What's new? What's classic? What's hot? What's not? What's a sure-fire technique? What's going to put your audience to sleep?
Look here for some methods, some madness, some brilliance, some . . .
New: August 2010: Success Through Being on Target
Archive of Past Tips and Techniques:
NEW!
Success Through Being on Target
Download PDF version here.By Marcia Hughes, author of The Emotionally Intelligent Team
This is a great exercise for engaging your team or a group of individuals in the critical topic of motivation while they also get out of their chairs and have some fun. The purpose is to expand motivation within the team by understanding what motivates one another, building team resonance on which actions to engage, and to strategically use those actions to stimulate team engagement.
Facilitator
- In advance, post enough flip chart pages around the room for each small group to have a page. It's easiest for the group if they can see a sample of what you will ask them to draw on their flip chart page, thus on a flip chart up front, draw a large circle taking up the whole flip chart page and then draw a smaller circle inside the big circle. This inside circle will be about one-third as big as the outside circle. Follow the directions below for creating three wedges in each circle and labeling each wedge.
- Direct the group/team to break into small groups of approximately 4 or 5 persons and ask each small group to convene around one of the flip chart pages posted on the wall. Ask the members to give each person a different color marker.
- Show all participants the sample you have drawn in advance of what you want them to create. And then ask that someone in each small group draw a circle with a target in the middle on the flip chart page similar to the one you show them. Next ask the person to draw 3 wedges in the big circle and label each wedge with one of these phrases:
- Move Toward
- Move Away From
- Move Against
- In the space between the outer and inner circle, ask each person to write how he/she is motivated to engage with their team in the move toward wedge, and in the other two wedges list what he/she moves away from (or is bored by, or withdraws from, and so on), and list what he/she moves against by writing words. For example, someone might write praise or interesting assignments in move toward, in the move away from wedge, he/she might write purposeless meetings, and in the against wedge he/she might write unreasonable deadlines given on Fridays.
- Once each person has finished writing then ask the small group members to talk with one another and write the words in the appropriate wedges of the inner circle that indicate areas of agreement for all members.
- Ask each small group to report their results to the full group/team and to particularly focus on the points of agreement in the inner circle.
- Facilitate a group discussion about what terms would go into a wedge for the three areas of move toward, away from and against for the full team or group.
- Challenge the group to create an action plan based on what they have learned. Can they build in ways to create more positive motivators that they move toward to support better engagement? Can they take action to remove something that leads many to shut down or quite paying attention as listed in the move away from wedge? Can they take action to change something that is so upsetting to at least some team members that they are actively moving against it?
Then do the same to the inside circle so it has the same 3 wedges. For this circle they might just write the words, toward, away and against for the 3 wedges.
Follow-up activities can be to get team members in pairs to talk about what each person wrote and to talk with one another about how they might better support each other in finding high motivation ways to engage. You might also schedule a time to review the action plan and focus on success and next steps. The team/group can check in with their motivation target periodically to see if they are operating on target.
Excerpted from Developing Emotional and Social Intelligence: Exercises for Leaders,
Individuals, and Teams by Marcia Hughes and Amy Miller to be published by Pfeiffer, An Imprint of Wiley in October 2010.
Model the Way: Practice for the LPI item #1
Objective
Help clients focus on the practice Model the Way and build leadership competence in setting a personal example, the behavior identified in item #1 of the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI).
Process
The following statement is the first item in the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), and relates to the Model the Way practice.
- I set a personal example of what I expect of others.
Based on client feedback and insight from your coaching work, you may determine that your client could benefit from focusing on this particular behavior as part of the Model the Way practice. As you work with your client in a coaching situation, the following suggested questions and activities have been created to stimulate discussion and reflection.
You will note that several of the activities reference a "journal." There is an assumption that your leader will have a personal journal in which to track plans, questions, and desires. A journal is an important tool for reflection on a leader's journey to excellence.
Remember, the value of these activities and discussion questions is not in the doing but in the follow-on discussion with you, the coach. Be sure to allow time to discuss the "so what" and the "now what" that occur as a result of any discussion or activity.
Questions You Can Ask
- What do you think it means to "set a personal example?"
- What are your top three defining values?
- Imagine that you are setting the perfect personal example; what would it look like?
- How will you know what the expectations are? What do you wish leaders you've worked for in the past had done more? Less?
- Who can you relate to that is a good example of setting a personal example?
- Where do you think there might be a disconnect between what you say and what you do?
- Why should someone want to follow you?
- If your team could select its leader, would they choose you? Why do you think that?
Activities You Can Suggest
Squeaky Clean Model: As a leader you must model the utmost integrity and professionalism.
- Tempted to pad your last expense report? Don't do it.
- Laughed at the last off-color joke? Don't do it.
- Smiled when someone used a stereotypical comment? Don't do it.
- Told a white lie about why you forgot to do something? Don't do it.
Quote to Ponder: Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." What does this mean to you? How do you translate this to your daily work, your philosophy, and the business you are in? What are the trifles that you deal with? How do these trifles lead to perfection? Which trifles do you need to set a personal example? How do you plan to do that?
Make an entry in your journal. Remind yourself to review the answers to these questions next week after you've slept on it for a few days.
Set an Example: Although the following URL leads to a promotion for a DVD and book that are for sale from the Walk the Talk Company, viewing this message is worth your time if you want to always strive to be the best. www.thenightingalemovie.com/preview/ features a message from Earl Nightingale's classic, The Strangest Secret. This recording earned the first gold record for spoken word, with sales exceeding one million copies. Nightingale is known as the "dean of personal development." How is this powerful message linked to setting an example for living the vision? How can you use this information as you Model the Way for others?
Be from Missouri: As a leader you must lead by example. You influence your employees' thoughts and behavior -probably more than you think. Regardless of what appears in your job description or in employee handbooks, your behavior is the real performance standard your employees and team members will emulate. They will assume it is okay and appropriate to do whatever they see you do. This means that it is critical that you set the example. You need to model the behavior and performance you expect from others. There's no magic here. It's really quite simple: just pretend that you are from Missouri, the "show-me state." Whether it is attitude, attendance, work ethic, or respect of others, simply show your team members what you expect them to do. Identify areas where you may not be the model that you would like your team members to follow. Then decide what you will do differently. At a future time you may wish to discuss your planned changes with your supervisor.
Adapted from A Coach's Guide to Developing Exemplary Leaders: Making the Most of The Leadership Challenge and the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) by James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner, and Elaine Biech
June 2010: Envision Your Future
Objective
Help leaders broaden their personal horizon, provide a stronger base from which to think of a vision for their teams, their organizations, and their communities.
Process
This is a self-conducted exercise. Print out a copy of the worksheet for each participant to complete in a workshop, during a one-on-one coaching session, or as a takeaway from either. A short debrief conversation can follow the completion of the worksheet in live sessions.
Envision Your Future Worksheet
"Leadership is a personal endeavor. The number one thing we look for in a leader is credibility—that quality of being authentic, of having belief, word, and action in alignment."
A useful component of envisioning the future of your organization is to think hard about where you are going. An honest exploration of your personal vision will give credibility to any vision in which you wish to involve others.
- If you could lead anything, what would it be?
- Where do you see yourself in five years? What will you be doing, and with whom?
- What is your ideal personal future?
- Picture the party to celebrate your retirement after a long and distinguished career. Who will be there? What will people be saying about you?
- What legacy would you like to leave to your company, your family, and your community?
Adapted from The Leadership Challenge Vision Book by Jim Kouzes, Barry Posner, and Dan Schwab.
May 2010: Game of the Generals
Objectives:
- To help each participant see the value of experimenting and taking risks as a leader
- To foster teamwork and team strategy toward the attainment of team goals
Time Required: 30 to 45 minutes
Materials and Equipment
- Music of drum beats or actual drumming
- Strips of paper for the ranks/positions created from rank table (copy and cut up)
A large room, but no chairs and tables are required. A park, beach, or other outdoor setting is an option.
Facilitator Note: The Game of the Generals is an educational "war chessboard game" invented by Sofronio H. Pasola, Jr. in 1970. It is also called "Salpakan" in Filipino, or simply "The Generals."
Process:
1. Divide participants into two battalions (teams). Ask each battalion to assign a leader. The leader will assign the ranks/positions to members by providing each team member with a strip of paper with a rank written on it (see below). Each person should keep his or her rank secret. The table allows for 15 group members (note that there are two Three-star General strips and two One-star General strips). Should you opt to involve more than 15 members, you may assign more than one of any rank, such as three Privates and three Spies.
2. Explain that the goal is for each battalion to capture as many war prisoners as it can. As the facilitator (arbiter), determine how many series of "war rounds" will occur. Tell participants the number of rounds and provide the rules:
- No one from the other camp should know the ranks of those in the opposite camp.
- After the first round, the leader should strategize before sending men to the battlefield, based on which ranks were taken prisoner.
- The facilitator (arbiter) will decide how many men should be sent to the battlefield and will state, "Leaders, send X troops to battle." You will select two to four each round.
- Once sent forward, troops who take prisoners may be used again.
- After the first round, tell the leader he or she may confer with the entire team.
- No leader knows the rank/designation of the opposing team members. The facilitator (arbiter) identifies which battalion captures the opponents soldiers to become war prisoners.
- The battalion with the most number of prisoners of war at the end wins.
- Facilitator (Arbiter) says, "Send four troops to the battlefield!"
- Five-star General of Battalion 1 will be war prisoner of Battalion 2. (The Spy takes the Five-star General.)
- Private of Battalion 1 will be war prisoner of Battalion 2. (The Four-star General takes the Private.)
- One-star General of Battalion 2 will be war prisoner of Battalion 1. (The Three-star General takes the One-star General.)
- 1st Lieutenant of Battalion 2 will be war prisoner of Battalion 1. (The Major takes the 1st Lieutenant.)
- In this case, each battalion was able to capture two prisoners of war.
5. Once all rounds have been played, count up the number of prisoners. The team with the most prisoners wins.
6. Debrief the activity by asking these kinds of questions:
- How did each team feel when they were capturing their opponents soldiers? Responses might be similar to these:
- Sense of victory
- Impending celebration
- Strategy is working
- Should not be complacent at any point in time
- How did each team feel when they were losing their men? Responses might be similar to these:
- Starting to lose morale
- Desire to continue to fight and gain the upper hand
- Suggest reviewing strategy
- Not to lose hope
- For the team that won, what was your strategy? Responses might be similar to these:
- They were observant and took notes of the ranks of the opposing soldiers as they were engaged in the battlefield, based on which ranks were captured
- Took the risk in sacrificing some of their men to win the war
- Leader listened to the suggestions of his members
- Team members trusted and cooperated with their leader
- For the team that lost, what could have been done to avoid losing your men? Responses might be similar to these:
- Better strategy
- Risk taking is part of the process of attaining the goal
- Members should be willing to forward suggestions to the leader, and the leader should cultivate an atmosphere of openness
- Learn from the mistakes of the past
- What values did you learn from this activity and why? Responses might be similar to these:
- Taking risks and experimenting is an integral part of leadership
- Goals are achieved through teamwork
- In the real battlefield, suggestions from everyone are most welcome
- You can never experience triumph without sacrifice
- As a leader, how would you relate this to your work? Responses might be similar to these:
- Organizations should keep abreast of current and future trends
- Change is a leaders best friend. It makes the organizations relevant and sustainable
- Whats the attitude of people toward change? Draw out thoughts, feelings, and sentiments and lead them into the realization that change is an organizations friend.
The Game of the Generals is excerpted from the recently-published The Leadership Challenge Activities Book, a contributed volume containing over 100 activities designed to engage and ignite your learners. Click here for more information and to purchase a copy.
Elisa May Arboleda -Cuevas is a highly accomplished innovator and marketing professional with a solid track record of success in marketing and business development. Having worked with multi-national corporations in the Philippines and the Asia - Pacific region (such as Nestlé, DHL, and Coca-Cola), her exposure has made her an expert dealing with the workplace and has spurred her passion to be highly committed to people development and marketing communications. Currently, she is the CEO of PeopleSparx, Inc.
Audie Bautista Masigan is a training consultant at the top training and development organization in the Philippines. He is driven by his passion to develop the most important asset of any organization ? its people. His overall commitment to arrive at the desired results has made him a prominent leader in the field of organizational dynamics and development in his country. He is currently the chief operating officer and chief engineer for organizational dynamics and development of PeopleSparx, Inc.
April 2010: Using Your LPI as a Self-Coaching Tool: The Leadership Behavior Ranking (LBR)
At the end of a meeting months after Kelly went through The Leadership Challenge Workshop and took the Leadership Practice Inventory (LPI), one of her team members asked, "So Kelly, are you going to ask what can we learn?" The whole team laughed. Kelly had been practicing Behavior #18 on the LPI, "Asks what we can learn? when things dont go as expected." She had posted the Leadership Behavior Ranking (LBR) next to her desk and had circled this behavior, which was ranked in her "Bottom 10". In her role, she felt she needed to be better at asking "what we can learn" in order to create an environment where people werent afraid to Challenge the Process and take risks. She began asking that question at the end of every meeting with her team. They caught on and began asking the question themselves.
Kellys story demonstrates the power of utilizing the LBR as a coaching tool, as well as the power of practicing. Of course, Kelly didnt get much response from the team in the beginning, but she kept on asking. She kept on practicing. And when she repeated her LPI, Behavior #18 was in the Top 5 highest ranking behaviors on her LBR!*
Once youve gotten feedback from those around you regarding your leadership behaviors, you may not be sure where to focus your attention. Fortunately, there are a variety of ways that you can use the LBR—a key component of your LPI Feedback Report—to coach yourself as part of your own development journey or to coach others.
Overview of the Leadership Behaviors Ranking (LBR)
The Leadership Behaviors Ranking lists the results of the 30 Leadership Behaviors included in the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). All of your responses, ranked highest to lowest, are compared to the combined scores of all of your observers. This gives you a great snapshot of your strengths (your "Top 10"), your development areas (possibly your "Bottom 10"), and how well you and your observers are aligned.
-
Focus on Alignment
- Which of these behaviors do you think are significant, given my role and our current environment?
- Based on your interactions with me, which of these behaviors do you see as my strengths? Which behaviors do you think are key areas of development for me?
This is a great way to begin to use your LBR. Asterisks placed at the far right of your report (near the Observer scores) indicate leadership behaviors where your scores were significantly different (1.5 points) from those of your observers. These behaviors may be where you want to focus your attention.
As leaders, we want to have the same perception of our leadership behaviors that others do. If we are not aligned with others perceptions of how frequently we engage in leadership behaviors, there is a disconnect in how we lead.
For example, if your Observers tended to rate you higher than you rated yourself, you may have higher or tougher expectations for yourself. How can you recognize the behaviors in your day-to-day interactions? On the other hand, if others tended to rate you lower than you rated yourself, you may be wondering "whats up?" Remember that the LPI measures frequency of behavior, so others arent necessarily saying that you don't lead as well as you think you do. They may be expecting more frequency in the behaviors, which is where you have the biggest disconnect.
Discuss your results with your manager, trusted peer, or coach
If youd like to get a better idea of where others feel you need to focus your development efforts, talk to your manager or a trusted peer or coach. Using the LBR as a discussion point, ask them questions such as:
This discussion serves two purposes: it shows those who have provided feedback to you that their thoughts matter; and it helps you focus your leadership development in ways that are beneficial for your organization.
