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Corporate Team Building Games

Team building training is a great way to develop key workplace skills like collaboration and communication. You can energize your training with corporate team building games that make training a blast!

3
feb
0

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Coaching For Followership

Posted by HRDQ-U WebinarsCoaching Skills, Corporate Team Building GamesNo Comments

We had lunch the other day with our good friend Tracey and heard all about her experience volunteering for the Pan Am Games. With her background as a news reporter, she was selected to provide support to the media in attendance.

Over lunch, she remarked on the noise and excitement of the crowds, particularly when the stands were filled with children. She commented on how steadfast the media were, writing stories amidst such fervour and cacophony. But mostly she talked about how much her volunteer colleagues could use followership coaching, especially the Millennials: how every request was met with a challenge; how every adaption the team needed was stubbornly refused; and how oblivious they seemed to the negative impact of their unsupportive behaviors.

Interestingly, the need for followership coaching doesn’t rest with the millennial generation. Lots of people can use a little help (or a lot of help!) in this regard. Even CEO’s…

A few weeks back, Marc and I were in Orlando, Florida at a conference. We did a session and had a book signing in the conference bookstore.

We arrived at the bookstore nice and early, as did Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall has the #1 bestselling business book in America right now and is considered the top coach of CEO’s and executives in the world. Although we hadn’t met face to face before, Marshall had been reading our ideasletter for a few years and generously supplied an enthusiastic endorsement for our book. We were excited to connect with him, hang out, and have an opportunity to let him know how much his work has inspired us.

Marshall and I popped off to get a coffee together before the signing and had a lovely chat. As I do executive leadership and followership coaching, I was dying to ask him, “Of all the CEO’s you are coaching right now, how many are you coaching for followership rather than leadership?” Marshall looked away for a quick second, then smiled and nodded, “Four!” or about half.

Interestingly, this has been my experience, too. About half the people who come to me for leadership coaching actually need followership coaching, and sometimes, quite desperately!

How to Coach for Followership

Coaching for followership is a lot like coaching for leadership, except that people are not as familiar with the ideas, and may not have a language for it. Because of this, there are some similarities between the two, but also some differences!

1. Hold up a mirror. Ask good clarifying and revealing questions. For example…

*What are you doing to build and nurture the relationship with your leader/leaders? In the case of CEO’s this is typically the board or owner. For entrepreneurs this includes investors.
*What are all the additional things you could be doing to support your leader?
*How are you sharing accountability for being on your leader’s wavelength? If you aren’t taking the lion’s share of the accountability, think about starting to. The most successful executives don’t leave things to chance; they take the initiative and are intentional in their actions.

2. Encourage your coachee to probe for precise, actionable feedback from their leader. For example…

Overall, how am I performing in my followership role with you?
*Do you feel fully supported by me?
*Do I take initiative in the right ways?
*Am I on your wavelength and do I represent you well?
*Do you feel I am fully engaged?
*Do you count on me to be a true thinking partner?
*What are all the ways I could be even more effective in this role with you?

3. Share best practices. Research into followership has yielded best practices that work. We share lots of these in our new book, Leadership Is Half The Story: A Fresh Look at Followership, Leadership and Collaboration.

4. Encourage use of the Platinum Rule: Treat others the way they want to be treated. Have your coachee discuss how they apply the Platinum Rule, and ways they might apply it even more effectively. How are they clarifying and confirming how others want to be treated?

5. Use the f-word, followership! Followership and leadership are discrete skills requiring specific language and attention. Your coachee could be doing one well and not the other.

This article was written originally posted here. It was reprinted with permission from the author.

headshots Dr. Marc Hurwitz is Co-founder and Chief Insight Officer of FliPskills. He holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, an MBA, masters degrees in physics and math, and combines that with many years of corporate, executive, and entrepreneurial experience in T&D, general HR, marketing and entrepreneurship. He is on the faculty at the Conrad Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology, University of Waterloo. He has been recognized with numerous awards for teaching, academics, speaking, professional training, acting and poetry. Marc is known for being engaging, interesting, super insightful and not a woolly-headed academic!

Samantha Hurwitz is Co-Founder and Chief Encouragement Officer of FliPskills. She is a leadership and followership coach, consultant, trainer and writer with 25 years corporate and entrepreneurial experience, including nine at the executive level: Controller of a $6/yr billion organization, IT Executive with a $50 million project portfolio,and Chair of a Strategic Talent Management Program. She enjoys helping people have those “aha” and “ahhh” moments. Sam is known for being uniquely positive, practical and perceptive!

