THIAGI GAMELETTER: August 2013

Structured Sharing

Who and Why

You already know a lot about factors that increase and decrease people's trustworthiness. This is because ever since you were a baby, you have learned through experience who to trust and who to distrust. This activity asks you to think about six people and decide why you trust or distrust them.

Synopsis

Participants work individually, with a partner, and in teams to prepare a list of dos and don'ts for increasing their trustworthiness. Eventually, each participant selects a trust factor that he or she wants to apply immediately.

Purpose

To identify and apply factors that increase and decrease people's trustworthiness.

Participants

Minimum: 6
Maximum: 50
Best: 15 to 30

Time

20 to 45 minutes

Supplies

• Countdown timer
• Whistle
• Sheets of flipchart paper
• Felt-tipped pens
• Masking tape

Flow

Ask the participants to select three people. Tell the participants that they are going to undertake a thought experiment. Ask each participant to think of three people they trust very much: One of them should be a public figure, one should be a friend or a family member, and one should be a person from the workplace. Inform the participants that they do not have to reveal the identity of these people to anyone else.

Ask the participants to identify trust factors. Invite the participants to think what makes them trust these three people very much. Ask them to make a list of the trust factors on a piece of paper. Point out that some of these trust factors could be common to all three or they could be specific to one or two of the selected people. Announce a 3-minute time limit for this activity.

Ask the participants to select three other people. This time, tell the participants to select three people they distrust the most. One of these should be a public figure they do not trust at all, another should be a friend or a family member, and the third one should be a person from their workplace. Once again, reassure the participants that they do not have to reveal the identity of these people.

Ask the participants to identify the distrust factors. Invite the participants to think about what makes them distrust one or more of the selected people. Ask them to make a list of these factors on a piece of paper. Announce a 3-minute time limit for completing this task.

Distribute playing cards. Give a random playing card to each participant. Make sure to distribute equal numbers of black and red cards. (If you have an odd number of participants, you may give one more card of either red or black color.)

Pair up with a partner. Ask the participants to pair up with someone who has a card of the different color. If one participant is left over, ask him or her to pair up with you.

Discuss trust and distrust factors with the partner. Ask the participants to share the trust factors they had identified in the first thought experiment. Ask them also to discuss the distrust factors. Announce a 3-minute time limit for this activity.

Form a team. Blow a whistle at the end of 3 minutes. Ask the participants to say “Goodbye” to their partners and to form a team of three to five people who have playing cards of the same color (red or black).

List Dos and Don'ts. Distribute a sheet of flipchart paper and a felt-tipped pen to each team. Instruct the team members to share their ideas and to prepare a two-column poster with a list of dos and don'ts for increasing trust level. Announce a 5-minute time limit for this activity.

Review lists from other teams. Blow the whistle at the end of 5 minutes. Ask the teams to attach their posters to the wall with pieces of masking tape. Invite the participants to review the posters from the other teams to discover common items and unique ones. Announce a 3-minute time limit.

Debriefing

Discuss the items from the posters. At the end of 3 minutes, blow the whistle and assemble the participants for a debriefing discussion. Conduct this discussion by asking questions similar to these:

• Which trust factor appeared in most posters?
• Which trust factor is unique to a single poster?
• Which trust factor is most frequently neglected in your workplace?
• Which factor can produce the most increase in the trust level?

Prepare an action plan. Invite each participant to individually select one of the trust factors for immediate action. Ask the participants to prepare a plan for applying this trust factor to increase their trustworthiness. If time permits, ask the participants to pair up with a new partner and share their application ideas.

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Podcast

Learners with Split Personalities

You can listen to our latest podcast episode:

Episode 12: Learners with Split Personalities ( http://thiagi.net/podcasts/tgti_podcast_12.mp3 )

But that's not all.

In order to maximize your learning from this recording, we have listed a set of summary sentences below.

These sentences are incorporated into an instructional lecture format called Missing Sentence from our September 2009 issue of TGL.

You can play a solitaire version of Missing Sentence by following the instructions below the list of summary sentences.

Summary Sentences

1. You can transform learners into instructional analysts by having them classify and evaluate a wide range of examples.
2. In the activity called Best Practices, learners generate pieces of practical advice—and organize, evaluate, and apply these tips.
3. Bequest is an activity that transforms learners into instructional designers and invites one group of learners to create learning tools that help the next group.
4. You can transform learners into change agents by having them help each other create and implement action plans for applying their new skills.
5. By transforming learners into subject-matter experts you can tap into the wisdom of the crowd, especially in soft-skill areas.
6. You can transform learners into trainers by using peer-tutoring activities that benefit both the learner and the tutor.
7. The activity called Jury of Peers transforms learners into testers to make use of peer-rating procedures.