When focusing on your Bottom 10, recognize that several behaviors of the LPI tend to fall into that category for the population at large. If other leaders in your organization are also participating in the LPI experience, it may be a good idea for the group to focus on those behaviors that you all have in common, such as:
-
Inspire A Shared Vision:
#7: Describes a compelling image of what our future could be like.
#12: Appeals to others to share an exciting dream of the future.
#17: Shows others how their long-term interests can be realized by enlisting in a common vision.
Model The Way:
#16: Asks for feedback on how his/her actions affect other peoples performance.
If you participate with a group to focus on these behaviors, you can then determine how you want to focus on the remaining six behaviors in your Bottom 10.
Focus on a Practice
Often leaders find it difficult to develop a particular practice. However, using the LBR to identify each behavior in a practice can help operationalize that practice. Encourage the Heart is a good example of one of the Five Practices that frequently poses challenges for leaders and is especially valuable to consider because it can have such a great effect on the other practices. Sometimes leaders look at the practice as a whole and do not see that each behavior is important. Leaders may think they thank people for the work they do and have celebrations, but wonder why their Encourage the Heart scores are lower than they would like. Maybe leaders are not being as creative as they could be or are not recognizing others based on shared values. You can use the LBR in this case to see which of the behaviors of the practice are ranked highest and lowest. It also may then be helpful to look at the Data Summary in your report for that practice in the LPI to get an idea of what each observer group is saying through the data.
*Kelly also focused on Behavior #27, "Speaks with genuine conviction about the higher meaning and purpose of our work" and saw it rise to the Top 5 as well.
Renee Harness is Managing Partner at Third Eye Leadership, where their goal is Inspiring Organizational Strength with Courage and Vision. The partners at Third Eye Leadership are experts in strengthening your bottom-line through evidenced-based leadership experience. She can be reached at renee@thirdeyeleadership.com.
March 2010: Are My Actions Aligned?
Objective: To help team leaders review their values with their teams and ask for input on how well their actions are aligned with these values. As a result of this activity, leaders will be able to:
- Solicit feedback from others on how their values and actions are aligned
- Identify perceived gaps where their actions are not aligned with their stated values
Audience: Leaders and their intact teams. Optimum group size: 6 to 10 (minimum of 2 participants; maximum of 15).
Time Required: 90 minutes
Materials Needed/Set Up:
- Copies of the team leaders Defining Your Values completed worksheet for each participant
- Flipchart paper and easel
- Markers
1. The team leader introduces the activity.
- If participants have not yet taken the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) or been introduced to The Leadership Challenge, provide a brief overview upfront.
- Explain that the best leaders have developed clarity about the core personal values that most guide them, and they work to ensure that their actions are aligned with those values. Team leaders should make the following points:
- Leaders need to Do What You Say You Will Do -DWYSYWD.
- Authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, in The Leadership Challenge ® Workshop, pose this question: "If your team found a sheet of paper with your values on it, without your name, would they know those are your values?" And an even tougher question: "If your team found your values on a sheet of paper with your name at the top, would they agree based on the actions they see every day?
- I hope that I align my actions with my values so that each is transparent to you.
- As a leader, I thought it would be helpful for me, as well as for us as a team, to get deeper into the questions that Kouzes and Posner pose.
- Participants will be asked to share what actions of the team leader they see that demonstrate the leader's personal values. What other things could the leader do to better demonstrate his/her values at work?
- If working with an outside facilitator, explain his/her role; the team leader will be leaving the room. Assure the team that they can be candid.
- Team leaders facilitating the session remain in the room to facilitate the discussion.
- A third option is for team leaders to conduct these conversations one-on-one with team members.
Share the following examples:
- So if one of my (the leaders) values is relationships, and you believe that I allow time for team discussion and fun to build our relationships, my actions would be aligned with that value.
- If, on the other hand, one of my values is honesty/integrity and you have noticed that I dont share information with you, that might mean my actions are not aligned with my values.
5. Facilitate the discussion, taking up to 40 minutes. Write each value at the top of a flipchart page. On the right side of the page, solicit from the team a list of those actions aligned with this value; on the left, list the actions that are not aligned. For example:
| Honesty/Integrity |
| Actions That Are Aligned | Actions That Are Not Aligned |
| He/she gives me honest feedback | Didn’t share information about a recent change until after we found out |
| Is honest about his/her thoughts about the company and our team | Doesn’t share that he/she has information, but it is confidential |
| Always does the right thing for the customer | Talks negatively about changes when they happen |
- For each value, ask for examples of how the leader demonstrates this value, and when he/she could demonstrate it more, or differently. Ask participants to give specifics when necessary.
- The facilitator should monitor the time discussion so that there is plenty of time to capture information for each value.
-
NOTE TO TEAM LEADERS: In some cases, the actions team members mention do not match with your idea of how you act regarding your defined values. It is important to not react defensively. Ask for examples to clarify. Share your responses and what learnings you have from the activity.
- Let the team know that you value their input and feedback. Ask them to look for times when you are demonstrating your values and times when you could focus more on your values.
- Thank the group for their participation.
Renee Harness and Jo Bell are managing partners at Third Eye Leadership. They are both part of The Leadership Challenge Certified Master Network and have played key roles in implementing The Leadership Challenge at companies large and small, in financial service to healthcare and manufacturing. For more information, visit www.thirdeyeleadership.com.
February 2010: Leadership in Crisis
"There was an unmistakable crack of a firearm...then another and another. Screams echoed throughout the store. Customers and employees seeking cover and darting for the exits. Hes got a gun!!! one hollers, followed by more screams and shots..."
Unfortunately, this scene is playing out in more and more businesses, government agencies, and in public spaces around the country. With economic turmoil shattering lives, we can only expect these crises to grow and pose an ever-increasing challenge for leaders.
The chaos of the times seems to present a new disaster every week, plunging leaders who may be top-notch performers under normal operations into a world of chaos and expectations?situations they are both unequipped to handle and also prone to make well-meaning yet disastrous decisions in the heat of the moment.
Leadership in a crisis situation is very different from leadership in a time of normal conditions. On the surface, the Five Practices may not seem to apply to a world turned upside down. But based on my teaching experience, all leaders in government and industry would find the tools useful and provide the foundation for responding to and recovering from any crisis.
The organizational operating models that provide the baseline for a smooth-running enterprise during normal times evaporate during a crisis, throwing the leadership into a morass of uncertainty and chaos. But the chaos can be managed successfully if its impacts are understood.
- Tension and stress: In any crisis, leaders are thrust into a stressful and tense environment that puts them under enormous psychological, mental, and physical strain. Even the most minor decision made under these circumstances can result in catastrophic impacts.
- Speed: Everything may initially happen at warp speed, giving little time for thoughtful consideration or consultation. In a crisis, worlds collide and time is the first victim.
- Personnel: The right people may not be available to respond to the crisis, resulting in untrained and inexperienced leaders being called upon to step into the chaos. Without the right people the organization will stumble in normal times, but during a crisis the problems are accentuated exponentially.
- Organization: Businesses and governments are not necessarily organized to handle crisis. In fact, the organizational hierarchy may be a hindrance to response and recovery. The flexibility to adapt the organization to the situation is critical to success.
- Stakeholders: The list of stakeholders will rapidly expand, bringing in to play new channels of communication, new expectations, and new players--all simultaneously. Suppliers, regulators, families, customers, hospitals, law enforcement will all require a leaders time and interaction.
- Communication: The normal channels of communication may not be operative or may be overloaded, requiring new channels and protocols that must be quickly mastered.
- Media: The leader in crisis has the media spotlight suddenly amplified, all waiting to report and find fault.
- Simplicity: Simplicity is the key in a crisis. Simplicity ultimately wins. The more complex a leader makes a solution in a crisis the less likely success will be the end result.
- Experiential: Provide your audience with an example of a crisis that is as real as possible, addressing as many of the above impacts as appropriate. For example, text prepared messages to your audience during the workshop; use relevant, practical organization applications that the audience can identify with, have a roving reporter stress the audience with uncomfortable questions and inquisitions. I have even hit plastic golf balls into the audience to add a little tension and stress to the workshop. Make the environment of the session as real as possible. If you are not going to make it real, they can read a book and not get the leadership crisis experience.
- Do your homework: Each organization has different stress points and leadership expectations. What creates a crisis in the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is very different from a large multinational conglomerate. Teaching leadership in crisis without understanding the organization will certainly undermine the effectiveness of the workshop.
- Audio Visuals: Use as many audio visual tools as practical. They not only educate and entertain, but also can be used to control an audience. There are any number of products available on the internet. I have never had a problem finding the right clip to demonstrate a point.
- Case studies: Actual events that make the point and are relevant to the organization in training are invaluable. In workshops for the food safety community, for example, I draw upon cases from various incidents in food contamination; for public utilities, ice storms and hurricanes; for major corporations, commodity futures exposure.
Model the Way: In my experience as a leader in business and the military, the quickest way to lose your leadership credentials is to not demonstrate balance in a crisis. Instead of calmly addressing a crisis at hand, the inept crisis leader will lose control of his/her actions, temper, emotions, or awareness. In the Navy we call it "losing the bubble"; not being aware of the tactical situation at sea can cost lives. Demonstrate balanced leadership.
Inspire a Shared Vision: It is critical in a crisis that we all share the same goal. We may have different reasons for the goal but we have the goal in common. For example, the obvious goal is to return to normalcy. To employees this means ensuring that their job survives, while an executive worries about stopping the revenue loss. Return to normalcy.
Challenge the Process: The organizational processes are stressed in any crisis and may become dysfunctional. A leader in crisis must have the flexibility to adapt to the situation, regardless of the inherent processes of the organization. Flexibility to adapt.
Enable Others to Act: In a crisis, much more than in normal operations, effective partnerships are critical to the success. Simply put, partnerships save lives.
Encourage the Heart: Taking care of the response staff is not much different in a crisis as in normal operating situations. What is different is the stress the team is under and how fast this can change. A leader in crisis needs to be more aware of the physical, psychological, and mental condition of the team. An operative that has been controlling an evacuation for 12 hours straight may need time out to regroup. The leader must be aware and respond.
It is critical for a leader to be aware as the environment becomes dysfunctional or begins to stabilize. Although the general rules for leading in a crisis are different, they are not outside the parameters of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®. Today, our world is routinely in crisis mode. And even though one leadership style does not fit all, when it comes to dealing with a crisis situation, we are fortunate to have a guide like The Leadership Challenge to serve as the foundation of organizational crisis response and recovery.
Gordon Meriwether, a retired Navy Captain, is the Founder of The Uriah Group, a crisis leadership consultancy. He can be reached at gmeriwether@uriahgroup.com.
NOTE: We are currently investigating the viability of Leadership Challenge materials geared specifically for crisis situations and crisis-response professions. Please contact Assistant Editor Marisa Kelley (mkelley@wiley.com) if you would like to share your thoughts regarding your interest in such materials and how you would use these.
January 2010: Effective Online Coaching via Friday5s®
As technological advances continue, some of us who facilitate The Leadership Challenge Workshop® are with working with Friday 5s®. This is a web-based follow-through process operated by The Fort Hill Company that provides participants the opportunity to set goals and a means to update progress in achieving those goals. Facilitators can also contract with a client to provide online coaching of these follow-through progress reports. We have been working with a few clients in providing this service and have found it to be challenging yet beneficial when done properly. We are proud to say we have hit upon how to make this a meaningful experience for both the coach and the participant.
The hardest part is realizing how this process differs from traditional coaching. Most of us are used to coaching face-to-face, getting immediate feedback from the person being coached, and developing a dialogue approach. Most successful coaching takes place when the coach asks questions designed to help the person discover a solution, which in turn, provides ownership of the solution. Online coaching is more of a one-way recommendation and a chance to reinforce skills that were taught and experienced in the workshop.
Success in online coaching begins in the workshop itself and setting clear expectations of what the process will be like for the person being coached. It must be clear that the follow through process is still in the hands of the participant. With this in mind, taking time during the workshop to develop clear, actionable goals is of utmost importance. We have had the best success when the coach is identified to the participant and has a chance to have a goal-setting conversation toward the end of the workshop to develop the relationship and an understanding of exactly what is trying to be achieved with the goal.
We have collected the best ideas from facilitators who have been working with the Friday 5s® system and we think these will be very beneficial to anyone who is considering using it.
- If possible, make a personal connection from something learned from the workshop to the person being coached.
- Although the coaching can be done directly online from the website, and you can scroll through the updates and feedback from previous updates, it is advisable to make a hard copy of the update and type the coaching response in a separate document. In this way, the coach can take the time to focus on a deeper response, review it, and paste it into the Friday 5s web site when it is finished. There are times when the Friday 5s system times out and there is always a possibility of being kicked offline. There is not much more frustrating than completing a well thought out coaching response and then have it lost!
- When possible, refer back to experiential activities or specific skills learned in the workshop. Many times, it is here, as real life progresses, that great connections can be made to put skills talked about in class into actual practice.
- Get familiar with the Friday 5s system and site. Dont hesitate to contact the Fort Hill Company for help in learning and navigating the site.
- Speak from the heart. Get used to confronting without condemning and use phrases such as "feel free to" and "you might consider" or "I would recommend" when offering advice. Although as a coach we may ask for an update on progress in a specific matter, many times it is difficult to see if advice was heard. Look for incremental small steps to take to move ahead.
- Dont forget about the 'Guide Me" feature of the Friday 5s site as it may be helpful to suggest the participant use it, if stuck on what to do next.
- Reinforce when and where progress is made to offer encouragement. Acknowledge specific goal progress and encourage goal sharing with constituents as a way to collect additional feedback.
- Although coaching provided is confidential and cannot be viewed by others, some participants may still be uncomfortable with the technology, especially if there is a conflict with a manager or supervisor. In that case, participants may feel more comfortable having communication through personal email rather than through the web site. The updates can and should still continue online but specific sensitive issues may be better dealt with offline.
- Attend to emotions. This is tricky as it is hard to pick up on emotions in writing but it is useful to pick up on frustrating comments or words and ask about them. It shows you are really reading the update for content.
- Some coaches find it useful to ask questions designed at initiating deeper thought and reflection. Sometimes, those questions will show up in the next update and you can tell the message was received.
- Dont get frustrated when you think your advice never gets through. Many times it is hard to tell from the next update if they even read your coaching suggestions. But then, just when you think advice in not being heard, you have find success, such as when someone will specifically thank you for something that worked. Then it makes it all worthwhile.
- Express hope and optimism for next steps and success. Get them thinking about next steps and what you expect (and are looking forward to) in their next update. If they know you are expecting to hear from them, they are more likely to respond to the next update.
Online feedback and coaching is not for everyone. But the Friday 5s follow through process offers an opportunity to use technology in a new and different way that can be very effective for The Leadership Challenge Workshop participants practice new skills and behaviors, provided you take the time to learn how to use it properly and develop a new way of coaching.
Stephen Hoel is president of Diversity Leadership Consultants and a Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge®. He can be reached at shoel13@aol.com.
For more information on Friday 5s®, please contact the Fort Hill Company.
