Climb Every Mountain

I saw a super team building activity in my workshop today. One of the participants described it and we tried it.

A rope is fastened on something heavy about 2 feet or so from the ground and run about 15 feet and reattached at the other end. Sort of like a low limbo rope. Anyway you can get this set up will work as long as the participants don't knock the rope down.

Then we divided into two teams and each team gets a turn at the rope.
Team 1 starts on one side of the rope. Everyone on that team has to get across to the other side of the rope, but has to stay in contact with at least one other team member by touch. So imagine it, about 6 people in a formation touching. So the team has to figure out how to get people across the rope without losing contact.
A lot of fun as participants tried lifting, bending knees to use as stepping stools and carrying over the rope. Some of the tall folks just strode across the rope. Thing is, though, you can't touch the rope as you go over.

We figured out that it would be fair to let the participants touch the rope accidentally a certain number of times, say 3 to make it a bit easier. Or perhaps count the number of times they touch and deduct it from a score. You figure this bit out.

How I Would Use It
A great teambuilding activity and a real opportunity to think of different ways to solve a problem. Fun, active and fairly physical.

Garage Sale Game

Here's a fun way to get people to review ideas.

In a workshop I did, participants shared tips for doing a certain job. While each person spoke, the rest of the group sorted the tips out by writing them down in little books I gave them. Each book was divided into categories that the group came up with. I wanted everyone to walk away with lots of new ideas.

Now the really fun part.

After they had written about 20 tips down in their books I gave each person this nifty set of stickers. They come from Avery labels and are stickers to be used at a garage sale. So now everyone has a row of stickers that read $20, $10, $5, $1, and so on down to a quarter. They are round and brightly coloured as you would expect at a garage sale.

So the next task is to identify the top ideas in their books, the ones they have just collected. I gave everyone about 5 minutes to stick the stickers next to the ideas they loved. The top one of course got the $20 sticker and so on down the line. Then they found a partner and told why they chose the top idea and what they planned to do with it.

Office Depot is a never-ending source of inspiration to me. Take a gander down the aisles and see what ideas grab you, and then put them into action.

Here's a game I call Chaos

The objective is to have the group generate as many ideas on a topic as possible in a short time.

I give each group a question.
Example: What are ways you can energize a group?
What are ways that you can calm a group down?
What are ways that you can deal with difficult participants?
What are ways you can set a room up to your advantage?

The group has to get an answer from everyone in the room (under 25 max). Here is the deal; while they are trying to get answers, so is everyone else.

• So they have 3 minutes as a group to come up with a strategy for collecting data from the group.
• They have 5 - 8 minutes to collect an idea from every single person.
• They have 5 minutes to prepare their report.
• Then each group reports their ideas.

I did this last night with a group of 14 and it was noisy and chaotic and high energy. Everyone had a chance to give an idea and the group came up with a lot of solutions.

Imagine

One of the strongest ways of starting a presentation is to use the word - Imagine - and take the listener on a journey into your content. The story that you start with should be short and only a few lines, but shifts the listener from his world OUT THERE to your world and where you want his attention.

Here is an example. This comes from an article by James Lovelock about the state of the earth and global warming.

Imagine a young policewoman delighted in the fulfilment of her vocation; then imagine her having to tell a family whose child had strayed that he had been found dead, murdered in a nearby wood. Or think of a young physician newly appointed who has to tell you that the biopsy revealed invasion by an aggressive metastasising tumour. Doctors and the police know that many accept the simple awful truth with dignity but others try in vain to deny it.

Whatever the response, the bringers of such bad news rarely become hardened to their task and some

He then goes on to talk about having to break the news that the earth cannot pull itself back from the destruction that is to come.

What a dramatic and exciting way to open. He gets our attention right away and puts his idea (that of having to give us this awful news) in terms we can understand.

Try this with one of your presentations.
Imagine a company with a daycare centre full of little kids having fun while their parents work just a few feet away.