First Task

Read the seven summary sentences. One of these sentences is a fake. Although it could be an accurate sentence, I did not talk about it in the podcast.

Can you detect the sentence that is not related to the content of the podcast and delete it from the list?

Once you have completed this task, check below for feedback.

Feedback for the First Task

Sentence 4 (which talks about transforming the learners into change agents) is the sentence to be removed because I did not talk about in the podcast. (However, the idea in the sentence is a valid one.)

Second Task

Now that you have deleted the fake summary sentence from the list, can you write a replacement sentence? Your task is to think back on the content of the podcast and come up with a summary sentence that is different from the six remaining sentences.

Once you have completed this task, check below for feedback.

Feedback for the Second Task

You might have come up with any number of sentences that summarize a new piece of information from the podcast. Here are some examples our test group came up with:

• People learn useful knowledge and skills when they conduct instructional design or training.
• Inviting the participants to play the different roles of trainers, instructional designers, instructional analysts, subject-matter experts, and testers increases the effectiveness of training.
• Dissociative identity disorder (which refers to the state of people exhibiting distinct identities that control a person's behavior) is a metaphor for the behavior of effective learners.
• Each Teach is a peer-teaching activity that is useful for teaching step-by-step procedures.
• Checklist is an instructional analysis activity that uses participant-generated checklists as the foundation for your training session.

You might have come up with a better sentence than any of these. Please send us your replacement sentence by clicking the feedback link below this article.

Third Task

Return to the list of seven summary sentences, including the one that you created. These are all valid sentences, but they are not equally important.

Review these seven sentences and decide which ones are the top two.

Once you have completed this choice, check the feedback below.

Feedback for the Third Task

We have no clue which two sentences you selected. But we are sure that they are the most important ones from your point of view.

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Memories

That's Not Correct!

Except for my fourth grade teacher—who was my hero—none of my teachers in India appreciated my exposing the mistakes they made. This was true of high school teachers and college professors. Also, this was true throughout my life, not only in India but also in every place around the world where I attended training sessions.

I remember the day when I corrected my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Seshadri. He told us that Delhi was the capital of India.

Without thinking, I blurted out, “New Delhi is the capital of India.”

I remembered that fact because my father had just returned from New Delhi. He told me that New Delhi was very different from Delhi.

Mr. Seshadri told everyone in the class that my behavior was rude, arrogant, and unacceptable. He called me to the front of the room and ordered me to hold out my right hand. He pulled out his cane and gave me three thwacks on my palm, raising angry red welts. It hurt a lot but I did not cry.

Mr. Seshadri told the class that next to God and parents, one's teachers are the most important people to be revered. He ordered me to go back to my seat and write “I will not be disrespectful toward my teachers” 100 times. I had difficulty holding the pencil in my right hand but I bit my lips and struggled to complete the task before the school day ended.

Once I became a teacher, I made a personal commitment to encourage the students to call me on any mistakes I made. I even thought of intentionally making some to entice the students. But I did not have to do that.

In my algebra class, I was demonstrating how to do division by working out a problem step by step on the blackboard. I could not get the correct answer and ended up with a ridiculous remainder. I double checked my steps but could not find any errors. In utter frustration, I broke the piece of chalk and threw it at the blackboard. When I turned to face the class, I noticed Thayammal, one of the girls, standing up.

She said timidly, “I think you have a mistake on the third line.”

She then proceeded to elaborate: “It should be minus 3y instead of plus 3y.”

She was right.

For a moment I felt stupid and looked around for someone to blame. I also thought of claiming that I made the mistake intentionally to make sure that everyone was paying attention. But I caught myself and thanked Thayammal for noticing my error and correcting me.

And I married her. No, not immediately. I waited for 4 years while she finished high school and teacher training courses. We recently celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary and Thayammal still continues to correct my mistakes.

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US Workshops

Workshops in the USA

Interactive Techniques for Instructor-Led Training: A 3-day workshop

FOR WHOM: Trainers, facilitators, instructional designers, performance consultants, and managers

HOW MUCH: Regular registration rate: $1600. As a reader of the Thiagi GameLetter, get $200 off by entering coupon code TGL-WS13 when you register online.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9lJvilwIoU .

San Francisco, California, USA

WHEN: August 19-21, 2013.