December 2009: Leadership 2020
Introduction: Imagine the year is 2020. You are attending a ceremony honoring you as Leader of the Year. One after another, colleagues and coworkers, members of your family, and good friends take the stage to talk about your leadership and how you have made a positive difference in their lives. What do you hope they will say about you? How do you hope you are remembered on that day? What will be the story that they tell about you?
Process: Record your thoughts using this six-step process, incorporating the following L.I.F.E. themes:
L = Lessons
I = Ideals
F = Feelings
E = Expressions
1. What vital Lessons do you hope others will say you are passing on (e.g., she taught me how to face adversity with grace and determination; he taught me what it means to be a coach)?
2. For what Ideals — values, principles, ethical standards, dreams, and aspirations— do you hope people will say you stand (e.g., she stood for freedom and justice; he believed in always telling the truth, even when it wasn’t what people wanted to hear; she dreamed of a world in which all children had access to quality health care)?
3. What Feelings do you hope people will say they have/had when being with you or when thinking about you (e.g., she always made me feel I was capable of doing the impossible; he made me feel important)?
4. What lasting Expressions or contributions—tangible and intangible—will people say that you leave, to them and to others yet to come (e.g.,, she is really the one who built this agency; his dedication to others lives on in those homes he helped build every Saturday as he gave his time to Habitat for Humanity)?
5. Review your L.I.F.E. responses above. As you consider what you wrote, what is the central theme in your leadership story? Whats at the core of the legacy you want to leave—of how you want to be remembered? When the book on your leadership life is written, what will the central message be? (For example, I want to be remembered for how I enabled people to learn and grow. Or, my central theme is innovation. I want to be remembered for bringing new and creative ideas to life and work.)
6. Living Your L.I.F.E. Review your central theme and the lessons, ideals, feelings, and expressions you have recorded. For each L.I.F.E. element noted above, write down at least one action you will take to integrate it into your life. What are you going to do to teach the lessons, model the ideals, generate the feelings, and create the expressions that you want? Most likely youll need some additional sheets of paper to complete this exercise.
Copyright © 2009. James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. All rights reserved.
Jim Kouzes is the Deans Executive Professor of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. Barry Posner is Professor of Leadership at the Leavey School of Business, where he served as Dean for 12 years, at Santa Clara University. Together they are authors of The Leadership Challenge and over a twenty other books and workbooks on leadership and leadership development.
November 2009: How To: The Collaboration Audit
Objective: Incorporate the Collaboration Audit—a great tool that Jim and Barry created and published in the 3rd Edition of The Leadership Challenge—to help teams work through collaboration and focus on the Practice, Enable Others to Act.
Audience: Training and coaching clients.
Supplies:
- One large (18 x 24) sample of the Collaboration Audit for each table or group of participants
- Pens or pencils
1. There are fifteen items on the Collaboration Audit. Ask each participating team to rate each item as a group, using a scale of 1 to 5. Explain that any statement that receives an initial rating of 3 or less should be discussed further—for clarity and understanding—and teams should consider any changes that would increase collaboration.
2. Ask each group to identify the items ranked 3 or less and explain why. [Note: I have found that item #4 of the Collaboration Audit generates a lot of discussion. Keep an eye on that one.]
3. Discuss the three essentials of collaboration. In The Leadership Challenge, Jim and Barry identify these as:
- Create a climate of trust
- Facilitate positive interdependence
- Support face-to-face interactions
- Statements 1,2,3,4,5 measure “climate of trust”
- Statements 6,7,8,9,10 measure “facilitate positive interdependence”
- Statements 11,12,13,14,15 measure “support face to face interactions”
Collaboration Audit
Developed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
Rate the extent to which you agree or disagree that each statement describes the actions of people in your organization. Use the following scale to indicate your level of agreement or disagreement.
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neither Disagree nor Agree | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Around here, people...
_____ 1. Act in a trustworthy and trusting manner.
_____ 2. Ask others for help and assistance when needed.
_____ 3. Treat others with dignity and respect.
_____ 4. Talk openly about their feelings.
_____ 5. Listen attentively to the opinions of others.
_____ 6. Express clarity about the group’s goal.
_____ 7. Make personal sacrifices to meet a larger group goal.
_____ 8. Can rely on each other.
_____ 9. Pitch in to help when others are busy or running behind.
_____ 10. Give credit to others for their contributions.
_____ 11. Interact with each other on a regular basis.
_____ 12. Treat every relationship as if it will last for a lifetime, even if it won’t.
_____ 13. Make it their business to introduce their colleagues to people who can help them succeed.
_____ 14. Freely pass along information that might be useful to others.
_____ 15. Relate well to people of diverse backgrounds and interests.
Valerie Willis is a Master Facilitator of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop and principal of Valarie Willis Consulting in Loveland, OH, where she focuses on strategic management consulting. She can be reached at vwillis@cinci.rr.com.
The Development Funnel
Objectives: Focusing on the overall objective of the workshop, develop a plan to improve a participant’s capacity to lead by increasing the frequency of certain behaviors:
- Model the Way by reflecting on the opportunities for change, and choosing a plan of action that supports the participant’s values and openly communicating the reasoning behind the actions taken.
- Challenge the Process by looking for opportunities to take action that will have significant impact for the organization.
Time Required: 10 minutes
Materials Needed/Setup: Flipcharts, Easel, Markers
Note: This could be developed as a slide animation as well.
Process:
- Draw a large funnel on a flipchart. [Note: I draw a wavy line across the top of the funnel as though it is liquid.]
- Divide the wide part of the funnel into 5 vertical segments, placing the initials of each of the Five Practices in one of the segments
- Use the visual you have created so far to discuss how the vast array of information participants take in when reviewing their LPI feedback might trickle down to the narrow part of the funnel. Explain how, in the LPI process, participants begin to narrow their focus—starting with a practice, moving to a specific behavior within the practice, and finally to an action that demonstrates that behavior in the real world.
- Lead a review of each of the Five Practices, asking participants to focus on a single practice and perhaps 1 or 2 behaviors that they feel confident could make them more effective as a leader and have a positive impact on their team or organization.
- Write the word "ACTION" in the narrow part of the funnel and instruct participants to define an action, based on the behavior they identified, that demonstrates the behavior.
- Draw a loop from the bottom of the funnel to the top and write the words "REFLECTION" and "RESPOND" along the side of the loop. Explore the importance of these two actions: once participants have taken an action, it is critical to take time to reflect on the impact the action had. Remind participants to talk to those who support their leadership development, including those they hope to lead, their manager, coach, etc. How did it go? What was the result? Will they adjust or redirect their action? Is there anyone they should respond to? This is a good place to discuss what support is in place for their ongoing development.
Tips for Facilitators: This exercise reinforces the role of committed practice. You will find many opportunities to point back to the funnel as you move through the workshop and work with participants to focus on specific action steps.
Beth High is President of HighRoad Consulting, a leadership development company, where she focuses on the challenges of leading effectively in the virtual environment <>. She also is a Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge Workshop® and can be reached at highroadconsulting@gmail.com.
Hot Stuff
This is an activity that can be used in many different ways. I love it because it takes the group (seemingly) so far away from their everyday work environment and yet the reality is that all of the individual strengths, weaknesses, and unique group dynamic, inevitably come out. You may have seen or heard of this activity as “Toxic Waste” which was what I first heard it as years ago. The materials are simple and can be found around your house. You can also go to the Project Adventure website (www.pa.org) and buy all of the materials under the Equipment, Props, Publications tab. The “Challenge Packs” are a great way to stock up on everything you need for experiential activities.
Debrief topics can include:
- Model the Way
- Which behaviors were most effective in moving the group forward?
Objectives:
- To observe the elements of leadership in the group process
- To review the factors that inhibit and enhance effective group decision making
- To explore effective interpersonal communication
- To examine how each group member contributes to the final result
25 – 35 minutes – you can change the time to fit your needs and the needs of the group
Materials Needed:
- ½ of a bicycle tire tube
- Twelve 10 – 12 foot lengths of rope
- 2 large coffee cans or small buckets
- Rope or masking tape to form a circle with a 10 ft. radius
- Something to fill one of the cans/buckets 1/3 - ½ full (small balls, dried beans, etc.)
Physical Setting: Choose a relatively flat area, with room outside of the circle for practice. This activity can be done either inside or outside.
Advance Preparation: Create the circle with the rope or tape. Larger circles make the activity more difficult. Place the half filled cans in the center. All other materials are outside of the circle.
Presentation of Activity: Give the task, rules and resource. If dividing time into planning and execution phases, explain.
The Activity: The goal of this activity is for the group to transfer the contents from one can or bucket into the other while both canisters are in the middle of the large circle. They must achieve this without spilling any of the contents. The group can use any of the materials provided (or others in the room if you want to give them this option), but they cannot step inside of the circle at any time. This is a challenging activity which requires a high level of communication and teamwork. There are many ways to achieve the goal, but most groups figure out a way to use the 12 ropes and the bicycle tire tube to create a tool where they can lift and tip the bucket with the contents into the other bucket.
Rules: You can make the rules as simple or complex as you want depending on what you are trying to focus on with the group. The one rule that must always be observed is:
- No one can move inside of the circle at any time
- There is a time limit – You can divide the time into planning and execution phases if you want or see where the group goes on its own
- If anyone breaks the plane of the circle (e.g. their arm goes over the boundary when holding a rope) they lose the use of that part of their body (e.g. they can no longer use that arm)
- You can have the group execute the activity in silence. This forces them to plan differently and raises issues of non-verbal communication
You can assign one participant to be an observer or process consultant which creates an environment where they start to pay attention to individual and group behavior and begin to understand how that behavior effects the groups effectiveness.
Additional Debrief Topics:
- Effective/Ineffective leadership behaviors
- Was everyone involved in the planning process? In the execution? If not, why not? Who was involved? Who wasnt? Were all ideas voiced and considered?
- Did the group work together in planning or did they jump right into the activity? How did this effect the outcome?
- How did individuals feel during the activity? What they would do differently?
Debriefing The Leadership Challenge Videos
Objective: Facilitate participant discussion and maximize learning from video tools shown during The Leadership Challenge® Workshop.
Audience: All workshop participants
Time Required: Varies with length of each video and how far-reaching the facilitator would like to take the discussion
Materials Needed/Setup: Any of The Leadership Challenge videos; flip chart and markers; The Leadership Challenge® Workshop workbook
Process:
- Prior to viewing the video, ask participants to create three columns on the space in their workbook. Demonstrate on the flip chart while instructing participants to label each column (in order from left to right) with the words: Values, Behaviors, Results. Explain that they are being asked to record their observations of the leader in the video who will be depicting a particular leadership practice—in each of these three areas.
- Ask participants to collectively (or in table groups) identify the values they picked up from the leader featured in the video. Make a list of the values on the flipchart.
- Follow the same process with behaviors and results.
- Assist participants in connecting the notion that values are visible in all leaders and the relevance of alignment of personal values with shared values. Also discuss how values drive decisions, behaviors and results. And reinforce the idea that values are the foundation to leading with the Five Practices.
Variations: Add a fourth column to the left of Values titled, ‘Challenges’. Ask participants to record what challenges the leader “inherited” or had to address as they lead.
Ms. Pennal is an associate at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana where she assists with the non-clinical organizational training. As an Education Consultant, Ms. Pennal designs, implements and evaluates leadership development training, develops customer service training and assists with communication classes. She can be contacted via e-mail: LWPennal@stvincent.org.
Re:Flect
In a recent Training-Games.com eNewsletter, Sallie Weems championed the reflective learning approach in which learners ruminate on past experiences to generate fresh insights that can be applied when learning new ideas. Using this approach creates a deeper and more meaningful learning experience and links directly to the sixth commitment of exemplary leadership: experiment and take risks by constantly generating small wins and learning from experience.
This technique also is an effective teaching method as "it allows the learner to connect their experiences with the new knowledge that is being introduced." Depending on the environment in which you are working, reflective learning can be used in a variety of ways. In a classroom setting, for example, you may ask learners their thoughts on the purpose of an activity before initiating it. For instance, in the Helium Stick activity (which demonstrates the importance of focusing on a common goal when working on a group project; in this case, participants focus on lowering a simple stick, but it often rises as a result focusing on the rules instead of the ultimate goal), start off by encouraging learners to reflect on a time when their organizational team was focused on following the rules—not on the ultimate goal. Ask them how they think this activity will end, based on their prior experience, and then begin the activity. During the ‘process check,’ ask participants to reflect on what they have learned so far from their involvement in this activity before resuming action. Finally, when debriefing the activity, go deep—don’t just ask learners how the helium stick was ultimately lowered and how this is similar to their organization. Instead, ask learners to reflect on how they will apply this learning to future experiences. This is called the ‘before-during-after’ technique. Reflective learning can also be practiced by encouraging learners to journal their experiences or through small group discussions.
You can read Weems article in its entirety here http://www.training-games.com/newsletter/NewsletterIssue36.html.
Marisa Holland Kelley is an Assistant Editor on The Leadership Challenge product line at Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. She can be contacted via e-mail: mkelley@wiley.com.
Toothpick Activity by Mary Cooper
Objective:
Promote the practice of Model the Way, with an emphasis on the two commitments: clarifying and setting the example
Audience:
Any size group
Time Required:
10-15 minutes, including time for debrief
Materials Needed/Setup:
14 toothpicks per person and a specific pattern to be communicated to the group, such as the design below:
Process:
- Instruct each participant to take 14 toothpicks.
- Ask for a volunteer.
- As the participants are taking their toothpicks, explain to the volunteer that her/his role is to provide instructions to the group on how to assemble the toothpicks in a specific pattern. With his/her back to the audience, show the volunteer the pattern.
- Inform the group that the volunteer will be giving them instructions on how to create a specific pattern with their toothpicks, and explain that the following rules must be followed:
a. No questions can be asked of the volunteer
b. Only verbal instructions will be given
c. Instructions cannot be repeated
d. You have 3 minutes, go!
- Allow the volunteer to give verbal instructions for creating the pattern, and ensure the rules are followed.
- At the conclusion of 3 minutes, stop any instructions and have the participants compare the patterns they created with one another, and with the volunteer’s pattern (this can be in view as an overhead or PowerPoint with a large group)
Debrief questions:
- How did we all do?
- Are there differences among your patterns? Why are they so different when the instructions were the same?
- Now let’s compare with the actual pattern. Do they match? Why not?
- What would have helped you replicate the pattern successfully? (Note: look for responses such as “opportunity to ask questions” or “having a visual”)
- How does this exercise relate to the first practice of Model the Way and the two commitments (e.g., the necessity for clear, two-way communication and the benefit of an example)?
- In thinking about the practice of Model the Way and the first commitment, communication within the team and between teams and individuals is critical. It could be the communication of values, principles and standards, or shared ideals. It also could be the two-way dialogue of asking for and receiving feedback and building consensus on the team.
- In thinking about the practice of Model the Way and the second commitment, think about the necessity of a visual. This visual is you, setting the example by following through on commitments, acting on the feedback you have received, and being a behavioral example of “credible” leadership.
- Consider how you can better practice Model the Way and the two commitments.
Variations: You can change the pattern or change the debrief questions and key points to align with another practice, such as Challenge the Process.