Marc and Samantha and HRDQ-U are hosting a free webinar on February 10th at 2pm. Sign up now!

13
jan
0

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Leading In The Wild

Posted by HRDQ-U WebinarsCorporate Team Building Games, Leadership GamesNo Comments

A maverick band of rabbits, threatened by the spread of industrial construction near their warren (home), start out on a quest for a new warren and a better society.

This is the backstory for Richard Adams’s 1972 best-selling book, Watership Down. The story describes the rabbits’ sudden evacuation and long odyssey complete with extreme danger, delightful fun, and challenging hurdles.

One part of the story has the band of rabbits encountering a group of caged rabbits on a small farm. The wandering pack needs more does (females) for their new society and there are two does and two bucks inside the small cage in the back of the barn. They extend a heartfelt invitation to all (does and bucks) to join them on their wild journey.

“Do you ever come out?” asks the leader, Hazel, puzzled by the caged rabbits’ docile nature. “Yes, sometimes,” one of the nervous rabbits declares. “The little boy takes us out and puts us in a pen on the grass.”

Opening the cage door, Hazel works to convince the four to abandon their confined and boring dwelling and join his band in the wild. As he spins his story of adventure and liberation, the caged rabbits resist with concerns for their security. “Besides,” one laments, “the nice little boy always comes to feed us and keeps us away from the big dog.”

The caged rabbits seem at once both bewildered and fascinated. As they continue their “freedom versus security” discussion, Hazel comes to a powerful realization:

“Although they were glad to talk to him and welcomed his visit because it brought a little excitement and change into their monotonous life, it was not within their capacity to take a decision and act on it. They did not know how to make up their minds. To him and his companions, sensing and acting was second nature, but these rabbits had never had to act to save their lives or even to find a meal.”

What Is Leadership, Really?

The classic tenets of what it means to be a leader originated in an era of “cage” employees. Employees punched in, went to their workstations, did their tasks all day, and punched out. New employees hoped to avoid getting a bad boss and stayed worried about their pay raises and performance reviews. They learned to keep their heads down; mouths closed, and just get the job done. Good bosses were benevolent but controlling; bad bosses were judgmental and controlling. Bosses held control over their means for food; and, if employees were good team players they got to enjoy the equivalent of being in the pen on the grass.

Leaders were instructed to be tough but fair. Many focused on their own welfares and drilled inflexibly for greater productivity. Even the language of business was littered with combative idioms like “cut throat,” “hands tied,” “take the bull by the horns,” “get a foot in the door,” and “twist an arm.” Recruiters were headhunters; organizational charts were chains of command. Leaders avoided getting in “hot water” or “burning bridges” and tried to stay “ahead of the pack.” Some led with directives via email or endless meetings; some walked the floor as “snooper-visors” with an ever-present eye for error.

Welcome To The Wild

Today’s employees work virtually, remotely, or on a shift different than their bosses. They are more interested in the camaraderie of collaborative work than in the aloneness of solo tasks. They are propelled more by the intrinsic worth of doing a good job than by simply completing their assigned work. They are more likely to leave because of a poor relationship with their immediate supervisor. While the great majority of managers today believe employees exit for more money, research shows only 12% leave for compensation concerns.

We live in a brain-based economy, not a brawn-based one. In such a world, employees thrive with more autonomy, more affirmation, and a sense of ownership in the goals of the unit. They want professional growth not necessarily upward mobility. They want to make a real difference. While they constantly court burnout from an unrelenting work pace, they are more apt to blame global competition than the quirkiness of their leader. All these pressures have changed the requirements for great leadership.

The Way Of The Leader In The Wild

Hazel provides a prototype of a leader excelling in the wild. His band of renegades is deeply committed to their mission and the members enjoy working together to overcome obstacles. They operate more as a partnership—a confederation of equals with different skills and talents but a shared calling and a collective zeal to see it through. Below are four tenets from Watership Down for leading in the wild.

1. Pursuit Of Purpose– It was not easy to enlist a few rabbits to trust Fiver’s nightmare vision of the impending destruction of their warren while ignoring the naysaying “Great Rabbit” and risk an unfamiliar journey. It required a compelling sense of purpose. At the end of the book, the band of rabbits learns that Fiver’s vision came true—bulldozers destroyed the warren the band had abandoned. Today’s workers value a cause, not just a course. They learn the capacity to make wise decisions when propelled by a noble mission. They require a sense of the why, not just the what or how.

