an outstanding article published in Clinical Correlations: The New York University Langone Online Journal of Medicine. Ms. Otto makes the case that the scientific research shows how damaging chronic loneliness is to health so physicians should be looking for signs of it in their patients.  She recommends that physicians on the front lines of medicine inquire about a patient’s state of social connection by asking questions such as “Do you live alone? Who will visit you here in the hospital? With whom do you share your private worries and fears? How much of your week do you spend with other people?” She goes on to recommend developing therapeutic relationships that include empathizing with patients.

Are You Tapping Your Superpower?

I frequently note that Matthew Lieberman, the University of California at Los Angeles neuroscientist and author of Social, describes connection as a superpower that makes you smarter, happier and more productive. This raises the question: Are you tapping into your superpower of connection?

Research confirms that most people are not. The former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said the most common illness today is a lack of connection. This is unlikely to change, given current trends and the rise of social media and remote work. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, recently wrote about research that showed social media was making us lonelier. The rise of remote work is contributing to loneliness too.

Is Your Team and Organization Tapping Its Superpower?

Connection is also a superpower for teams and organizations because it boosts employee engagement, strategic alignment, productivity and innovation. Most teams and organizations are not tapping into their superpower of connection. Gallup research shows two-thirds of American workers don’t feel connected at work.

In their Harvard Business Review article on creating a positive workplace culture, Stanford’s Emma Seppala and University of Michigan’s Kim Cameron recommend four connection-producing practices that boost performance of a team or organization:

  1. foster social connections
  2. show empathy
  3. go out of your way to help, and
  4. encourage people to talk to you, especially about their problems.

These are just a few ways to connect. My colleagues and I have previously recommended each of these plus many additional practices which are also described in our book, Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy and Understanding at Work, and free e-book, 100 Ways to Connect.

About connection, professors Seppela and Cameron write:

“A large number of empirical studies confirm that positive social connections at work produce highly desirable results. For example, people get sick less often, recover twice as fast from surgery, experience less depression, learn faster and remember longer, tolerate pain and discomfort better, display more mental acuity, and perform better on the job. Conversely, research by Sarah Pressman at the University of California, Irvine, found that the probability of dying early is 20% higher for obese people, 30% higher for excessive drinkers, 50% higher for smokers, but a whopping 70% higher for people with poor social relationships. Toxic, stress-filled workplaces affect social relationships and, consequently, life expectancy.”

Your Mindset: Connection Is an Extraordinary Opportunity

Although the decline of connection in modern society may seem depressing to some, I want you to see it as an opportunity. By increasing connection in your life and the lives of your family, friends and colleagues, you will thrive and improve the lives of those around you. By promoting connection in your organization, you will be boosting its performance and contribution to society.

To get the conversation started on the importance of boosting connection in your organization and how to go about it, I invite you and your colleagues to join my colleague Todd Hall, chief scientist at E Pluribus Partners, and me on a webcast titled “Employee Engagement: Using Your Vision, Value and Voice,” on May 24 from 2:00-3:00 pm EDT.  You can find details and signup information here.

Mark this day, connect more with others and watch what happens.  I promise that over time, you will see that connection affects much more than the bottom line. As you experience greater peace, hope and joy that comes from having an abundance of connection in your life, you will have discover wealth of even greater value.

Michael Lee Stallard, Todd W. Hall, and HRDQ-U are hosting a webinar May 24th at 2pm ET. Save your seat here!

Michael Lee Stallard is President of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and consulting firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a co-founder of ConnectionCulture.com. He speaks and teaches at a wide variety of organizations including Google, Johnson & Johnson, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, NASA, Qualcomm, Scotiabank, and the U.S. Treasury Department. Texas Christian University created the TCU Center for Connection Culture based on Michael’s work.

Todd W. Hall, Ph.D. is Chief Scientist for E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and consulting firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut.  A research and clinical psychologist, Todd has 20+ years experience helping individuals and teams thrive.  He has been privileged to consult with start-ups, government agencies, non-profits, and for-profits, including the National Institute for Mental Health, the U.S. Army, the Salvation Army, VHA Corp., New York City Leadership Center, Moody Press, Pruvio, and numerous universities.

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