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THIAGI GAMELETTER:
SERIOUSLY FUN ACTIVITIES FOR TRAINERS, FACILITATORS,
PERFORMANCE CONSULTANTS, AND MANAGERS.
Mission
To increase and improve the use of interactive,
experiential strategies to improve human performance in an
effective, efficient, and enjoyable way.
Editorial Roster
Author and Editor
: Sivasailam (Thiagi) Thiagarajan
Assistant Editor
: Raja Thiagarajan
Associate Editors: Jean Reese
Contributing Editors: Brian Remer and Matthew Richter
Copyright Info
The materials in this newsletter are copyright 2014 by The
Thiagi Group. However, they may be freely reproduced for
educational/training activities. There is no need to obtain
special permission for such use as long as you do not
reproduce more than 100 copies per year. Please
include the following statement on all reproductions:
For any other use of the content, please contact us (
thiagi@thiagi.com ) for permission.
Subscription Info
To sign up, or to donate and help us continue this
newsletter, please see the Online
Newsletter page on our website (
http://thiagi.com/pfp.html ).
Feedback Request
Thiagi believes in practicing what he preaches. This is an
interactive newsletter, so interact already! Send us your
feedback, sarcastic remarks, and gratuitous advice through
email to thiagi@thiagi.com . Thanks!
In a training session, many facilitators use traditional
storytelling techniques. They tell a story to inform, inspire,
and influence the participants. The facilitator is active but,
unfortunately, the participants are passive just listening to
the story. In the interactive storytelling technique, the
facilitator conducts an exercise that requires the
participants to actively create, share, and process their own
stories.
We explored three different types of interactive stories in
the past three issues of TGL. Here's the fourth
one. This technique provides a futuristic setting and requires
team members to co-create stories.
As an example of this technique in action, let me recount
what happened recently at an introductory training session on
human performance technology in which I
presented these key principles:
Focus on producing measurable business results.
Select suitable strategies based on root causes of
performance problems.
Continuously evaluate and improve the business
strategy.
After presenting a set of principles and briefly explaining
each of them, I asked teams of participants to project
themselves into the future, create science-fiction scenarios,
present the plot line of their stories, and analyze the
stories for common themes.
Here are the details of this interactive stories
activity.
Purpose
To relate the principles of human performance technology to
the future of an organization.
Synopsis
Teams of participants are given future headlines related to
their organization. Equal numbers of teams are given
optimistic headlines (that identify organizational success)
and pessimistic headlines (that identify organizational
failure). Teams prepare appropriate timelines that link the
current state of the organization to the futuristic
headline. Later, all participants review alternative
timelines and discover common themes.
Brief the participants. Present (or
review) key principles of human performance technology.
Explain that you are going to conduct a science-fiction
activity to relate these principles to the future success or
failure of the organization.
Present the backstory. To prepare the
participants for the activity, narrate the backstory. Use
your own words to present the following plotline:
You have been mindlessly surfing the Internet. Obviously
not during working hours.
You had a tough day at work, participating in a few
exhilarating meetings. You are somewhat tired and sleepy.
You feel like taking a nap. Your eyelids are feeling
heavy. You struggle to keep yourself awake, trying to
catch up with latest memo from your CEO.
You notice strange things happening to you. Suddenly,
your hand gets attached to the computer mouse. It feels
like somebody poured Superglue on your fingers and palm.
You are not able to shake off the mouse.
And now the mouse begins to drag your hand. Your whole
body is dragged toward the monitor. You are sucked inside
the monitor with a strange “whoosh” sound.
Within a few seconds, you are back at your computer desk.
Next to the monitor, you see a newspaper. The blaring
headline on the front page attracts your attention. It is
a shocker.
You look at the date of the newspaper. Another shocker.
It is dated May 17, 2030.
Distribute copies of the handouts. Give
one handout to each participant, giving out equal number of
copies of the two handouts.
Organize teams. Ask the participants to
organize themselves into teams of three to six people who
have a handout of the same color.
Give instructions. Ask the participants to
read the handout. Explain that the top of the page contains
the shocking headline from January 6, 2030. The rest of the
page contains instructions for teamwork: Each team should
create a timeline of a chain of events that led to the state
of affairs depicted in the newspaper headline. Teams should
begin with today's date and make list of events that led to
what happened on January 6, 2030. Each event should be
logically connected to the next one in the list. Ask the
participants to limit their timeline to one page of the
flipchart. Announce a 7-minute time limit. Start the timer
and tell the participants to begin.