Mary Cooper is an author, management consultant, and trainer based in Orlando, Florida. A former consultant with the Disney Institute and a retired instructor of the Dale Carnegie Course, Mary’s vision is to make a difference by helping leaders leave their legacy, one leader at a time. She can be reached at mcooper@EngagingOutcomes.com.
Aligning Values to Actions by Eric Poll
Objective: Promote the practice of Model the Way with this exercise that helps leadership teams define their guiding principles and, based on the progress they believe they are making, establish next steps.Audience: Intact Leadership Teams
Time Required: One hour
Materials Needed/Setup:
- Values Card Exercise from The Leadership Challenge® Workshop Facilitator’s Guide
- Values Cards for each participant
- Introduce the importance role values play in guiding our behaviors as leaders
- Complete the Values Cards exercise as described in The Leadership Challenge® Workshop Facilitator’s Guide.
- Each leadership team member selects one value that he/she would like to propose as a value/guiding principle for the team
- As a team, distill all of the recommended values down to a maximum of 6 guiding principles
- 2 or 3 persons each describe what this guiding principle means for this team (on flip charts)
- Provide instruction to participants about testing the team’s guiding principles against Calendar, Critical Incidents, Stories, Language, Measurements and Rewards (as in the Facilitator’s Guide)
- Ask each team member to score (from 0 to 10) how well he/she feels the team is doing on each guiding principle
- Ask each team member to score (from 0 to 10) how he/she thinks the organization would score the team on each guiding principle
- In small groups, ask team members to describe why they think the overall score is the way it is and what the team can do to improve.
- Bring the smaller groups back together to create a consolidated action plan
- Follow-up in six months to review progress, discuss if the team has improved, and why or why not.
Facilitator Tips: The principle behind this approach is that most companies have an established set of values. But it is not the existence of corporate values that matters. What makes a difference in how leadership is practiced in organizations is whether each member of the leadership team is willing to engage in defining what values mean to them, as individuals, and how they are going to apply those values in their day-to-day work.
Instead of values becoming a communication exercise with blogs, posters, and leaflets, this exercise reinforces the notion that values are about reflection and alignment with individual leaders.
Eric Poll is partner of OrgInt (OrganiSational Intelligence). Specializing in cultural change, leadership and team development, and HR transformation, Eric works in English, German, and Dutch. Visit www.orgint.com for more information.
A Picture is Worth 1, 000 Values by Shamsi Rategh
Objective: To promote the practice Model the Way (Set the Example), use this activity to start a discussion about individual values in a more subliminal way. For example, without asking people to write down and share their ‘values’, this exercise provides the opportunity for participants to speak to their values, realistically and wholeheartedly.Audience: This activity can be done in both large and small groups.
Time Required: 1 hour prep time; 2 minutes to select picture; 15-60 minutes for group discussion, depending on the number of people participating.
Materials Needed/Setup: Based on the size of the group, three pictures for each participant, randomly selected and cut out from various magazines (i.e., a group of 10 = 30 pictures required). A wide variety of pictures should be selected with images that imply family, work, nature, culture, and so on. Before the group gathers, set up a table and spread out all of the cut-out pictures, making sure that participants are not allowed to “peak” at them before the activity gets started.
Process: Once the group has gathered, ask participants to walk around the table where the pictures are displayed and select the one that resonates most with them. Limit this part of the process to 2 minutes and request that participants make their selection in silence. Next, ask each person individually to share the main reason(s) he or she felt drawn to that specific picture. When everyone in the group has participated, the facilitator shares his or her own reasons and then discusses the topic of values: how the picture that each person chose is a reflection of his or her value system. Our values are so ingrained in who we are. And this activity brings out some of the things we find most important without even thinking about them.
Facilitator Tips: There is no limit to the number of pictures that can be made available but a minimum of three per participant is recommended. If more than one person selects a specific picture, participants can share.
Shamsi Rategh, Service Support Manager with Wells Fargo Banker Connection in Fargo, North Dakota, can be reached at Shamsi.Rategh@wellsfargo.com
Engagement & Risk by Andy Meyer
Objective: Use this activity to immediately challenge participants to fully engage in upcoming activities.- Model the Way by eliciting engagement and taking risk
- Challenge the Process by directly addressing active engagement, which is often atypical
- Enable Others to Act by inviting participants to take personal responsibility for engagement and risk taking
- Handout with the four engagement questions and rating scale
- Pens
- Flip chart and markers
- PowerPoint® (Optional)
- The Four Engagement Questions* and associated rating scale** from Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, 2nd edition, by Peter Block
- Present the four engagement questions and ask participants to rate their level of engagement, risk and investment
- Once individual risk has been established, instruct all participants to briefly discuss their responses with the individuals seated next to them
- Conduct a full group out-brief following this small group discussion
Variations: Lengthen or shorten the discussion, depending on the depth and complexity of the tasks that will follow this exercise.
*The Four Engagement Questions
- How valuable an experience do you plan to have in this session or this effort—not what kind of experience you want, but what kind you plan to have?
- How engaged and active do you plan to be?
- How much risk are you willing to take?
- How invested are you in the quality of the experience of those around you? What is your level of concern about the well-being of the larger group?
Andy Meyer, Ph.D. is the Director of the Business Solutions Group at Innovative Productivity, Inc. in Louisville, KY. He provides extensive coaching support for implementation of The Leadership Challenge with both the U.S. Navy and commercial client companies. Andy may be contacted at ameyer@mttc.org.
Past Influences Present by Cami Bishop
Objectives: An ice breaker used to help participants gain meaningful knowledge and enhanced understanding of others.
- Model the Way by demonstrating how to self-disclose for deeper understanding
- Encourage the Heart by helping others relate to common experiences, trials and successes
Audience: Any age group, students or staff
Time Required: 2 minutes per person; 5 minutes for debriefing
Materials Needed/Set Up: None
Process:
- Introduce the exercise by referencing Morris Massey’s book, What You Are is Where You Were When, which suggests that where we were raised has a profound affect on life choices and who we become. Explain that this exercise involves self-disclosure and individuals may choose not to participate.
- Ask participants to state their name, a brief description of where they were raised, and what influence that has on them now. Individuals may choose to reveal any number of things, such as location, time, family structure, significant events, or relationships with peers.
- Debrief by asking what participants thought was the point of the exercise, what they learned, and how they are feeling about the group now.
Variations: If working with a large group, have participants break into smaller groups, adjusting the size of each group to the time available. Once the self-disclosing portion of this exercise is complete, ask participants to answer the debriefing questions within each of the smaller groups. Bring the large group back together and ask for a few volunteers to share their debriefing discussion. You can also conclude with a few ideas from the Massey book or show a video that embodies the such principles.
Cami Bishop is Student Leadership Coordinator at Portland Community College. She can be contacted via e-mail: cbishop@pcc.edu.
Show Me the Mission by Angie Chaplin
Objectives:
- Model the Way by demonstrating how an organizations services align with its values.
- Inspire a Shared Vision by "selling" the organizations mission, values and services.
- Challenge the Process by looking beyond current realities to see innovative possibilities.
Audience: 12 to no more than 24
Time Required: 60 minutes
Materials Needed/Setup:
- flipcharts
- easel
- markers
Process:
- Tell participants they have the chance to create a new nonprofit organization with funding from a generous $1 million grant awarded by Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner.
- Because Jim & Barry can choose only one organization to fund, competition is fierce. The benefactors have asked all finalists to prepare 5-minute presentations to pitch their proposed organizations to Jim and Barry and their advisory council, who will base their decision on how well the mission, values, and services align with and demonstrate The Five Practices.
- Working in teams of 3-5 people, participants have 30 minutes to prepare a 5-minute oral presentation that includes the following details:
- name of the organization
- mission
- core values
- logo
- segment of the population that will benefit (e.g., at-risk youth, homeless women, children in foster care, adjudicated delinquents)
- specific services the organization will deliver
- names of 9 well-known leaders or celebrities who will serve as the inaugural board of directors, and why their involvement brings credibility
- Teams may use flipcharts, markers, additional materials (if supplied) to enhance their presentation.
- When not presenting, participants serve as Jim and Barrys advisory council members.
At the conclusion of all the presentations, ask for a vote by secret ballot (one may not vote for his/her own group) of which organization should be awarded the funds.
Note: This Tips & Techniques exercise has been adapted from "Phictional Philanthropy" in The Big Book of Leadership Games by Vasudha K. Deming.
Angie Chaplin, M.A., C.P.B.A., is a certified facilitator of The Leadership Challenge and Director, Center for Learning & Leading at Lutheran Services in Iowa. She can be reached at angie.chaplin@lsiowa.org
A Poster is Worth a Thousand Words by Renee Harness and Tim Miller
Early on in the roll-out process, leaders in organizations are often looking for ways to get the word out about The Leadership Challenge to all of their people. They may not have resources in a given year to invite all employees to participate in The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, or they may want to begin promoting the concepts of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® as they implement the program. ILC Dover LP is one company that has found a very unique way to promote The Five Practices. As the worlds leader in Engineered Softgoods, ILC Dover has been involved in producing some of the worlds most visible icons: NASA Space Suits, airships and blimps, Mars landing bags, and military and civilian gas masks. In 2004, ILC Dover created a Leadership and Team Development Group as part of an overall company cultural change initiative. In simplified form their charter was:
Better leaders + Better teams = Improved Performance
Research led the group to The Leadership Challenge as one method for both leadership development and team improvement. The Leadership and Team Development Group saw The Five Practices as a natural fit with their culture and began promoting these with the acronym MICEE (pronounced Mike-ee at ILC Dover) as a constant reminder to:
- Model the Way
- Inspire a Shared Vision
- Challenge the Process
- Enable Others to Act
- Encourage the Heart
Tim Miller, Design Engineer, was the first to attend The Leadership Challenge® Workshop in a public program held by Meridian Leadership Center, and led by master facilitators Renee Harness & Jo Bell, in Indianapolis, Indiana in February of 2007. Later that year, a cross-section of leaders from ILC Dover were invited to attend another workshop as well. Together, this group was inspired to "get the MICEE message out" and met to brainstorm ways they could do just that.
The result was the MICEE Poster Contest, which includes five individual poster competitions (one for each of The Five Practices). The objective of these contests is to: "Design a Poster illustrating one of the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® to help communicate these practices and how they can help us improve individually and as an organization."
Each contest runs over the period of approximately one month, allowing time for participants to research, design, and prepare their posters. The judging is performed anonymously by Jo Bell and Renee Harness. Prizes are $1000 for 1st place, $150 for 2nd, $75 for 3rd, and 2 movie tickets for each participating employee.
The resulting posters have been inspiring, creative, and informative! The most recent winner is Phil Blazejak who is a Senior Manufacturing Engineer at ILC. His entry, seen below, defines the practice of Challenge the Process in a "MICEEpedia" format with definitions and examples of co-workers who use this practice. It is a great demonstration of using creativity to inspire and inform others about leadership, and that leadership is everyones business. Leadership is beginning to happen at every level of the ILC Dover organization.
"As of September 15, 2008, we have completed the first three contests." said Tim Miller, "A total of 56 posters have been submitted, and we have awarded over $3500 and handed out more than 120 movie tickets. During the past three months, ILC employees have researched, read, discussed, drawn, printed, cut, pasted, created, and challenged themselves and one another. And, in the process, they have even demonstrated some of The Five Practices common to personal-best leadership experiences. I call that SUCCESS!"
Renee Harness is Managing Partner of Meridian Leadership Center and has led organizational development, leadership and effectiveness initiatives in corporations and academia for nearly 15 years. She is a part of The Leadership Challenge Master Facilitator Network and has played key roles in implementing The Leadership Challenge at companies in financial services, healthcare and manufacturing.
Tim Miller is a Senior Design Engineer in charge of Lighter Than Air Products at ILC Dover. Tim is involved from concept through manufacture and continuing into customer field support for ILCs line of airship and aerostat envelopes including the Zeppelin NT and the American Blimp Lightships.
Strength-Based Feedback Activity by Lillas Hatala
Objectives: This activity supports the development of one of The Five Leadership Practices®: Encouraging the Heart. Participants must truly experience Encouraging the Heart in order to understand it and, therefore, this is not an intellectual exercise of PowerPoint demonstrations and talking heads. Rather, this is very hands-on. I like using this activity toward the end of a The Leadership Challenge® Workshop as it leaves people, just before they depart, squarely in the place of their hearts.
This activity is designed to help participants:
- Practice story telling
- Practice listening for strengths and giving strength-based feedback
- Learn things about their co-workers they would never have learned otherwise and, as a result, strengthen the relationships forever!
Audience: All audiences. Particularly suited for colleagues, teammates, co-workers and any group of people that works together.
Time Required: One hour -1 ½ hours depending on the number of people in each small group. Plan for approximately 10 minutes per person.
Materials Needed/Setup: Mailing labels (blank, adhesive-back, peel-off; one full sheet per person); one piece of colored paper per person.
Process: Set up small groups of five to seven people. Individual participants within each group are asked to reflect on one success in their life (e.g., a success with people, in relationships; an interest such as sports, music, or hobby; a project, task, or event that is work or volunteer related). After five minutes of reflection, one person in each group begins to tell his or her success story. The others in the small group listen for strengths underlying the story and write down those strengths on the mailing labels provided (one strength per label; a minimum of three identified strengths/three labels per person). When the storyteller has finished, each listener in the group-one by one-provides positive strengths feedback. The storyteller places all completed strengths labels on the colored sheet of paper. The process is repeated with the remaining members of the group as storyteller.
Debrief: Five minutes in small groups discussing what each participant learned from this exercise about Encouraging the Heart, followed by five minutes as a large group reviewing and considering some of the themes that surfaced as a result of the small group discussions.
Facilitator Tips: The facilitator needs to model this activity by telling a success story, asking the group to listen for strengths underlying the story, and then hear a sampling of a few strengths the group heard.
Instructions for this exercise need to be followed exactly. Everyone needs to complete the exercise-both receiving and giving strength-based feedback.
It is a good idea to ask one person in each of the small groups to be a time keeper: five minutes for each storyteller and five minutes for the group to provide positive feedback.
Variations: none
Lillas Hatala is a coach, author, and leadership development facilitator with Integrative Leadership International Ltd.
The Challenge of Developing Leaders: MAXIMIZING THE IMPACT OF TRAINING
BY ANDREW MCK. JEFFERSON, ROY V.H. POLLACK, AND CALHOUN W. WICK
"The personal learning catalyzed by a top-notch program can be tremendous. The problem my research suggests, is what happens when a manager comes back to the day-to-day routine of the office." —Herminia Ibarra, INSEAD
Becoming a leader is a lifes work. Great leadership is the product of rich and varied experiences, clear values, good mentoring, thoughtful reflection, shared insights, and deliberate practice.
World class leadership training, like that found in The Leadership Challenge, can be a tremendous catalyst for accelerated leadership growth and development. But training is not, by itself, sufficient. Optimizing leadership development requires a holistic approach that includes what happens before, during and, especially, after training.
Moreover, leadership training has to be woven into the fabric of the organization. Values have to be lived and modeled. Training can succeed only where the current leaders have credibility, where their actions are consistent with the values and principles the training espouses.
You have to think beyond the classroom if you want to optimize the value that your organization gains from leadership training. You have to put in place systems and processes to support leaders as they work to apply new insights and skills. And, you have to "model the way" by practicing what you preach.