2. Lead With Stories- Each evening before the rabbits went to sleep a story was shared. Adams’s book devoted a full chapter to each story. Filled with promise and courage the stories instructed as well as inspired. They yielded hope and courage. Great leaders are storytellers. Stories are more than just tall tales or campfire yarns. They include discussions of the enterprise in the future tense. They are visions of what can be, not just what is. They are dreams, not just plans. In a complex, unpredictable and volatile competitive work world, stories of promise instill conviction and bolster confidence.

3. Champion Diversity– Wise leaders know that success in the future will not come from incremental improvement but rather through disruptive innovation. Most surviving organizations have squeezed most of the waste and inefficiencies from their operations. Playing to win requires divergent perspectives, risk-taking confidence, and the bold embrace of change. That means a culture filled with a sense of adventure and a strong reception of different perspectives. Diversity is more than “does and bucks;” it is an attitude of continual learning and passionate curiosity–the engines of breakthroughs.

4. Leadership As A Force– From abandoned warren to a new home, leadership among the rabbits influenced and inspired their collective success. While Hazel was the “appointed” chief, leadership was communal–coming from the rabbit best able to deal with the challenge or situation. Hazel believed in the goodness of everyone and nurtured each to be a fellow leader. He respected the astute instincts of Fiver, the runt of the warren. Leadership in the wild is an adaptable and helpful force, not a role. Since it is shared power, it is trusted power. It nurtures rather than controls; mentors instead of commands.

A wise coach once said:

“My responsibility is getting all my players playing for the name on the front of the jersey not the one on the back.”

Leadership today is about achieving an honorable collective purpose while building a better society. In the end, Hazel and his band of rabbits were successful, not for their victorious house hunting, but for their virtuous community building.

What lessons would you say a manager could learn from leading in the wild?

This article was written originally posted here. It was reprinted with permission from the author.

Chip's New Promo Photo.bmp resize Chip R. Bell is a senior partner with the Chip Bell Group. A renowned keynote speaker, he has served as consultant, trainer, or speaker to such major organizations as Marriott, Lockheed-Martin, Cadillac, KeyBank, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, USAA, Cornell University, Harley-Davidson, and Victoria’s Secret. Prior to starting a consulting firm in the early 1980s, he was Director of Management and Organization Development for NCNB (now Bank of America). The Chip Bell Group was in 2014 ranked number six in North America among mid-sized consulting firms for leadership development. Additionally, Dr. Bell was a highly decorated infantry unit commander in Vietnam with the elite 82nd Airborne.

Chip is the author or co-author of twenty-one books, many national and international best sellers. Some of his previous books include The 9½ Principles of Innovative Service, Wired and Dangerous, Take Their Breath Away, Managers as Mentors, Magnetic Service, Managing Knock Your Socks off Service, Service Magic and Customers as Partners. His newest book is Sprinkles: Creating Awesome Experience through Innovative Service. He has appeared live on CNBC, CNN, Fox Business Network, Bloomberg TV, NPR, ABC and his work has been featured in Fortune, Businessweek, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, The CEO Magazine, WSJ MarketWatch, Leader to Leader and Fast Company.

Chip and HRDQ-U are hosting a free webinar on January 20th at 2PM ET. Sign up for it now!

9
dec
0

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Episodic Learning-Learning Like Watching Your Favorite Soap Opera!

Posted by HRDQ-U WebinarsCorporate Team Building Games, HR Training, Team Building Exercises, Teamwork GamesNo Comments

Have you ever wished learning can be fun while at the same time in-depth? The current dilemma is that if you want to go deeper on the subject, you have to weather through the boredom created by traditional information delivery. But if you want to go the way of fun, well, you just have to scratch the surface. This shouldn’t be the case! There has to be a way to learn and have fun at the same time! The good news for you-there is! Read on!

Following the Characters and their Stories

We all love to follow people’s lives because we want to know what they will do next. Isn’t this the normal way we learn? Isn’t this the reason why we love the “Modern Family,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Dancing with The Stars” or “Downton Abbey?”

Episodic Learning AKA, Thematic learning is the natural way we learn. Since childhood, we immediately learn to follow life’s episodes as it unfolds before us. What’s daddy and mommy up to this time? Are they having a fight? Whose birthday is it? These are some of the episodes that we naturally follow at home and in the community around us.  In the words of John F. Kihlstrom in his article “How Students Learn — and How We Can Help Them,” “Episodic knowledge is essentially autobiographical memory, for particular events that have a unique location in space and time.”