Conclude the activity. Blow the whistle at
the end of 6 minutes and announce that the team should
complete the task within the next minute. Blow the whistle
again a minute later to announce the end of the
activity.
Conduct a gallery walk. Show two areas of
the wall for the dystopian and utopian posters. Give pieces
of masking tape and help teams to tape their posters to the
wall. Tell all participants to take a few minutes to walk
around this gallery and review the timelines. Ask them to
compare the events that are associated with both positive
and negative headlines.
Conduct a debriefing discussion. Use the
following types of questions to encourage the participants
to reflect on the activity and share their insights about
the impact of human performance technology on organizational
success or failure:
Which headline is more probable?
What are some key connections between principles of
human performance technology and the future of the
organization?
What can we do to reduce the likelihood of the
pessimistic dystopian future?
What can we do to increase the likelihood of the
optimistic utopian future?
Facilitate the discussion, one question at a time. Invite
additional insights from the participants. Record
interesting ideas on a flipchart.
Galactic Wormhole as a
Framegame
This interactive story activity can be used as a template
for creating training sessions for exploring the impact of
basic principles. Here are some of the sets of principles
that we have incorporated in the Galactic
Wormhole frame:
Increasing and improving trust levels in an
organization
Here's another interactive storytelling exercise that is set
in the future. Unlike the previous activity, Galactic
Wormhole, which has a pessimistic
element, this one has a guaranteed happy ending. It involves
roleplaying elements combined with a futuristic plotline.
Purpose
To create personal visions of successful application of the
skills and knowledge acquired in the workshop.
Participants
Minimum: 6 Maximum: Any number Best: 10 to 30
Time
10 to 15 minutes
Flow
Form teams. Ask the participants to
organize themselves into teams of three to five. Ask the
team members to seat themselves facing each other.
Brief the participants. Inform them that
they are going to participate in a roleplay. After the
groans die down, tell each participant to play his or her
own role. The only difference is that the roleplay takes
place in the future, 12 months later. So everyone will be a
year older and wiser.
Outline the scenario. Use this suggested
script:
You three bumped into each other at the O'Hare airport.
You have a long layover and you decide to walk down to the
bar and catch up with personal news. After a couple of
drinks, one of you asks, “Hey, remember the workshop we
attended last year? Did you ever use any of that stuff
in your workplace?” This triggers a wave of nostalgia
and you try to outdo each other with your reports of
glowing successes.
Provide roleplay details. The roleplay
will come to an end after 4 minutes. Participants don't have
to take turns. They talk to each other as in a normal
conversation at the bar.
Encourage imaginative exaggeration.
Explain that the participants' main goal is to flaunt their
success and attribute it to the workshop. They have poetic
license to exaggerate how their fame and fortune have taken
a quantum leap. Advise participants not to be modest in
making up their history of the next year. However, encourage
them to relate the brilliant results to specific aspects of
this workshop.
Leave them alone. Let participants act out
the roleplay. Walk around various triads, unobtrusively
listening to the glowing reports.
Conclude the session. At the end of the 4
minutes, stop the roleplay. Invite volunteers to reflect on
the details of the startling success stories they heard.
Training, tutoring, or coaching individuals is a frequent
activity in the workplace and at home. This jolt incorporates
a matchstick puzzle to identify effective techniques for
one-on-one tutoring. After the debriefing discussion, you end
up with a useful checklist for tutoring individuals.
Synopsis
The facilitator teaches a puzzle-solving procedure to a few
participants. These participants tutor the other participants
on a one-on-one basis, setting up a chain reaction. At the end
of 3 minutes, the participants who were tutored by the others
discuss the techniques and identify the effective ones.
Purpose
To identify and use effective techniques for tutoring
individuals.
Training Topics
Tutoring
Coaching
Training individuals
Participants
Minimum: 6 Maximum: Any Number Best: 12 to 30
Time
5 minutes for the activity 7 minutes for
debriefing
Checklist: How To
Tutor, one copy for each
participant
Supplies
Matchsticks or toothpicks
Equipment
Timer
Whistle
Preparation
Learn how to solve the puzzle. Collect 16
matchsticks or tooth picks. Arrange them according to the
figure in the Matchstick Puzzle handout. Try to
solve the puzzle without looking at the solution. After you
have figured out the solution (or given up in total
frustration), watch this animation that shows how to solve the puzzle.