The Six Disciplines
We have found that the most effective leadership programs incorporate The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning (The 6Ds™):
D1: Define business outcomes
D2: Design the COMPLETE experience
D3: Deliver for application
D4: Drive follow-through
D5: Deploy active support
D6: Document results
An example of these principles in action is the Leadership Challenge® Workshop, which has a 10-week extension to the program using Friday5s®. This web-based program establishes a clear timeline for follow through and reminds participants to stop, reflect, plan and apply what they have learned to help them put their learning to work. It encourages learners to seek feedback from their managers and peers, provides supporting content, and documents progress and achievement.
Achieving Excellence
The path to leadership excellence requires specific goals, dedicated practice, caring feedback, and thoughtful reflection.
Specific goals
"Leaders must have the capacity to envision an uplifting and ennobling image of the future and to enlist others in a common purpose." (Kouzes and Posner: A Leaders Legacy, p. 100). The leaders ability to envision an ennobling future is critical not only for the organizations they lead, but for themselves as well. To optimize the value of leadership training, leaders need to reflect on the feedback they have received and select a very few, specific, high-impact goals for improving their leadership.
While a goal-setting exercise is part of most leadership programs, too often it is given little time and attention. Setting a personal vision and objectives for enhanced leadership is hard and thoughtful work. It is not something to be dashed off in a few minutes. Nor should those goals, once set, be relegated to the forgotten pages of a neglected notebook on a dusty bookshelf.
For development goals to have maximum value, they need to be shared and understood by all those who can contribute to their achievement. In the case of development goals, that means people closest to the leader who can provide ideas, feedback, coaching and support. Leadership development is a team sport.
To optimize the value of leadership training, encourage participants to set one or two high-impact, stretch goals for themselves. Then encourage learners to share those goals with their managers, direct reports, and spouses or partners with a request for support and feedback.
Dedicated practice
Studies of top-level human performance in a wide range of fields—from business, to chess, to sports and the performing arts—have all concluded that the amount of practice is what separates the truly great from the also-rans. "The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what experts call deliberate practice. Its activity thats explicitly intended to improve performance that reaches for objectives just beyond ones level of competence . . . " (Fortune, October 30, 2006, p. 94)
As there is a direct correlation between expertise and the number of hours of practice, leaders need to deliberately practice what they have been taught if they are to optimize the value of leadership training. It is especially important that they be reminded and encouraged to practice early in the development of new skills and habits, when they still feel foreign and awkward. In the absence of reminders, encouragement, and expectations for practice, it is easy to slip back into old habits.
Too often, developmental objectives "fall off the radar" in the face of other, more urgent, but seldom more important, objectives. That is why The Leadership Challenge® Workshop incorporates a system which actively reminds participants of their goals and the importance of continuing to work toward them on a predictable schedule.
Caring feedback
"Real experts seek out constructive, even painful feedback." (Harvard Business Review, July-August 2007, p. 121). However thoughtful and self-aware leaders may be, it is impossible to be truly objective about ones own performance. "To stay honest with ourselves, what we really need are "loving critics"—people who care deeply enough about us to give us honest feedback about how were doing." (A Leaders Legacy, p. 28).
But asking for feedback is not a natural act. Indeed the statement that ranks lowest on the Leadership Practices Inventory® from the observers point-of-view is: "(He or she) asks for feedback on how his/her actions affect other peoples performance." So, to help participants maximize the value of leadership training, we need to make feedback readily available and actively encourage its use.
There are various means to accomplish this, including: establishing learning partners or peer coaching teams, providing professional coaches, and facilitating manager involvement. Follow through management systems can be used to encourage feedback in a number of ways: managers can be sent a link to their direct reports goals that includes a built-in feedback form; each participant can see everyone elses goals and progress and be encouraged to provide feedback and coaching; a feedback request form pops up every time a participant completes an update.
Thoughtful reflection
Forum Corporations Principles of Workplace Learning concluded that maximizing the impact of training required alternating cycles of action and reflection. All action—being caught in an endless do-loop—creates little new insight. All reflection without action is empty philosophizing. Instead, learning from experience requires taking action and making the time to reflect on the results: What went well and should be repeated or enhanced? What could have gone better and, therefore, what do I need to change or do differently in the future? What is my next move?
Unfortunately, time for reflection is under assault everywhere by an increasing workload and an ever-expanding array of disruptive electronic devices. To maximize the impact of leadership training, we need to remind leaders that "We have to stop doing for some amount of time each day." (A Leaders Legacy, p. 103) We have to prompt them to stop and reflect on their leadership and their goals and values, on the opportunities taken and the opportunities missed to improve each day. We have to encourage the practice of the art of reflection.
To further this practice, The Leadership Challenge follow through system, for example, poses questions for reflection on each update:
- What have you done to make progress on your goals?
- How far did you get?
- What are you going to do next?
- What did you learn in the process?
Summary
Leadership training can be a life-changing event, a critical accelerator in becoming a great leader.
Its full impact, however, requires continued effort and practice back on the job. To optimize the value of training, business leaders, HR professionals, and learning professionals need to treat leadership development as a process rather than an event.
Increasing deliberate practice, feedback, and support are the areas of greatest opportunity to increase the positive impact of leadership training. Systems and processes need to be in place to extend learning beyond the classroom and encourage application in day-to-day leadership.
Most importantly, the environment has to be right. The future leaders we want and need to run our organizations can only emerge in an environment where values are clear and unflinchingly modeled, where leaders genuinely care about the people that work for them, and take their greatest pride from the leaders they have helped develop.
Andrew McK. Jefferson is president and chief operating officer for Fort Hill. He is an accomplished executive in both operational and legal roles. He can be reached at Jefferson@forthillcompany.com Roy V. H. Pollock serves as chief learning officer for Fort Hill. He has extensive experience in both line management and strategy development. He reached at Pollock@forthillcompany.com. Calhoun W. Wick is the found and CEO of Fort Hill Company. He is recognized nationally as a consultant, educator, and researcher on improving the performance of managers and organizations. He can be reached at wick@forthillcompany.com.
Leadership Art by Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan
If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so are many other things associated with art. I am fascinated by the way people interpret drawings, paintings, sculptures-and inkblots. In this activity, we use alternative interpretations of graphic art to explore elements of leadership.
Purpose
To identify characteristics of effective leaders
Participants
Minimum: 2
Maximum: any number
Best: 10 - 30
(Participants are divided into groups of 4 to 6)
Time
20 to 45 minutes
Supplies
- Blank pieces of paper
- Boxes of crayons
- Whistle
Flow
Form teams. Divide participants into equal-sized teams of four to six members each. Seat team members around a table.
Distribute supplies. Place sheets of drawing paper and boxes of crayons in the middle of each table. Ask each participant to take a sheet of paper and to share the crayons.
Time to draw. Invite each participant to draw an abstract picture that captures the characteristics of an effective leader. Discourage participants from focusing on artistic quality and encourage them to flow with their intuitive thoughts and feelings. Prohibit the artists from using any words, letters, numbers, or symbols found on a computer keyboard. Also advise participants not to look at each others artwork. Announce a 5-minute time limit for this activity.
Time to stop. At the end of 5 minutes, blow the whistle and ask the artists to stop their activity. Reassure them that it does not matter if their artwork is not yet complete.
Interpret other peoples pictures. At each table, ask participants to take turns holding up their pictures. While doing this, ask each person to perform the difficult task of keeping his or her mouth shut. Invite other participants around the table to treat the picture as a symbolic depiction of effective leadership characteristics and report what they see in it. It is not necessary that participants take turns in presenting their interpretations. Anyone may call out insights whenever he or she feels inspired.
Interpret your own picture. After all pictures have been interpreted, ask each participants to repeat the process of holding up the pictures. This time, however, each participant should describe what leadership characteristics the picture is intended to convey.
Debriefing
Encourage a debriefing discussion at each table. Use questions similar to these to structure this discussion:
- What leadership characteristics were most frequently mentioned?
- What leadership characteristics were unexpected and unique?
- How accurately did the others interpret your drawing?
- How accurately did you interpret other peoples drawings?
- Which leadership characteristic is your strongest point? Did you include this characteristic in your drawing?
- Which leadership quality do you lack? Did you include this in your drawing?
This activity is from Thiagis 100 Favorite Games. Copyright © 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan, Ph.D., is Resident Mad Scientist at the Thiagi Group, a Bloomington, Indiana-based organization with the mission of helping people improve their performance effectively and enjoyably.
Leadership Essentials by Kitty and Bob Preziosi
Objectives
- To introduce session participants to key leadership skills
- To exchange perspectives on important leader behavior
Audience
A group of no more than twelve participants who are beginning a leadership training program
Time
2 minutes each for up to twelve participants
Materials and Equipment
- Easel with flip-chart pad
- Markers
- Two Debrief Essentials sets
Area Setup
Open space for moving around
Process
- Place fourteen foam Debrief Essentials toys on a table
- Tell participants to stand and walk over to the table; each of them should select an item that represents a particular leadership skill or behavior
- Ask participants to return to their seats
- Ask each participant, in turn, to stand and tell the entire group what leadership skill or behavior the item he or she chose represents
- Record on a flip chart each skill or behavior
- Ask the group to brainstorm other leadership essential skills or behaviors; record the ideas on flip-chart paper
- Add to the list based on any aspect of the course content that participants may have missed
- Lead a discussion about any leaders participants have encountered who have all the skills and behaviors that have been identified
- Segue into the next learning activity
Insiders Tips
- This should be a fast-paced exercise
- Ask an occasional question about a particular toy and the identified behavior or skill
Excerpted from Trainers Warehouse Book of Games: Fun and Energizing Ways to Enhance Learning edited by Elaine Biech.
Kitty Preziosi has over twenty years experience as a company team leader and senior consultant for achieving strategic initiatives. Bob Preziosi is a professor of management at the Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship at Nova Southeastern University. Together, Bob and Kitty own Preziosi Partners, Inc., a consulting firm.
Bring the Power of Storytelling to Leadership Development, by Robert Thompson
"I need help focusing on what really matters," said Joe. "I need to know how to actually do the stuff you guys talk about."
"Are you really ready to make some changes?" Charlie asked.
"I couldnt be more ready. I had quite a bit of time to think yesterday. Impending death really boils down the important stuff. I need to show up and speak up and all of those things. Otherwise, I might as well shut up and show myself to the door."
"Thats a nifty little twist," chuckled Charlie. "I guess you really were paying attention."
"Oh, I dont have any problem with the hearing," said Joe. "Its the doing Ive had a tough time with. I dont know what the Hell Im doing. I feel like Im just shadowboxing with the truth."
Excerpted from The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable
Joe, one of the key characters in The Offsite, is an amalgam of people I have met over the years. People like Joe walk through life in a fog and hope people dont see through the masks they wear that cover up their fear of being recognized as a fake.
If an epiphany happens to the "Joes" it usually takes a trauma or two to shake them free from their limited thinking patterns. However, weather patterns shift. Fog clears.
For leaders, one of the best ways to clear the fog is to draft what I call a Vision Story. Similar to the vision work in The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, a Vision Story takes it a bit further. It asks participants to actually create a story, one they can use in its entirety or as selected sound bites in all of their communication.
As this process became more popular with clients, it organically became more formalized. It was obvious that the process could help create community, team spirit, and direction. It was not a check-the-box activity. And it needed a name. Thus, the Never Ending Story Community Building process was born, which I then used in my book The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable.
While this technique—which resulted from my reading, research, as well as tons of trial and error—was not spanking new, it was a new way for me to look at the vision process and it produced great results for clients looking to bring focus to their efforts. In addition, it allowed individuals to see that they, too, could be creative and provided them with a template to use in both their personal and professional lives.
The Never Ending Story Community Building Process
- Discover what matters to you. If you are going to take the lead, what excites you about doing that? You must deeply care about the issue or outcome to light your pilot light.
- What is todays story? You must specifically identify the good, bad and ugly of your current situation. Knowing where you are and where you want to be on a day-to-day basis is crucial. It is only then that you can fill the gap.
- What does the future story need to be? Identify the compelling elements. Be sure your values can be seen and heard. Once you have written this piece, re-read it. Be sure you believe in it. Your passion pilot light must be intense or your story wont pass the snicker test.
- Who/What will assist you? Who/What will oppose? You must look at individual behaviors, systems, process, policy, staff skills, strategy, and budget, to name a few.
- Take action by personally inviting supporters to join with you in developing your story. Just because theyre working with you does not mean they feel invited.
- Clarify the benefits to you and your colleagues. Everyone wants to know whats in it for them.
- Ask why you want this repeatedly until you arrive at your deepest reason.
- Write your story. Let your pilot light burn brightly. Just write what you really want. Dont edit as you go. Rewrite and edit later.
Through the years, I have found Stephen Dennings book, The Leaders Guide to Storytelling, to be the best and easiest resource to help people ignite their inner storytelling creator and go deeper into the process. He advises us to be sure our story "has a happy ending; its brief and naturally interesting; it should personify the change message; it should be able to be understood easily and move the listener to a deeper level of understanding."
When people get stuck, I always advise them to just tell us about "a day in the life" of their workplace a year from now. When they come to work what is going on? How are people behaving? What results are you getting? Sometimes participants reach back into the past, pulling experiences forward and using them as levers to move to the future.
I recently had the opportunity to work in-depth with the top executives at San Diegos Palomar Pomerado Health, a non-profit health organization. Heres a recent story from Joanne Barnett, a nurse manager, who was concerned about keeping the care in caring. Her story, which reaches into the past, hits most of Dennings suggestions. It definitely helps provide direction for her team and motivation for the organization as well.
Late one night, there was a man: a father, a husband who fell asleep at the wheel. He woke to lights, sirens, and firefighters in their yellow turnouts while pinned under a semi-truck with the engine block on his lap. In the distance, he could hear a helicopter arriving. He loses consciousness as the jaws-of-life are used to attempt to save his life.
As black fluid leaked from his vehicle, a flight nurse and firefighter are talking and they both shake their heads. The nurse puts on a pair of yellow turnouts, and climbs in the back of the mangled car.
"Sir, where do you hurt," she asks. He hesitates and says "I dont" and then pauses, "Its bad isnt it?" he whispers with a strange calm in his voice.
A moment-of-truth. What can you say to make the patient feel better?
"Sir we are doing everything we can and I promise to do everything I can to get you to the hospital, but every time they try to get you out, you lose consciousness. Is there anybody you would like to talk to?"
"My wife", he says.
The nurse looks at the firefighter whose head is poking through the drivers window with tears streaming down his face as he says, "I have a cell phone".
The patient whispers his phone number and closes his eyes. It takes all of his strength to talk.
" i honey, just wanted to let you know Ill be home late tonight, there is an accident on the freeway, No Im fine, kiss the kids and see you soon."
He closes his eyes and his breathing is a little shallower. The nurse and firefighter nod knowingly to each other . . . its time.
As the nurse gets out of the car, the patient whispers, "Please, I dont want to die alone". At that moment, the heaviness in her heart outweighs the weight of the turnouts. The nurse holds the mans hand as a single tear rolls down his cheek.
The roar from the Jaws of Life was deafening and in one swift motion, the car is pulled from the semi. In it, lies a lifeless man and the nurse lets go of his hand. As she turns around, the silence is deafening and tears glistened from the faces of the firefighters as she too started to cry.