Then all of a sudden we join the classroom and we are bombarded with an avalanche of information which we can’t easily digest! Wait a minute, this is not the usual way we learn! In one word-boring…

According to Bethany Bodenhamer in a blog post in Lesson Planet titled “Themes vs. Timelines” “Dates, names, numbers, and places are the facts that young historians are often required to memorize in their various history courses. Therefore, that is generally how and what teachers teach. However, what if there was a more interesting, intriguing, and captivating way to teach these same facts – a way in which students are taught the basics at the same time that they are making connections, discovering themes, and thinking at a higher level? This is all possible by teaching thematically.”

In short, what if there is a better way to go in-depth while avoiding boredom?

Advantages of Episodic Learning

Episodic Learning enables learners to go deeper into the topic without being bugged down by the barrage of information coming in. Consider the following natural advantages:

Heightens Curiosity

Curiosity is the currency in learning. When you run out of it, you can’t just expect to continue absorbing any kind of knowledge. The good thing with episodic learning is that it heightens our natural curiosity about what happens next. The “cliff hangers” that ends an episode in a story make us wanting for more episodes to come. Hence, learning becomes a natural process.

Allows Reflection

These cliff hangers make us mull over what’s possibly going to happen next in the story. What will the main character do in this situation? Can he still pull more tricks from his sleeves? If so, will it work this time? These are some of the reflective questions that come to mind because you are left hanging by the last story episode.

Enables Possibility Thinking

This mulling over enables you, the learner, to become a possibility thinker. “Thinking out of the box” is a learned trait in traditional learning but it comes naturally in episodic story based learning. It enables you to think in terms of “what if” instead of “what is.”

Opens Up Other Scenarios 

Now that you have considered other possibilities by thinking out of the box, other scenarios open up. A world of possibilities is all of a sudden available to you instead of just copying existing ones. The well-trodden path is not always the best path. True learners try the path least traveled.

Allows Open Discussion

Opened up scenarios allow like-minded learners to discuss them openly. There are no stupid ideas, all are given equal air-time in the discussion forums. Open discussions create an escalation of the available ideas contributed from all learners. Since all feel welcome to contribute, all possibilities are exhausted and ideas are collated to form a unified solution.

More Opportunities for Designers

This openness allows designers to insert more content pertinent to the stories. The possibilities are endless and you are not bound to any specific format. The only limit to content creation is your creativity.

This article was written originally posted here. It was reprinted with permission from the author.

Ray Jimenez

Ray JimenezRay has spent 15 years with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the areas of management consulting and implementation of learning technology solutions.  Currently, Ray is the Chief Learning Strategist for www.vignetteslearning.com. Ray has worked with American Bankers Association, Dollar Tree Stores, U.S. Force, NASA, Blue Cross, Goodwill Industries, Pixar Studios, California Institute of Technology and many others.  Ray is the author of 3-Minute e-Learning, Scenario-based eLearning, Micro-Learning Applications and Impacts and Story Impacts- Using Stories and Systems to Impact Performance. Workshop participants describe Ray as “fun”, “engaging”, “technically savvy”, “provocative”, “and inspiring” and “has depth in e-learning experience and innovation solutions.”

Ray and HRDQ-U are hosting a free webinar on December 16th at 2pm. Sign up for it now!

25
nov
0

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Employee Engagement: The Surprising Truth About What Increases Engagement in the Workplace

Posted by HRDQ-U WebinarsCoaching Skills, Communication Styles, Corporate Team Building Games, HR TrainingNo Comments

Employee engagement is one of the hottest topics in organizations as companies strive to retain their top talent in a workplace landscape where ‘free agency’ and job hopping is easier than ever. In the 2014 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends research, 78% of business leaders rate retention and engagement urgent or important, and businesses all over the world are trying to build inclusive, passionate, multi-generational teams.

Today, companies typically use engagement surveys as benchmarking tools to help assess an employee’s level of “engagement.” While this is a good thing to do, it is important to realize that annual surveys need to be supported with real efforts to address the cultural expectations of today’s workforce.  Creating a high performance work environment is a complex problem. Companies need to consider all of the work related issues which drive employee commitment. The list includes:

  • The performance management process and how employees are rewarded
  • Transparency around how employees can manage their careers
  • Development of talent and making it easy for high performers to advance
  • Creating an inclusive culture in order to attract and retain a more diverse workforce
  • Communicating a vision that resonates with the people companies hire
  • Managing transition and re-engaging employees when there is a change event
  • Building organizations that are caring, meaningful, and fun

In our engagement webinar, we will not only look at how to use surveys to benchmark and drive employee engagement, we will also look at the expectations that employees have about what it means to work in an engaging culture, a kind of workplace that engenders meaning, fulfillment and loyalty.