Imagine that you are the person at the end of the 911 telephone board. You have to figure out what the caller wants and needs, stay calm and get things done. That is how.....

For the full article see:

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece

Miscommunication

First you have to read an earlier post - It's All Greek to Me.
Now what I did is I took the whole post and translated it to Greek and back to English. Compare the two. Try this with your own copy.

I found a marvellous website that with it has that I play with for the hours. Is Babelfish and it can find in world.altavista.com Daktylografej'te a phrase or a word and him you take translated in a other language. That amusement. But here it is the really big part. Then you recently use the translated text and the type that in again and him you translate behind in the English.

Here a example: If you spray when ringing, I request you are arranged and you sweep the seat.

Him I then translated in Greek and behind in the English. Here what I took:

If sprayed when ringing I pray that it is it attends in you and cleans above the centre you love gotta this!

How I would really use this I would leave my game participating with this. In a laboratory in the communication and miscommunication it would be amusement in order to them it causes in order to it tries himself this exercise for the work or in a fracture and the results behind in the category.

I am certain that a lot of persons would try they calculate who languages they are the villains for the epan-translation. My point would be that we cannot take all persons we say litteraly, but should we search the hidden significances

It's All Greek to Me

I found a wonderful website that has me playing with it for hours. It is Babelfish and can be found at world.altavista.com

You type in a phrase or word and get it translated into another language. That's fun. But here is the really great part. Then use the newly translated text and type that in again and translate it back to English. Here's an example:

If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat.

I translated it into Greek and then back into English.

Here's what I got:

If sprayed when tinkle I pray are takes care of to you and they clean up the center

You gotta love it!

How I Would Use This
Really I would let my participants play with this. In a workshop on communication and miscommunication it would be fun to challenge them to try doing this very exercise for homework or in a break and bringing the results back to the class.
I am sure many people would try to figure out which languages are the worst for re-translation.

My point would be that we cannot take everything people say literally, but need to look for the hidden meanings.

Did You Hear the News

One idea I have used a number of times is to start your session by reading something from that day's newspaper. It can bring a feeling of relevance to your topic if it is well done. So I looked up a story from today's news and found this at cbc.ca

"The average Canadian spends $100 on impulse buying every four days, while nearly one person in four spends that amount in just 48 hours, says Mackenzie Financial Corp., a mutual-fund company.

Mackenzie interviewed 1,500 people across Canada and found Canadians spend about $760 a month on unnecessary purchases, money that Mackenzie said could be saved, invested or used to get out of debt."

How I Would Use This
There are so many ways I could connect this story, but it needs to fit in with the topic of my workshop. The next workshop I am doing is in Vancouver and is a presentation skills workshop. Is there any way I can connect this article.

Just for fun, let's see if I can.

I think an approach I would make would be to read the article and draw a connection with how the money they have invested in coming to my course will take them a great deal further than if they had spent it impulsively. I would then go on to tell them that they hadn't only made a financial investment in this course, but they were investing in their own development. Professionals in today's world need to be able to present effectively and confidently and not impulsively.

My challenge for you is to find an article in the paper and see if you can connect it with the topic of the next workshop you are doing.

$100 Choice

Someone on one of my environmental message boards posed this question, " If you could spend $100 to help the environment, what would you do?"
There were all kinds of answers. Things like, "change the oil", "buy cloth shopping bags", "adopt an animal of an endangered species", "get some recyclable batteries" and all kinds of ideas. These ideas came from a place of experience and learning.

The people on this website know quite a bit about environemntal concerns on the whole. This got me thinking that this same idea could be used as a review activity or an activity to generate new ideas.

Here's How I Would Use It

Let's say you have just finished a seminar on Managing Your Staff. Now ask the question, "If you could spend $100 in a way that would benefit the morale of your staff, what would you do?"

Or how about this one; your workshop has been on the importance of listening to others. Ask the same question, "If you could spend $100 to help people listen to each other, what would you do?"

Anyhow, the possibilities are endless. And I think the ideas that people might come up with would be fun and quite revealing.