Practice solving the puzzle and get ready to teach the
procedure to others.
Flow
Brief the participants. Distribute the
puzzle handout and 16 matchsticks to each participant. Tell
the participants that they are going to learn how to solve a
puzzle. Invite them to attempt to solve the puzzle without
outside help.
Assemble a group of tutors. Ask the
participants if anyone already knows how to solve the
puzzle. Ask these people and a few others to come to the
front of the room. You should have three to seven people in
this group, depending on the number of participants in the
entire group.
Teach your tutors. Demonstrate how to
solve the puzzle. Help the tutors to master the procedure
and get ready to tutor the others.
Ask the tutors to teach others. Tell them
to tutor the other participants how to solve the puzzle.
Emphasize that they should tutor only one participant at a
time. When a participant has mastered the procedure, he or
she is appointed as a new tutor and sent out to recruit
other participants and tutor the procedure. The original
tutors should also continue selecting and tutoring other
participants.
Remind the new tutors to teach others. Keep
reminding the original tutors and the new tutors to continue
tutoring more participants. Announce a time limit of 3
minutes. Explain that the goal is to help as many participants
as possible to solve the puzzle within the time limit.
Conclude the tutoring session. Blow the
whistle at the end of 3 minutes. Announce the end of the
tutoring period. Reassure the participants that everyone
will be taught the procedure if they have not yet learned
it. Proceed to the debriefing discussion.
Debriefing
Invite the participants to recall the tutoring techniques
that were used. Invite them to identify the tutoring
techniques that were effective. Record the responses on a
flip chart.
Ask the participants to work in groups to come up with a
list of five important dos and don'ts for effective
tutoring.
Distribute copies of the handout, How To
Tutor. Encourage the participants to compare this
checklist with the list of dos and don'ts they came up
with.
Ask the participants to tutor those who have not yet
mastered the puzzle solving procedure at a later time. Also
encourage them to tutor their friends and family members. In
doing so, remind them to use the effective tutoring
techniques.
I have great respect for trainers and facilitators who pay of
a lot of attention to the room set-up. They include my
colleagues who draw precise diagrams to indicate how the
chairs should be arranged in an auditorium, banquet, or
crescent style around the tables. They are also the people who
arrive at the meeting room an hour ahead of time and move the
furniture around to meet their needs.
Me? I don't bother about the room arrangement. Actually, I
like to be surprised. I have this theory that a messy room
makes my creative juices flow.
Six Pillars
I remember being assigned to a basement ballroom at an ASTD
annual conference. There were too many people in this medium
sized room—and too few seats. Some people sat on the
floor in front of the room and some stood along the walls in
the back. To make matters worse, there were six huge pillars
in the room, blocking people's lines of sight.
I took one look at the situation and abandoned my original
plan. With a mischievous grin I said, “I had this room set
up for a special icebreaker. Your job is to get as many
people as possible around each pillar. The group that has
the most people encircling its pillar, each touching a
part of the pillar and touching at least one other person,
wins the game. Here's an additional requirement: You
should know the names of seven other people around your
pillar and one personal detail about each of them. You
have 3 minutes to complete the task. Go!”
Participants rushed madly to surround the pillars. They
piled up on each other, reminiscent of stuffing telephone
booths in the late 1950s. In the process of helping their
team to win, participants demonstrated appropriate
icebreaking behaviors. During the ensuing debriefing
discussion, many participants commented on how the
spontaneity of the activity encouraged them to be
spontaneous in their own behaviors.
An Unplanned Planning Session
Location: Hobart, Tasmania. Participants: 23
trainers. Room set-up: Chairs arranged in straight
lines. Training topic: Leadership and
communication.
I took one look at the room set up and thanked my lucky
stars for providing the perfect arrangement for an
experiential exercise. I told the participants to organize
themselves into four groups of six. I asked one person in
each group to act as a non-participating observer. I
assigned myself the observer's role for the group that had
only five members. I asked each group to spend 7 minutes to
plan how to rearrange the chairs in the room to permit
teamwork and small-group discussions. I called the observers
and gave them specific suggestions on what to watch out
for.
After the 7 minutes of planning, I asked members of each
group to hold one-on-one conversations with the members of
the other groups. After about 5 minutes, I asked the groups
to revise their original plans to please the members of the
other group. Each group presented its final plan. The plans
included removing all the chairs to the hallway and
conducting a stand-up session, arranging the chairs in six
clusters of four, arranging 24 chairs in a large circle, and
letting each participant own a chair and carry it around
whenever a new configuration was required. We conducted a
poll to choose the best approach (which turned out to be
each participant lugging his or her chair around) and spent
5 minutes implementing the plan.