This article was reprinted with permission from the author.

591fb1eb44c45d5e4f601858b081e955_headshot-KMulle_100-200-cKarl Mulle, M.A.C.P., is a corporate trainer, coach and keynote speaker, as well as a psychotherapist in private practice. He has over 31 years of experience in the design and delivery of energizing and fun programs on human effectiveness. His topics include: developing leaders, building healthy relationships, increasing emotional intelligence, managing diversity, developing communication and presentation skills, managing change, and building effective teams. Karl applies an experiential approach to learning, creatively designing sessions to maximize interaction and self-discovery. His client list includes: General Electric, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson, 3M, Citibank, Nielsen, Cigna, the FDA, and the United States Office of Personnel Management. Karl has traveled extensively throughout the United States (46 states) and European/Asian countries (31 countries), and has recently co-authored the book: Put Emotional Intelligence to Work: EQuip Yourself for Success.

HRDQ-U and  Karl are hosting a free webinar on December 2nd at 2PM ET.

6
nov
2

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Breakthrough Creativity and Mission Statements

Posted by HRDQ-U WebinarsCorporate Team Building Games, Corporate Training Materials, Experiential Learning, HR Training, Human Resource Training, Team Building ExercisesNo Comments

By Lynne Levesque

Recently, I facilitated a Breakthrough Creativity session for a department within a consumer products company.  The objectives of the session were several:  to introduce the participants to the Breakthrough Creativity concepts, to improve the functioning of the team, and to draft a mission statement for the department.  Prior to the session, participants completed the Breakthrough Creativity Profile, reviewed their results in the Breakthrough Creativity Participant Guide, read some material I had prepared on mission statements, and were asked to come up with at least one possible mission statement for the Department.

The first hour of the morning was spent reviewing the results of the Breakthrough Creativity Profile. Since the participants had all read the material in the Participant Guide beforehand, they were familiar with the talents and their own profiles.  In addition to going over all the talents so everyone was familiar with all eight- not just their own, we were also able to spend a few minutes integrating the results of the Profile with those of the Predictive Index which all of the participants had taken within the past several years.  In the second half of the morning, we discussed the results of their Team Profile which I had been able to generate prior to our session.

Over lunch we completed the final agenda item of the day: working on the department’s Mission Statement.  Much to everyone’s surprise we were able to come to agreement on a pretty final version.

The session proved to be a smashing success!  The department’s HR rep also attended the workshop as an observer.  At the end of our time together, she commented on how well the session had gone and how much everyone had participated (which had not been necessarily expected, given some of the personalities in the room).  When my client, the head of the department, commented on how pleased she was with the mission statement draft, the HR rep remarked that she didn’t think it would have been such a successful day without the morning session on the Breakthrough Creativity framework.

We talked about why she thought that was so and came up with the following answers:

  1. The Breakthrough Creativity Profile work helped build more self-awareness.
  2. The Department Head was very open with sharing her results and thus set the stage for the rest of the participants to feel comfortable sharing.
  3. The Team Profile really opened up the conversation.  We not only discussed the actual results but also diverged into other relevant topics.   The open and honest discussion that ensued addressed some issues that were critical to the team’s performance.
  4. There was a lot of laughter during the conversations in the morning which probably added to the success of the session.  The hormones released through laughter loosened everyone up and allowed for even more creative thinking.
  5. Although not everyone had been willing or eager to contribute in the first couple of hours of the session, by the time we got to lunch everyone was pretty relaxed and fully engaged.
  6. The Breakthrough Creativity framework, the talents, and the team profile all seemed to oil the hinges and allow ideas to flow, camaraderie to be heightened, and creative juices to run!

What has been your experience with mission statement exercises?  Have they been as successful as this one was?

headshot-llevesque_200Dr. Lynne Levesque is a leadership and creativity consultant based in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to launching her consulting and training practice, she was a vice president at Bank of America.  She is the author of Breakthrough Creativity: Achieving Top Performance Using the Eight Creative Talents and the Breakthrough Creativity Profile, as well as several cases and articles. Lynne holds a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College, an M.B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and an Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Lynne will be hosting a free webinar for HRDQ-U on November 11th at 2PM ET. Register Breakthrough Creativity Profileto reserve your spot today.

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