Compassion makes us humble. Caring makes us real. Riding the wave of the future of healthcare is exciting. New technology, innovative ideas are invigorating and working in the hospital of the future is our goal. Growth is challenging. My hope is that as we evolve, no one loses sight of why we are in healthcare. What we do is noble yet it is easy to lose sight of what matters. The patient is what matters and their perception about how we cared. Its easy to get lost in the future but we must continue to set the example of compassion while empowering each other to do our best.
Technology may allow us to do more in a shorter period, but we are measured by not just what we did, but how we did it. I will never forget that night and how four little words "I have a phone" made such a difference. I have touched many lives, but this one left such an impression, I encourage us all to be extraordinary. Always want to do what is best for the patient and not just what is best for you.
The team that night could have very easily done the job without any thought as to who that patient was. Its easier to blend with technology and innovation rather than wear your heart on your sleeve. Nevertheless, we can truly shine in the darkness when we do the right thing. Why? Because we touch a life. Why? Because we can save a life. Why? Because we can make a difference. Why? Because the difference is what counts. What patients remember is everlasting. To really see what is before you, to put yourself in your patients shoes and do the right thing, is compassion and caring, and if the only thing you can do is hold the hand of a dying man or let him speak to his wife one last time, that is greatness.
As a PPH employee, I encourage everyone to continue to persevere to do the right thing, to hold that hand and care for every patient that you touch with compassion. Compassion and teamwork is the legacy of Palomar Pomerado Health.
Joannes emotionally charged story is certainly a candidate to be used in a variety of settings. Other stories generated from this organization focused on patient care, community outreach, and staff retention with many touching an emotional chord like Joannes as well. In some way, they all reflect the official vision of the organization. All of their stories make a solid foundation for future presentations.
Many people balk at first about writing a story. "Im not a writer," they shout. However, my experience says that once people see how well they have done with the process they become more excited. They begin to use their story in full or as sound bites in their conversations and emails, etc. They also find that it is just a great template to keep in mind for their many communication needs.
Robert Thompson is the author of The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable. A sought-after speaker, workshop leader, and executive coach, he is founder of Applied Performance, a leadership and personal communication services company.
You can reach him at rht@earthlink.net or www.leaderinsideout.com.
Adding to Your Leadership Library, by Marisa Holland Kelley
As proponents and practitioners of The Leadership Challenge®, we work to bring the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® to life. One of the ways we can reinforce our efforts is by maintaining a library of leadership-related publications for ourselves and our clients. An excellent addition to your library is the Ideas into Action Guidebooks series from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL).
CCL is the worlds largest institution devoted exclusively to leadership research and education. For more than three decades, CCL has studied and trained hundreds of thousands of managers and executives and worked with them to create practical models, tools, and publications for the development of effective leaders and leadership. CCL is not simply a collection of individual experts, although the individual credentials of its staff are impressive; rather it is a community, with its members holding certain principles in common and working together to understand and generate practical responses to todays leadership and organizational challenges.
The purpose of the guidebooks is to provide managers with specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership challenge. Much of this knowledge is shared in a way that is distinct from the typical university department, professional association, or consultancy. In doing that, the series carries out CCLs mission to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide.
Each guidebook is short, about 30 pages or so, and highlights advice such as how to get the most out of your executive coach, how to improve your active listening skills, and how to launch your team on the right foot. This series is available now.
Ideas into Action Guidebooks, from the Center for Creative Leadership
Active Listening: Improve Your Ability to Listen and Lead
Adaptability: Responding Effectively to Change
Becoming a More Versatile Learner
Building an Authentic Leadership Image
Building Resiliency
Building Your Teams Morale, Pride, and Spirit
Choosing an Executive Coach
Communicating Across Cultures
Communicating Your Vision
Critical Reflections: How Groups Can Learn from Success and Failure
Developing Cultural Adaptability: How to Work Across Differences
Developing Your Intuition: A Guide to Reflective Practice
Do You Really Need a Team?
Feedback That Works: How to Build and Deliver Your Message
Finding Your Balance
Giving Feedback to Subordinates
How to Form a Team: Five Keys to High Performance
How to Launch a Team: Start Right for Success
Influence: Gaining Commitment, Getting Results
Keeping Your Career on Track
Leadership Networking: Connect, Collaborate, Create
Leading Dispersed Teams
Learning from Life: Turning Lifes Lessons into Leadership Experience
Maintaining Team Performance
Making Creativity Practical: Innovation That Gets Results
Managing Conflict with Direct Reports
Managing Conflict with Peers
Managing Conflict with Your Boss
Ongoing Feedback
Preparing for Development: Making the Most of Formal Leadership Programs
Reaching Your Development Goals
Selling Yourself without Selling Out: A Leaders Guide to Ethical Self-Promotion
Setting Priorities: Personal Values, Organizational Results
Setting Your Development Goals: Start with Your Values
Social Identity: Knowing Yourself, Knowing Others
Three Keys to Development: Defining and Meeting Your Leadership Challenges
Using Your Executive Coach
Marisa Holland Kelley is a Senior Editorial Assistant for Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. She works on The Leadership Challenge® franchise and recently observed The Leadership Challenge® Workshop in Sonoma.
Connecting to the Business, by Valarie Willis
One challenge that we continue to face in training and development is how to make the training-to-business connection. The following exercise suggests one way to make that link.
Where your organization may have implemented some type of employee survey, what typically follows is that a task force is put together to determine how to fix the problems identified. While the concept of creating a task force is a great idea, we still need to help leaders see the critical role they must play in making those necessary changes happen. The method that has worked quite well for me is to develop a way to connect the survey questions and outcomes to leaders training and development initiatives.
- Obtain a copy of the survey results to upcoming survey questions
- Map as many of these as you can to The Five Practices
- Put one question or issue on an index card.( I usually have a different colored card for each practice.)
- Pass out the deck of cards to teams and have them come up with explicit ways that show how their leadership influences or impacts the issue
- Report out
- Have each member select one area of opportunity
Completing this exercise helps to connect the dots between employee surveys and leadership practices.
Valarie Willis is an expert in helping organizations and individuals optimize results and shape the workplace of tomorrow. Inspiring people to reach their full potential, she is a Master Facilitator of The Leadership Challenge Workshop® and can be reached at vwillis@cinci.rr.com.
Three Roles of Leaders: Understanding Leadership by Parth Sarathi
Goal
To experience and conceptualize three important leadership processes: envisioning; aligning others toward the vision; and ensuring execution or implementation.
Group Size
15-30 participants
Time Required
Approximately 90 minutes
Materials
One copy of Three Roles of Leaders for each participant
Flip chart and markers
Physical Setting
A room large enough for grouping participants in dyads and small groups comfortably. Chairs may be placed along the walls, keeping the central space open.
Process
- Ask participants to form pairs, preferably with others they do not know well.
- State that they are going to participate in an activity in which one person plays the role of a sculptor and the other the raw materials. The raw material, however, is living and can think and decide whether to respond or not to the instruction of the sculptor. Provide a few minutes time to the participants and answer their questions.
- Ask the "sculptors" to visualize a pose or an object or an act that appears artistically impressive and that can be made by using the given "raw material," that is, the other participant in the dyad. Tell them not to disclose any information verbally about what they want. If the sculptors want to use pencil and paper, they can do so without showing their envisioned object to their partners or to others. (5 minutes.)
- Announce that the sculptors will make or construct the object or pose that they have visualized using the raw material. Also announce that, during the creation process, neither the sculptor nor the raw material may speak. The sculptor should give his or her instructions nonverbally. Remind them that the material is free to respond or not respond; act or react; do whatever is preferred. Tell them they have five minutes. Observe the action. (5 minutes.)
- Ask those who finish early to remain near their objects and ask the objects to remain in the same poses if possible.
- Ask all the sculptors to observe each others creations in the room. After they have seen each others creations, ask them to sit down in their seats and allow the objects to sit down also. Ask them about their feelings, and summarize on a flip chart. Urge them to share their experiences through answering the following questions.
a. How did you feel when visualizing the pose or object?
b. How did the raw material feel when he or she was instructed by the sculptor? Did the raw material obey?
c. What did the sculptor do when the material did not respond positively?
d. How did the sculptors persuade or influence the materials to do what was wanted? How did the sculptors make the raw material understand the images that were visualized? (10 minutes.) - Add any observations or highlights you experienced during the activity.
- Ask the group to divide into groups of 5 or 6 people each. Ask each group to choose a sculptor again. This time, in every group there will be one sculptor and the remaining members will be the raw materials.
- After they have formed groups and chosen their sculptors, ask the sculptors to raise their hands so that they are identified. Announce, "This time every member of the group, not just the sculptor, will visualize a pose, object, or scenery that can be executed by all the members of the group together, again nonverbally. Please close your eyes and visualize a pose, object, or scenery that appeals to you." (5 minutes)
- After 5 minutes, ask them to open their eyes and verbally share their images/visions with their group members and try to select any one vision to enact by discussion and convincing, not by voting. As modifications are suggested, the members must agree or not. The agreed-on images/poses/vision may be explained to all members in the group. Allow 15 minutes for them to share, discuss, and decide on one image, pose, scenery, or vision for presentation. Groups may also go to different rooms for discussion if they desire. (15 minutes.)
- After 15 minutes, have all participants reconvene. Ask each group to make a 5-minute presentation of its vision to the large group by enacting/executing it nonverbally, as before, but with all members in the group as raw material and thus taking part in the presentation. Remind everyone that it is to be nonverbal.
- After each presentation, have others guess what they were trying to depict.
- After the presentations are over, have all members of the large group, including the sculptors, share their experiences. a. What was different the second time around? Why do you think this was true? b. What is the message you take from this activity? How will you act differently in the future as a result of your experience?
- Provide the Three Roles of Leaders handout to each person and ask them to read it silently. After a few minutes, conclude by giving a brief presentation based on the handout. Ask participants how this activity was related to each of the three leadership roles described. Ask how each type of relationship transfers to the real world. Again ask participants what they might do differently in the future if they were creating another vision. (15 minutes.)
- Summarize with a reminder of the three leadership roles.
Variation
In the first round, instead of only one raw material (model), the sculptor may use two or three at a time and visualize accordingly.
Three Roles of Leaders
Leaders have to do different things depending on their areas of activity, roles, and responsibilities, as well as on their own desires and goals. The three tasks are common: envisioning, aligning followers to their vision, and ensuring execution. In all three roles, influencing remains the core skill.
Envisioning
The leader envisions the organization in the future, i.e., what will the organization be five years or ten years from now? This is the dream for the future organization: "the vision." The vision may be made more specific by formulating a mission. Envisioning essentially is dreaming, and dreaming requires imagination. A leader who is highly imaginative, intuitive, and creative envisions spontaneously. But many are strong analytical thinkers, and for them dreaming may be difficult. They have to depend on others-insiders and outsiders-to translate their dreams.
Aligning People Toward the Vision
For implementation, the leaders vision has to become the vision of followers-a shared vision. For this, the leader has to involve others and also involve them in the mission. The leader influences top management and key people of the organization through his or her skills and charisma. These key people, after internalizing the vision and mission, start converting others and aligning them toward the vision and mission.
When influencing people, four types of strategies are frequently used:
- Rewards: This strategy uses some rewards, tangible or intangible, for making people agree or do what the leader wants them to agree to or do.
- Reason: The leader tries to convince others or accomplish tasks by using rationale, logic, facts, and figures. Leaders explain the reasons for accomplishing the task or reaching an agreement.
- Relationships: A leader using this strategy focuses on the interpersonal needs, specifically the emotional needs of followers. The leader remains in the position of follower and tries to feel or experience the same feelings, reactions, and responses. Using the interpersonal needs (inclusion, control, and affection) (Schutz, 1967), the leader wants to gain the acceptance of the followers. These leaders use emotional intelligence and empathy extensively.
- Group Appeal: This is a very powerful strategy used by visionary leaders. They identify a powerful super-ordinate goal and try to convince and invite followers to accept and align themselves with it. The charisma of the leader, as well as his or her visibility and credibility, help a lot.
Ensuring Execution
This leadership task is essential for actualizing the dreams. The leader specifies tasks, activities, and targets that must be carried out for achieving the vision and mission at different levels and by different groups. Agencies that will carry out the tasks are defined and spelled out clearly, as is a time frame. Once the activities are assigned to the appropriate people by the leader, he or she uses various strategies and styles to be sure the tasks are completed.
Reference
Schutz, W.C. (1967). FIRO B. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
This exercise was originally published in The 2005 Pfeiffer Annual: Consulting edited by Elaine Biech.
Parth Sarathi is a practicing manager with a diverse background. He started his career after obtaining a degree in metallurgical engineering and subsequently obtained PG qualifications in industrial engineering and management (H.R.). He is an accredited Behavior Process Facilitator, Thomas Profile Licensee, and Competency Assessor. An accomplished trainer and consultant, he has authored a number of books and articles.
Please visit www.pfeiffer.com to learn about the 2008 Pfeiffer Annuals and select volumes from previous years.
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®: A Way of Facilitating by Daren Blonski
The most effective facilitators of the Leadership Challenge® Workshop are those that live The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®-day in and day out-and are able to talk about them from personal life experiences. I have watched and worked with many facilitators. Some have lived The Five Practices and taught from their experience while others have facilitated the workshop and treated it like just another training curriculum. The difference shows!
Teaching The Five Practices in a meaningful way requires a commitment: make the time to fully understand and live each of them within the context of your own life so that you can facilitate from a place of authenticity.
Redefine your own life experiences within the context of The Five Practices.
I often tell clients that The Five Practices are common sense-articulated. All of us have used The Five Practices at one point or another, but we often only reach a full understanding of what they mean and how they impact our everyday lives when we stop to reflect and reframe some of our experiences as leaders. So, call upon your own experiences. Compelling, personal stories make a big difference when facilitating and helping others develop their leadership competencies.
Seek complete 360 Feedback.
The Leadership Challenge is about changing lives at work and home. As a facilitator, I highly recommend that you challenge participants to incorporate the way they lead at home into their leadership self-assessment. Encourage participants to reflect on their leadership behaviors in all aspects of their lives.
Although an in-depth discussion of family life leadership in the workshop isnt necessary, the topic should not be ignored. Prior to the workshop, I recommend that participants ask for feedback on their LPI 360 from their family. Some of the most vibrant and powerful experiences using The Five Practices can come from these interactions.
Know the content in the book.
The Leadership Challenge® Workshop facilitators need to be expertly fluent in The Leadership Challenge. There is no substitute for taking the time to have a complete working knowledge of the books content. Expert facilitators are able to weave in and out of The Five Practices as the needs of participants change. And the ability to respond quickly and nimbly to your audience only comes from having a solid, personal connection to the material. This takes time and focus.
Facilitate dont train.
The Five Practices are incredibly meaningful and have the power to change lives-but only if you build into your workshop an opportunity for a robust dialogue among participants on how they can apply each of them to their own life experiences. Engage participants in discussing the various subtleties and nuances that can bring out the true power of The Five Practices. When participants can place these principles in the context of a specific life experience, they are more likely to carry the practices with them when the workshop has ended.
Help participants connect a feeling to The Five Practices.