MORE INFORMATION: Review the brochure (1.2M PDF).

Register now!

Dallas, Texas, USA

WHEN: October 1-3, 2013.

MORE INFORMATION: Review the brochure (1.2M PDF).

Register now!

Orlando, Florida, USA

WHEN: October 15-17, 2013.

MORE INFORMATION: Review the brochure (1.2M PDF).

Register now!

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

WHEN: November 5-7, 2013.

MORE INFORMATION: Review the brochure (1.2M PDF).

Register now!

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International Workshops

Workshops outside the USA

Thiagi is continuing to conduct workshops outside the USA. Check our online calendar at http://thiagi.com/calendar/ for details.

• Singapore: September 2-4, 2013. Interactive Training Strategies.
• Singapore: January 9-11, 2014. Interactive Training Strategies.
• Winterthur (near Zurich), Switzerland: June 24-26, 2014. Interactive Training Strategies.
• Winterthur (near Zurich), Switzerland: June 27, 2014. Simulations and Other Activities for Intercultural Training.

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Special Offer

Four More Pairs of Card Games

I worked with Matt Richter and Mark Isabella to design and produce four pairs of card games for training people on management essentials, change leadership, workplace civility, and negotiation skills.

We have two complementary card decks on each of these topics:

Practical Advice Card decks

We introduced Practical Advice Card games in our November 2012 issue. Each of the 52 cards in the deck presents a useful suggestion related to a specific interpersonal skill. You can play a dozen different games with these cards to analyze, organize, evaluate, and apply the practical suggestions. These games involve 1 to 100 players and last for 5 minutes to 52 weeks.

Fluency Card decks

We introduced the Fluency Card game in our previous (July 2013) issue. The goal of this card game is to increase the fluency with which the players are able to handle concepts, principles, and procedures associated with a specific training topic. The game uses a deck of 52 cards, each with an appropriate item for the players to handle. There are four suits of cards, each with a specific type of item. During each game, players take turns to be the judge. To win a card, the other players have to perform a specific task:

• List. To win a Spades card, the players take turns to announce an item that belongs to a specific category printed on the card.
• Compare. To win a Clubs card, the players write one major similarity and one major difference between two concepts printed on the card.
• Draw. To win a Hearts card, the competing players draw a picture that is strongly associated with the concept.
• Act. To win a Diamonds card, one of the players role-plays a scenario printed on the card.

At the end of the game, the player who has collected the most cards wins.

Management Essentials

The two decks of cards on this topic explore how to improve the performance of employees and how to help the organization achieve its mission.

Here's a sample item from the deck of Practical Advice Cards:

Here's a Compare item from the deck of Fluency Cards:

Change Leadership

The two decks of cards on this topic explore how to systematically implement an organizational change in a sustainable fashion.

Here's a sample item from the deck of Practical Advice Cards:

Here's a List item from the deck of Fluency Cards:

Workplace Civility

The two decks of cards on this topic explore how to decrease harassment, rude behavior, and bullying in the workplace and how to increase politeness, respect, and friendliness.

Here's a sample item from the deck of Practical Advice Cards:

Here's an Act item from the deck of Fluency Cards:

Negotiation Skills

The two decks of cards on this topic explore how to improve negotiations.

Here's a sample item from the deck of Practical Advice Cards:

Here's a Draw item from the deck of Fluency Cards:

Free Shipping This August

Here is the discount that we are offering only during the month of August 2013:

If you buy any or all of the eight new decks of card games, we will ship it to you free of charge in the USA. (The usual shipping charge in the USA is $9.50 for each deck of cards.)

Remember, you can buy any of the eight decks (four Practical Advice Cards and four Fluency Cards) on the topics of Management Essentials, Change Leadership, Workplace Civility, and Negotiation Skills to receive this free shipping. You can buy any number of decks on any of these four topics.

This offer is valid only during the month of August. So place your order by August 31, 2013.

To take advantage of this discount, visit our online store. Order any or all of these eight decks and enter TGL-4FS as the coupon code when you check out. We will ship the decks free of charge in the USA. (If you're outside the USA, we'll deduct $9.50 from your shipping cost and ask your approval before we charge your card.)

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From Brian's Brain

Learning by Design
by Brian Remer

Books abound about how to design training that is effective and engaging. This month we feature examples from two authors who share from their experience as either a writer of training modules or a coach for public speakers. Both offer practical suggestions for subject matter experts and others who may be looking to improve their effectiveness as a trainer. Power Tip: Become aware of how you teach. It has a bigger impact on learning than you may realize.