This activity provided valuable experiences related to
communication and leadership. I conducted a debriefing
discussion with these types of questions: Who assumed
the leadership role? Who talked the most? Who came up with
the best ideas? How did you listen to the others in your
group? To the people from the other groups? How did you
attempt to persuade the others? Who kept track of the
time? Who took notes? What would have happened if I
assigned the leader's roles to specific
participants?
These questions and the responses from the participants and
the observers formed the foundation for leadership and
communication principles and procedures that we explored for
the rest of the day.
Instructional Improv
Nowadays when someone from my client's organization asks
me, “How would you like the meeting room to be set up?”
I automatically respond, “Surprise me”.
Mark Isabella has created a card deck called
Engagement Emergency that contains
54 activities for instant interaction. The activities take
2-10 minutes to run and require little setup or preparation.
These a la carte activities come in a variety of formats
including action planning, feedback, group formation,
openers, pair work, and reflection. If you are in the midst
of rapid instructional design and need an opener, you can
consult the deck and find one quickly. If you are in the
middle of a presentation and need a shot of engagement and
interaction, you can thumb through the deck right before you
begin your session or during a break.
Twisted Lister (Recap /
Application / Pair Work) by Mark Isabella
Ask participants to take 2 minutes to jot down three problems
they're experiencing that are related to the training topic.
Once they've done so, have them choose 1 of the problems from
their list, turn to a partner next to them, and provide a
1-minute summary of their chosen problem. It is now their
partner's responsibility to offer suggested solutions. After 3
minutes, have participants switch roles.
A Special Offer
Engagement Emergency decks usually
sell for $59.95 (plus $10.95 for shipping within the USA).
If you order now, you will receive a $10
discount. You can purchase each
Engagement Emergency deck in our online store for $49.95. No need to enter a
coupon code—as long as you order before December 31,
you'll get the discount automatically.
Here's a piece of practical advice on receiving feedback and
benefiting from it. To prevent other people from stealing it,
I have encrypted this piece of advice.
Cryptograms are highly engaging language puzzles. If you are
unfamiliar with cryptograms, we recommend our explanation from
our October
2006 issue of TGL.
The puzzle is presented in our interactive cryptogram solver.
It requires JavaScript to run, and is specifically designed to
work on mobile devices (i.e., iPhones and other smartphones,
iPads and other tablets). It also works with modern desktop
browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and up-to-date
versions of Internet Explorer.
Thiagi is conducting public workshops outside the USA. Check
our online calendar at http://thiagi.com/calendar/ for details.
Singapore: January 8-10, 2015.
Interactive Training Strategies: A
3-day workshop. Organized by Centre
for Communication and Sales Training. Download our brochure (1.1M PDF) for additional details.
Hong Kong: January 12, 2015.
More Interactive Training
Strategies. Organized by Yzer
Solutions Pte. Ltd and The Hong Kong Management Association.
Download our brochure (189K PDF) for additional details.
If you would like to organize a Thiagi workshop in your part
of the world, send him a note at thiagi@thiagi.com .
Coaching for
Performance: A Facilitated Online
Experience by Matt Richter
Coaching for
Performance (CFP) is a Thiagi Group
online workshop adapting our flexible 4-Door™ ELearning
approach. CFP is a completely facilitated program that occurs
virtually and asynchronously—meaning participants can
engage any time they want. The course is the equivalent of
approximately three days of classroom time, but you have 30
days to complete it on your own schedule.
One of our participants, Marzia Edwards from the UK, gave a
video
testimonial.
Every day, Thiagi tweets ready-to-use pieces of practical
advice on HR topics such as coaching, creativity, customer
service, feedback, leadership, listening skills, and
management.
Here are some recent pieces of advice that were retweeted
frequently:
Plan your training session with your left brain and
implement with your right brain. Be organized—and
flexible.
The goal of your training is to enable your participants to
go beyond mastering new skills to applying them on their
job.
Ask for feedback on your feedback. Ask the receiver for
suggestions to improve the way you give feedback.
Trainers should play the role of learners—and invite
learners to play the role of trainers.
Begin your training session with an activity that sets up
the expectation of frequent interaction. Make sure this
activity is relevant.