It can be easy to leave participants with a 30,000-mile, sky-high understanding of The Five Practices. A technique I have used to bring The Five Practices down-to-earth is offered in the following example. The goal is to help participants identify the feeling of each behavior associated with the respective practice-making the practice and the behavior personal and relevant.
Referring to item 16 (Asks for feedback on how his/her actions affect other peoples performance) from the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), ask participants to reflect on their life experiences and identify times when they used a behavior associated with one of The Five Practices. Ask them to link that behavior to a feeling and to identify actions they can take in the future that will illicit the same emotion. By focusing on the feeling associated with the leadership behavior, participants can more effectively connect to the practice.
Note: An underlying assumption for employing the Model the Way exercise is that workshop participants are familiar with the thirty behaviors Kouzes and Posner identify in The Leadership Challenge and have used each of them at one point in their lives. Also be aware that some participants may have had a negative experience using one of The Five Practices. If a participant has a difficult time with this exercise, I might use item 14 (Treats others with dignity and respect).
Example: Model the Way
Ask workshop participants to consider the following:
- Reflect on a time in your life when you asked for feedback on how your actions affected someone elses performance.
- What were the feelings you experienced? Were you nervous? Were you at ease? Were you unsure? Zero in on your exact feeling.
- Describe the setting in which this situation occurred.
Once participants have identified the experience and their feelings, have them think about an upcoming project where they will have an opportunity to demonstrate leadership. Help them translate their newly-acquired knowledge into specific action steps that they can take to apply this learning to a new situation.
- How can you create the same experience as you described above?
- What are the actions you can take in that situation to illicit the same feeling you had in the experience you just described?
This process of reflection can help participants connect their lives to The Five Practices. It is also a valuable tool to reinforce learning after the workshop and help encourage participants to continue practicing the art of leadership.
The Talent Myth by Jim Kouzes
There is increasing evidence that "talent" is highly over-rated. Simply hiring the best talent and letting them loose to do their jobs is not the formula for success. Instead, evidence on expert performance is showing us that the key to becoming exemplary in anything—whether its music, sports, medicine, or leadership—is directly related to how much people engage in disciplined practice. Those who engage in more disciplined practice are higher performers than those who are engage in less practice.
Its time for those in leadership development to take a stand! Instead of accepting the notion that shorter is better, we need to speak the truth and focus our organizations and clients on the fact that those who become the best at anything are those who spend more time, not less, on their growth and development.
We, as leadership development professionals, are critical to bringing out the leader in everyone. Our work can play a pivotal role in getting organizations and individuals to increase the amount of time and attention that is paid to this practice.
Whether working with clients in coaching or training environments, here are several techniques to keep people focused and engaged in the practice of leadership:
- Get a baseline assessment of how your clients are performing on solid measures of leadership behavior, using the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), for example
- Set very specific goals for improvement
- Engage in designed learning activities that focus on these established goals
- In those designed learning experiences, concentrate on technique as much as outcome
- Offer immediate feedback on how well your clients are performing
- Help your clients identify ways to practice at least 2 hours each day while engaged in the normal routines of business
- Repeat, repeat, and repeat.
There is a caveat, however. Unless we really love something, we dont tend to want to put in the practice in order to improve or to excel at what we are trying to do. That applies as much to leadership as it does to engineering, medicine, or teaching. Clients wont expend the energy it takes to master leadership unless they love it. Fortunately, HR has a critical part to play in helping clients see and appreciate how important leaders are to group or team performance and how rewarding it can be when they are truly doing their best and performing at the highest possible levels. Coaches, trainers, and HR professionals at all levels can make the critical difference between good performance and great performance.
Jim Kouzes is a highly regarded leadership scholar, experienced executive, and coauthor (with Barry Posner) of The Leadership Challenge. He also is an executive fellow at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University and has been cited by The Wall Street Journal as one of the twelve best executive educators in the U.S.
HELPING PEOPLE IMPLEMENT THEIR ACTION PLANS by Kelly Ann McKnight
As a facilitator and coach, I have always struggled with the fact that people do not always implement their action plans when they return to the real world. Given that my personal journey is about helping others realize their dreams, this lack of follow-through becomes an issue for me. In my experience, people are more apt to continue their leadership journey if they remain connected to the people with whom they were trained. If they find a safe environment where there is a common language and a shared commitment to change, they are far more likely to stay the course. To this end I do everything I can to make this happen.
Here are some things I have done in the past that have helped get and keep people connected and supporting one another as they work toward their personal leadership development goals:
Tips for Connecting the Group During the Session:
- Help the group create inside jokes and propagate them.
Add flipcharts to the walls that have words or graphics that relate to something the group has created. For example, a recent group I worked with kept talking about the campfire they had enjoyed the night before. Repeatedly, they said, "What a great fire!" I simply drew a picture of a fire and put those words beside it. It validated for the group that the experiences they have outside the training room are just as important as those inside during the facilitated portion of the program. It also forges a deeper connection within the group. - Create peer-coaching relationships.
Link people up so that they can continue to support each other back at work, perhaps with phone calls or occasional meetings to see how the action plan implementation is going. Allowing clients a little time during the session to plan how they will work together typically generates willing participation. For example, I always give clients a chance to practice this new relationship during training with a 10-minute chat about their plans. I follow the activity in the section on "Committing" in the Participants Workbook but I also offer teams the option of creating something else if they wish. My goal is to leave this in their control, with the hope that they will be more likely to follow through.
Tips for Sustaining Connections Beyond the Classroom:
- Make virtual connections.
With permission from the group, a group email goes out after the session that invites participants to share their experiences as they work to bring the learning back home. People generally share their initial thoughts with the group and get some support from the others. - Plan a reunion.
Working with an intact team from one organization, I sometimes invite them to plan a reunion-lunch or an after-work get together. This technique also could be suggested for participants in a public workshop as well, if the group was willing. - Optimize online networking.
With all of the new online networking options, there is really no limit to how you can connect people prior to or following training. For example, in my own consulting practice, we are planning to have online systems up and running in time for our fall Leadership Challenge public workshops at LeadershipJourney.ca. In this way, groups can stay connected in a forum that allows them to chat, share their experiences, and offer each other help and support. As facilitators we will be able to watch the conversation and add to it if necessary. Stay tuned and we will tell you how it works out!
Kelly Ann McKnight, a certified facilitator of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, is a personnel development professional who focuses on bringing innovative training and coaching tools in leadership development, management development, behavioral profiling, and team building to her clients. She can be reached via www.leadershipjourney.ca.
Enabling Elements by Valarie Willis
Purpose
Participants learn to bring to life the attributes of Enabling Others to Act
Group Size
Any size
Materials
- Blank business cards or card stock.
- A flip chart or white board for taking notes.
Instructions
- Using blank business cards or card stock, type the following words (or other words of similar sentiment):
- Trust
- Collaboration
- Competence
- Confidence
- Create the number of words based on participants. If you have 24 participants, then you would create 6 sets of the words above.
- Turn cards upside-down and mix-up.
- Have each participant pull a card.
- Sort participants into groups based on their words.
- Each group defines the word they have been given, coming up with specific examples of how they have lived out these words, how their organization is living out the words, and recommendations on how to improve upon these attributes
- Bring all the groups together and debrief.
- Record the findings and recommendations of each group on flip chart or white board.
- Participants keep the card that they received to remind them through out the next few weeks to focus on that particular attribute.
Valarie Willis is a Master Facilitator of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop. She is the principal of Valarie Willis Consulting in Loveland, OH where she focuses on strategic management consulting. E-mail Valarie.
June 2007: Facilitating a Discussion on Legacy by Jim Kouzes
Are you on this planet to do something, or are you here just for something to do? If youre on this planet to do something, then what is it? What difference will you make? What will be your legacy?
We pose these questions to first-year students in our leadership classes at Santa Clara University. Its pretty heady stuff for eighteen-year-olds barely three months out of high school. Even most adults havent thought seriously about these questions. We dont expect our students to have ready responses. We just believe that they ought to be thinking about what their legacies will be-not only as they begin their college careers, but throughout their lives.
"What will be your legacy?" does not have a single, right answer. Its not a math problem with an established formula. But asking the question opens our students to the notion that in somewhere in their lifes journey, they are going to be struggling with determining the difference they want to make, with doing things that matter. They are going to be making choices at school, work, home, and in the community. Every choice they make will be part of the legacy they leave, however consciously or unconsciously they behave.
Asking the question about legacy brings forward another central observation: leadership is not solely about producing results. That is, success in leadership is not measured only in numbers. Being a leader brings with it a responsibility to do something of significance that makes families, communities, work organizations, nations, and the world better places than they are today. Not all these things can be quantified.
Our own studies, as well as those of many other authors and scholars who have explored leadership, have shown that leadership often begins with pain and suffering (our own and in the conditions of others). Our colleague Patrick Lencioni, the author of several best-selling books, told us that when he graduated from college he "wanted to change the world. Call it what you will, I was determined to make a difference." However, the problem with this zeal, he went on to explain, was that he hadnt thought deeply enough about two fundamental matters: "Who am I really serving? And am I ready to suffer?"
Here are a few other questions that might help to trigger thoughts about legacy.
- What will be your greatest contributions to your family?
- What will be your greatest contributions to your friends?
- What will be your greatest contributions to those youve led?
- What will be your greatest contributions to your organization?
- What will be your greatest contributions to your community?
Jim Kouzes has been thinking about leadership since he was a boyscout growing-up in the Washington DC area. In his recently acquired newlywed status, Jim is spending a great deal of time with his wife Tae (an executive coach) and step-son Nicholas (a 16-year-old tennis star).
Visual Explorer
Objective: Finding a Metaphor for Your Vision
Time: 10 - 15 minutes
This is a technique that Ive used with great success during the Inspire section of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop. It is called Visual Explorer: Picturing Approaches to Complex Challenges and it is published by the Center for Creative Leadership. It consists of about 220 images—anything you can imagine from Renaissance art to nature shots to a winning womens track relay team. The images are 8 x 11 inches and quite durable.
This activity is perfect for when participants start getting the "freaky-freaks" about coming up with their Vision speech. You need a space where you can spread out the pictures, preferably in a separate room. When we are talking about the impact of metaphors, I encourage them to take a minute to focus on their vision of how things could be and see if a metaphor comes to mind. If they feel "stuck" then I direct them into the space where the images are arranged. I tell them to walk through the gallery and allow themselves to be drawn to an image that captures their vision in some way. I warn them that there is a good chance that the image will pick them because the right side of the brain is kicking- in. Participants benefit from the focus and reinforcement of their selected images, even those who have already thought of an appropriate metaphor.
Beth High embraces the metaphor that leadership is a journey. She is a Master Facilitator of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop.
Obstacles and Opportunities
Purpose: I use this activity to teach Challenge the Process by combining individual reflection, small group brainstorming, and group commitments. I like that it creates a visual record of the participants work, while also encouraging them to talk honestly about real challenges.
Materials Needed: 1 poster board, glue stick, markers, small paper bricks (red construction paper cut into 3 in. x 5 in. rectangles), small green leaves and a vine or small green ladder rungs, and other decorations if you like.
- Ask participants to individually reflect on a current obstacle that they are facing as a leader. Then, ask each participant to write his or her obstacle on a "brick."
- Divide participants into groups of 3 to 4. Ask participants to share what they wrote on their brick and then help each other by brainstorming creative "opportunities" to overcome each obstacle. The intent is for participants to ask each other tough questions about the obstacles and challenge and to encourage each other to think of new approaches. As a result, the answers go much deeper than what an individual participant would have come up with on their own.
- Ask each participant to write the best "opportunity" their group brainstormed for their particular obstacle on a green leaf or ladder rung.
- Bring the whole group together again. Direct participants to come up to the front of the room one at a time and glues their red brick (obstacle) on the poster board and share what it says. The bricks form a big red brick wall at the bottom of the poster board.
- Ask each participant to come up to the poster board again and commit to creating an opportunity for their obstacle. The participant glues their green leaf or ladder rung (opportunity) on top of the brick wall until the vine or ladder reaches well over the brick wall. After all the participants have finished quickly glue some pre-cut clouds and a sun at the top of the poster board.
- The finished picture is a red brick wall with a green ladder or beanstalk vine that leads over the brick wall up to the sun and clouds. The participants get excited when they start to see the picture!
- Debrief the activity. Overall weve shown how Challenge the Process requires creative thinking and effective leaders to find ways to turn obstacles into opportunities.
I think it works best with a group that of 8-20 people who meet regularly. Since you created an artifact (poster), you can look back on it as a group and discuss what happened with the obstacles and opportunities listed.
Amanda Crowell Itliong teaches The Leadership Challenge to the Public Service Leadership Fellows Program and Student Organization Leaders at Stanford University. You can contact her at acrowell@post.harvard.edu.
Rope-A-Leader: Experiencing the Emergence of Leadership
Goals
- To provide the participants with the opportunity to experience and observe the emergence of leadership within a group.
- To discuss the emergence of leadership.
Group Size
Twenty to thirty-five participants in subgroups of five or seven.
Time Required
Forty minutes
Materials
Twenty-five feet of 1/4-inch rope, twine, or macramé cord for each subgroup.
Physical Setting
Any area large enough so that all the subgroups can work on the floor without disturbing one another.
Process
- Ask the participants to assemble in subgroups of five or seven. (Odd numbers work best.) Once subgroups have assembled, place a rope on the floor near each group. (Note: You may place ropes in several locations prior to this activity.) (Five minutes)
- Explain that the task of each subgroup is to use the rope to form "an absolutely perfect" circle on the floor. When finished, the rope should lie on the floor with no one touching it to hold it in place. Tell participants they may not talk to one another or to you during the activity and that you will be the final judge as to when they have accomplished the task. Tell them to begin, giving them no more than two or three minutes.
- While subgroups are completing the task, walk around from subgroup to subgroup "judging" their work and being critical about the final shapes they have created.
- After the circles have been completed, tell the subgroups to form a perfect square, then a triangle, a trapezoid, and an octagon. Remind the participants not to talk. (Ten minutes)
- After all the shapes have been completed say, "On the count of 3, point to the leader of your subgroup. Ready? 1, 2, 3." Ask members of each subgroup, in turn, how they selected that particular leader.
- Reconvene the large group and lead a discussion based on the following questions:
- How did the leadership evolve in your group?
- How did other members of the group acquiesce to the leadership?
- Did conflict occur in any groups? Why or why not?
- How does what happened here compare to what happens in a typical work setting at your organization?
Variations
- This activity can be used for team building
- At the end of the activity, the group can discuss what attributes of the leaders made the process work. List the attributes on a flip chart for a further discussion of leadership.
This excerpt reprinted from The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Team-Building Tools, edited by Elaine Biech, Pfeiffer, ©2001.
Leadership History: Searching the Past for Insight
Goals
- To increase participants awareness of their leadership styles
- To compare and contrast individual leadership experiences within a group
- To allow participants to share their past learnings in a creative forum
Group Size
Ten to twenty participants
Time Required
Sixty to ninety minutes, depending on the number of participants sharing their leadership histories
Materials
- A copy of the Leadership History Survey for each participant
- Pens and paper for each participant
- Flip-chart page for each participant
- A variety of colored markers for each participant
- Masking tape
Physical Setting
A room with chairs and a surface on which participants can spread out and work on their drawings.