Read more in the July 2013 issue of Firefly News Flash: http://www.thefirefly.org/Firefly/html/News%20Flash/2013/July%202013.htm .

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Instructional Puzzle

Popular Training Topics

While working on last month's online survey, we searched through several training companies to discover what corporate workshops are most frequently conducted. We present the results of our search in the form of an instructional puzzle.

A cryptic cluster puzzle is a combination of a word association test and a cryptogram. The puzzle displays a list of items that belong to the same category. The items are coded with a substitution code in which every letter of the alphabet is consistently replaced by another letter.

Here is a cryptic cluster puzzle that lists 15 workshop topics that are most frequently conducted by training companies. Try your hand at decoding this list.

1. QDLPNT VLPLNTVTPR
2. QKLQDYPN
3. QKVVIPYQLRYKP
4. QKPJFYQR VLPLNTVTPR
5. QZTLRYCT WZKEFTV-XKFCYPN
6. QIXRKVTZ XTZCYQT
7. GYCTZXYRO
8. TVKRYKPLF YPRTFFYNTPQT
9. JLQYFYRLRYKP XAYFFX
10. FTLGTZXDYW
11. WZTXTPRLRYKP XAYFFX
12. WZKHTQR VLPLNTVTPR
13. RTLVEIYFGYPN
14. RYVT VLPLNTVTPR
15. RZIXR

Hint

The word MANAGEMENT appears in several items.

The solution

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Online Survey

Consistency vs. Flexibility

If you are a trainer who conducts the same workshop repeatedly, we have a two-choice poll for you:

Poll Question

What do you do when you conduct the same workshop more than once?

• I focus on conducting the workshop exactly the same way each time.
• I focus on conducting the workshop in a flexible fashion, making changes to respond to the needs and preferences of each group of participants.

(The poll opens in a new window.)

Open Question

(The survey opens in a new window.)

In addition to listing the topics, please provide some justification for your choice of these topics.

You may include your name along with your response, or if you prefer, keep it anonymous.

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Survey Results

Universal Training

Poll Question

In the July 2013 issue of TGL we invited you to speculate with us if there are some training topics that are indispensable to all levels of employees in all types of organizations.

Thirty-one people responded to the poll. A significant majority (97 percent) said “Yes”.

Open Question

As a follow up to the poll, we asked this open question:

Several people listed communication and customer service as fundamental training topics. Here are some other topics that were mentioned:

• Building relationships
• Business etiquette
• Change management
• Conflict resolution
• Cooperation
• Coping with change
• Cultural competence
• Decisionmaking
• Diversity
• Emotional intelligence
• Ethics
• How to be a more effective learner
• Leadership
• Negotiation
• Organizational culture
• Presentation skills
• Problem solving
• Professionalism
• Resilience
• Respect
• Safety topics related to the industry
• Teamwork
• Trust
• What business are we in and how do you contribute to the success of our business

Thanks to everyone who responded.

You Can Still Participate

This survey is still open. Feel free to add your comments by visiting the survey page.

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Solution

Solution to Popular Training Topics

1. CHANGE MANAGEMENT
2. COACHING
3. COMMUNICATION
4. CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
5. CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING
6. CUSTOMER SERVICE
7. DIVERSITY
8. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
9. FACILITATION SKILLS
10. LEADERSHIP
11. PRESENTATION SKILLS
12. PROJECT MANAGEMENT
13. TEAMBUILDING
14. TIME MANAGEMENT
15. TRUST

Back to the puzzle

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Check It Out

Top Ten Cooperative Games ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziL905aXGnE )

An interesting trend in board games is the increasing number of cooperative games. In these games players win by cooperating with each other. If you think these games will be boring touchy-feely activities, you are mistaken.

The cooperative tabletop games movement started about 13 years ago with Lord of the Rings. In the last few years, several board games with the cooperative strategy have become popular. While most of these games are for family play and recreational use, we have conducted them with corporate training participants to explore such soft-skill topics as teamwork and collaboration. We even designed a workshop on high-performance teamwork around Mattel's cooperative boardgame, Break the Safe.

The best way to learn more about cooperative board games is to watch the 50-minute YouTube video, Dice Tower Top 10 Cooperative Games. The video features Tom, Sam, and Zee from Dice Tower who are three knowledgeable and talkative panelists.

In case you are curious, the first spot is given to Pandemic and the second to Shadows Over Camelot.

Enjoy the video and think of incorporating the games in your training activities. And remember, this video is about a year old.

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