You are not a lecturer who covers the content. You are a
facilitator who helps the participants discover the
content.
Join the thousands of people who follow @thiagi on
Twitter. If you don't have a Twitter account, it is easy to
sign up for a free one at twitter.com.
In this episode, Matt Richter begins a new series exploring
leadership lessons learned from US Presidents. This first
episode looks at the ascendency of Vice President John Tyler
as he becomes the first VP to step into the shoes of a dead
President. While Tyler's administration was filled with
missteps and misguided decisions that helped lead the US to
Civil War, Mr. Tyler's behaviors as he took office set a
standard for how leadership transitions should occur. Against
often patronizing and contemptuous attitudes from both allies
and enemies alike, Tyler asserted the power a Vice President
has upon taking over the Presidency. His insistent and
assertive approach led the way to peaceful and stable
transitions that had previously not been defined. While we may
castigate Tyler for his role in nearly breaking the Union, we
can learn a lot from his leadership upon William Henry
Harrison's death. Tyler is a complex and completely
fascinating figure and we explore one of the more intriguing
stories of this turbulent time in our history.
You can subscribe to, or download, the podcast on iTunes, or
use the link above to get it from our website.
As individuals or as members of a team, we frequently
encounter blocks that prevent us from completing necessary
work. Should we stubbornly push through the tough stuff or
take a break and come back to the task refreshed? Spark a
conversation with your team or with your mentor using this
99-Word Story, discussion questions, and interpretation.
Power Tip: Do something small to get started
and chip away at complex tasks.
We are thinking of converting the Thiagi
GameLetter (TGL) from a monthly online
newsletter to a blog. We would like your inputs about this
planned change.
You are probably familiar with blogs. You may be a regular
reader of several blogs. You may even be publishing your own
blog. So you are in an excellent position to give us
advice.
Poll Question
Should we change TGL from an online newsletter
to a blog?
Yes
No
(The poll opens in a new window.)
Open Question
What might be some of the advantages and disadvantages of
publishing TGL as a blog?
(The survey opens in a new window.)
You may include your name along with your response, or if
you prefer, keep it anonymous.
In the November 2014 issue of TGL we asked our
trainer-readers how they conclude their training
sessions.
As of November 25, 2014, 28 readers responded.
5 of them (18%) said they debrief the session
8 of them (29%) review key learning points
5 of them (18%) conduct a question and answer
period
2 of them (7%) plan application activities
4 of them (14%) celebrate the completion of the
session
4 of them (14%) do something else
Open Question
As a follow up to the poll, we asked the readers to briefly
describe their favorite closing activity.
Here are some of your responses, as of November 25,
2014:
For me, the “one word you got out of the day” is
fresh and dynamic, and gives a high-energy end to the
session. I ask people to spontaneously give me the
word that pops up in their mind when they think of the
day. The word can be about the content, the form, the
emotions…. Then I go around, ask the word,
repeat it loud, and move on with a fast
rhythm. —Gauthier
I like to use weather icons to help participants
describe what the workshop was like. Was it sunny, cloudy,
foggy, rainy …?
Bodhi tree. Make a tree with three
branches on a chart paper. Give each participant 3
Post-Its of different colors. They have to write about
three things on the three Post-Its: One new thing they
have learned, one thing they have un-learned, and one
learning that got reinforced as a result of the training.
Then stick the three Post-Its in the three respective
branches of the Bodhi tree. After everyone has done this,
I read out and discuss from the Bodhi tree.
After a Q & A, I usually provide a quote based on
the topic. It poses discussions that encompass the entire
learning process.
A Speech from The Throne where
participants fill in the blank spaces of a prepared speech
with the key thing they learned in each activity they did
throughout the day. Filling in the blanks consolidates the
highlights of the learning on one page. They then read
their speeches to the whole group if there is time, or to
their table group if time is running short.
Each participant signs a contract with what they will
do with the information they learned. They put in an
envelope and give to someone who will hold them
accountable.
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.
Note: Due to popular demand we have extended the deadline
for this survey.
Please take this brief survey. It will help us better
understand what features and criteria you have for elearning.
We will post the results in our next issue of
TGL.
Of course there are many other magic videos done by other
talented people. Some of them are actually TED presentations
viewed by millions of people. More about these later.
Author and Editor
: Sivasailam (Thiagi) Thiagarajan
Assistant Editor
: Raja Thiagarajan