Process
- Give all participants paper and pencils to take notes.
- Announce the goals of the activity, briefly explaining that the leadership styles we currently exhibit come from experiences we have had with leaders in our past. Say that they will have an opportunity to reflect on those people who have influenced their leadership styles.
- Give everyone a copy of the Leadership History Survey. Read the first question and have participants individually write their answers. Continue through the questions, reading them out loud to give participants time to reflect and write their answers. (Five to ten minutes)
- Once the participants have all completed the Survey, tell them that they will now create a poster of their "Leadership History." Give everyone a sheet of flip chart paper and colored markers, and ask participants to create a drawing of their own leadership history, based on their answers to the Survey.
- Tell them there is one very important rule for creating leadership history posters. They must not use any words, but only pictures. (Fifteen to twenty minutes)
- Once all participants have completed their drawing, have them hang their posters on one of the walls of the room with masking tape.
- Ask each participant, one at a time, to share his or her leadership history poster with the rest of the group, describing the events depicted. (Two minutes per person)
- Once all participants have described their posters, debrief the activity by having the group compare and contrast the different experiences that were shared and their learnings. (Ten minutes)
- Conclude with a discussion about the impact we have on others and their leadership styles. Encourage participants to think about the influence they have in their reporting relationships. Address the following questions:
- What common leadership experiences did you notice?
- What were some of the most significant events in peoples leadership histories?
- In what ways might we actively impact leadership within an organization? (Ten minutes)
Variation
Instead of participants drawing their Leadership Histories, they can use magazines and cut out pictures that represent the events of their past, then tape or glue them to a poster.
Leadership History Survey
Instructions: Answer each of the following questions in as much depth as possible. Wait for the facilitator to read each question rather than reading ahead.
- Where were you born? What type of neighborhood was it (city, suburb, or country)?
- How large was your family? Any brothers or sisters? Were you youngest, oldest, or in the middle?
- What games did you enjoy playing as a child? Did you usually lead, follow, or do a little of both?
- List your best friends as you grew up. What did you especially like about each of them?
- Name an adult (a parent or other adult) you were close to as you grew up. What leadership qualities did this person exhibit?
- Name a teacher who had a strong influence on you as you grew up. What did this person do that influenced you?
- What was your first "real" job? What leadership learnings did you obtain from that job?
- List all the jobs you have had in your career.
- Who was your best boss? In what ways was this person a good leader?
- Who was your worst boss? In what ways was this person a poor leader?
- Identify mentors (formal or informal) who have influenced you. What changes have you made as a result of their influence?
- What one significant piece of leadership advice would you give to others?
From Pfeiffers Classic Activities for Developing Leaders, Jack Gordon, Editor, © 2003, Pfeiffer.
Presenting Magic WITH THE FIVE PRACTICES OF EXEMPLARY LEADERSHIP AND THE TEN COMMITMENTS OF LEADERSHIP
Sharing magical moments can reenergize a group and lend credibility to your facilitation. This is the first in an occasional series from Walt Anthony, who has explored options for magic (please dont say "tricks") appropriate to all The Five Practices and The Ten Commitments of Leadership.
Unexpected Outcomes
Magic for Challenge the Process and Experiment
The facilitator borrows a watch, and ties it onto the end of about a yard of string. A house-key has been tied to the other end of the twine.
The facilitator then hangs the loaned watch over a wooden pencil so it dangles above the floor, holding only onto the key at the other end of the string.
The facilitator releases the key, the watch plummets towards the floor, then, the magic happens!
The premise
"Everyone knows how the law of gravity works.
If you drop an object—it falls.
If you drop a heavy object from a height it may break when it crashes.
Thats the usual process.
Since gravity is pretty much a universal "law" you may well ask:
"Whats the sense in challenging the process, if thats the way it always works?
Thats what were about to see."
Three questions are posed
So, since the outcome is certain, perhaps we can only ask,
- Will I really let go of the key?
- How long will it take for the watch to hit the ground?
- What is the predicted fate of the watch?
Or we could Challenge the Process and ask
- What if —insert facilitators name— is not totally nuts?
- Do outcomes always have to be as we assume or imagine them to be?
- Could something "magically" intervene and truly avert disaster?
At this point were going to Experiment
Take a risk to see if we can either generate a small win, or at least learn from this mistake . . .
As unbelievable as it may seem the first time (at home with your own watch please), the outcome of letting go of the key and string is completely unexpected—and the process of challenging gravity almost magical to observe (as will be the relief on the face of the owner of the watch).
This bit of magic is a very effective and visual way to demonstrate the letting go of expectations and fears of failure.
It will take some experimentation and practice to get the knack-adjusting how far to let the watch dangle, what angle to best hold the cord and key, etc. (as you rehearse over a pillow), but once you have it down, the outcome will always be the same.
You will need:
- A length of sturdy cord about three or four feet long.
- A long wooden pencil, chopstick, or better still, small magic wand.
- A common house key (an old interesting skeleton-key style could also symbolize "the key to successful challenges")
Securely tie the key to one end of the cord, and tie a loop on the other end so you can quickly and easily attach a borrowed watch at that opposite end of the string.
Borrow a substantial and heavy looking watch from a brave workshop participant, and ask them to join you at the front of the room.
- As you outline the premise and questions above, loop the watch through the cord to attach it to the far end of the string opposite the key.
- Request that your participant grip the end of the pencil tightly, and keep it parallel to the floor.
- Dangle the cord over the pencil so that the watch end hangs about six inches down from the pencil.
- Hold the key end of the cord taut, and running over the pencil, and downward at about a forty-five degree angle to the floor.
- Remind your participant to keep a strong and steady grip on the pencil.
When the process has been challenged (or not) request the group to count to three . . . and let go of the key!
The watch will not nose-dive towards the floor dragging the string and key along, as you would naturally expect.
Instead the key will wind the cord about the rod very quickly and tightly, wrapping it around and around the pencil, and leaving the heavy and delicate watch safely suspended well above the ground.
Your group will be amazed to see this "small win" occurred against all odds.
Be sure to sincerely acknowledge and thank the watchs owner for risking a small heart attack as you return their timepiece!
In experimenting and practicing this demonstration, take time to examine how it operates:
Try hanging the watch at different heights, using a slightly longer-or-shorter cord or strings of various thickness.
Practice how taut to hold the cord and at what angles (both to the floor, and slightly left or right of the watch on the pencil) so that the key will not strike the watch as it twirls around the pencil.
If you prefer a kinder-and-gentler approach you may use your own watch and spare the nerves of your participants. Other small objects with lighter/heavier weights can also be substituted, such as a book of matches along with a coffee cup.
Because everyone is so familiar with "how" gravity always works, this is a very visual and powerful demonstration of what it takes to trust, overcome objections or fears, and be open to experimentation to truly challenge the everyday processes we encounter.
Contributed by Walt Anthony
Acid River Activity
I use "Acid River" as an outdoor opening activity to warm up the group and as a foreshadowing of our work on The Five Practices. It also requires people to get into each others personal space which helps open them up and begin to connect with each other more quickly.
This activity can be used to stimulate insights around problem solving, strategy, challenging, collaboration, teamwork, communication, mutual support, encouragement, and celebration.
Materials/Set-up:
- Manila folders. One per person.
- Two lengths of rope or tape to mark off opposite banks of the river. The rope or tape needs to be 10-20 in length depending on group size (brightly colored climbing rope works great) - needs to be long enough for everyone to stand shoulder to shoulder along its length. Lay the two lengths of rope parallel to each other on the ground. By doing so you will have created a "river" between the two ropes and "banks" on the outside of the ropes.
- The distance from bank to bank should be between 25-40 depending on available space and group size.
Safety Considerations:
- If the stepping stones used are manila folders and the activity is being conducted on a cement or asphalt surface, caution the group to be careful as the paper may tear or slip when used.
- This exercise has a very low injury risk factor and should be easy for most everyone to do. However, maintaining balance may be difficult for some participants so they should be encouraged to literally support each other during the exercise so no one is injured.
- Special arrangements should be made for those who have a physical challenge, i.e., wearing a cast, in a wheelchair, etc.
Instructions:
Gather everyone on one bank of the river and have them divide into teams of 4-8 people each. Give everyone a "stepping stone"—a manila folder. Tell them that the objective of the exercise is to get everyone in the group safely across the imaginary river without anyone falling in. The river, of course, is full of hungry competitors, piranha, difficulties, and that the resources the company needs to survive are on the other side of the river. In order to insure the companys continued success, a creative solution must be generated that will get everyone across the river and have everyone step onto the opposite bank at the same time.
Tell them that they are individual teams but they are all part of one larger organization. Describe the rules of the activity (see below) and answer any of their questions. Teams have 5 minutes to brainstorm possible strategies for crossing the river. They may practice, if they choose, on the starting bank but not in the river (between the two rope/tape lines). Call time after 5 minutes of planning, bring the teams to the starting bank, remind them of their objective (to all step onto the opposite bank in unison), tell them they have 15 minutes to reach the other side and start them on their way.
Rules:
- You must keep possession of your stepping stone. You may not hand it to anyone else. However, others may step on your stone in passing.
- You can rest only on your own stone.
- No "skooching" - sliding your rock along the ground.
- If anyone falls in the river (steps off a stone), everyone in the entire group must go back to the starting river bank and begin again.
- Everyone must step onto the opposite bank at the same time.
Debrief: Some thoughts for your debrief
- Despite having given clear instructions, and even having repeated them more than once, I frequently find that they interpret the instruction that everyone must step onto the bank at the same time to mean everyone in their small team. This sets up a good discussion about clarifying instructions and understanding what your deliverables are.
- The set up into small teams often triggers the notion that they are competing with each other so they dont collaborate in developing a strategy or while on the river. The instructions dont suggest anything about competition. In fact, the goal of having everyone step onto the bank in unison means that there is no point in racing across the river, youll only have to wait there for everyone else to arrive before the task can be completed. This sets up an exploration of collaboration vs. competition and might they have performed better had they shared their strategies and supported each other in the execution.
- I ask them how this activity is a metaphor for the work we will be doing in the workshop, such as being open and willing to share ideas, take some risks and to support each other.
- I also foreshadow our work with The Five Practices by asking whether they had any shared standards of performance like making sure everybody got across the river safely (Model the Way), did they have a clear, shared goal (Inspire a Shared Vision), did they think about altering or changing the rules of the activity (Challenge the Process), did they listen to each other and treat each other with respect (Enable Others to Act), and did they encourage each other while on the river and celebrate when they stepped onto the bank (Encourage the Heart).
Try the "Acid River" and have fun!
Contributed by Charles St. John
CHALLENGE THE PROCESS ACTION PLANNING
If youre working with a large or small group of participants and want to make the design of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop more application-oriented, this activity might be of interest. The exercise is designed for intact teams, cross-functional teams, and public sessions where people represent various organizations. The goal of the activity is to create coaching partnerships that are practical and provocative. Participants focus on their real work issues and specific ways they will Challenge the Process. The steps in the activity integrate the essentials of the practice and move participants from concept to action planning. The activity goes like this:
GOOD SPOT - After the Innovation Quiz and discussion on Outsight (The Leadership Challenge® Workshop Facilitators Guide, Third Edition Revised page 151 in the 3-day script and page 304 in the 2-day script), segue into applying concepts to participants real world. Steps 1-4 take about an hour, including setup and debrief. Let participants know you will be helping them with timing.
STEP ONE - Give folks 8 minutes solo time to determine their challenge AND their idea on how to address their challenge. There are blank pages at the end of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop Participants Workbook, Third Edition Revised where people can jot down ideas.
STEP TWO - Layout the Coaching Partnership Process (flip chart the instructions below ahead of time or put on a PowerPoint® slide). Note to facilitator: suggest that within each pair one person go through the whole process. Then, switch to the other person and start the process again. Its fine if they choose to innovate!
Create Coaching Partnerships
2 minutes: Whats your challenge AND idea? (Dont bog down in the problem.)
2 minutes: What assumptions are you making?
5 minutes: How will you build your business case to strengthen your idea and get buy-in from stakeholders?
3 minutes: Specifically, what next steps will you take over the next 60 days to get this idea in motion?
SWITCH ROLES!
STEP THREE - Move the Coaching Partnerships to the next level:
Briefly, walk people through "Defying the Critics" on page 90 of the Participants Workbook.
5 minutes PER PERSON: Coaching partner takes on the role of the critic when it comes to the specific idea his/her partner has described. The other person has to experiment with "defying the critic."
STEP FOUR - Revisit Action Plans:
Briefly, walk people through "small win" ideas on page 93 of the Participants Workbook.
5 minutes AS PARTNERS: Revisit their Action Plans to incorporate some small win ideas listed on page 93.
Contributed by L.J. Rose
Double, Overlapping Strategic Cross - Remote HQ
If youre looking for a way to challenge participants with an experiential exercise, this works well. I typically use it as a learning experience for all Five Practices at once. It also can be focused on Enable Others to Act, or help to emphasize Inspire a Shared Vision.
First set up your Strategic Cross grid.
- Youll want to do that in a separate room, or in some way keep the group from being able to see the grid before youre ready for them.
- I use brightly colored surveyors tape to lay out the grid which creates excitement and makes it seem more real. You can use masking tape, or even have folks stand on sheets of paper.
- Lay out two Strategic Crosses that overlap in the shape of a + and share the same open center space. (Not counting the open center space, the number of squares youll need for each of the 2 segments of the + is one half the number of people in the group, minus two, with half of those squares on either side of the open center space. You dont need an even number of people. If you have an odd number, youll have an extra square on one side of the open center square.)
 |
Divide the group into 4 sub teams, A through D.
- Give each sub team to a minute to nominate one person to be on the Executive Team and have the Executive Team move to the side
- To up the ante even further, blindfold a few people at random on each of the sub teams (blindfolds will need to stay on throughout the activity).
Describe the task in very broad terms, creating a scenario that makes sense in the client context.
- For example: Youre creating an interactive logo for your new product launch and the CEO is coming by to see it, with your best customer, in 30 minutes.
Leave the Executive Team where they are for a minute and bring the rest of the group to where the grid is laid out.
- Arrange the sub teams on the grid, facing each other as above.
- Distribute the "Instructions for Field Locations" only and let them know that the "clock is starting and theyll have 30 minutes." Do not answer any questions.
- Go back to the Executive Team and distribute both "Instructions for Headquarters" and let them know that the "clock has already started and all the information you have for them is on their instructions sheets." Do not answer any questions.
Travel back and forth between the Executive Team and the Field as the exercise progresses to observe their process.
- Intervene only if the group seems ready to "blow off the rules" and do so in a way that will be in sync with the context youve created. (Although, you should give them a chance to self monitor before you step in.) For example: they represent the client and the client wants and expects a logo that can perform within the rules & constraints.
- As time is running out, you can offer some extra time, up to 10 minutes, but leave that up to a consensus of the group. (Their decision can be an interesting element to debrief.)
Debrief
- Start with "what happened" and then begin to focus the discussion.
- Explore the use of the Five Practices, making sure to talk about individual behavior, not just the group as whole
- There are issues galore that will come up - communication, support, cooperation vs. competition, ethics, shared vision, the best role/function for executives to take on, creativity and initiative, who gets heard and why, the interplay between leadership and "followership", speaking up, checking out, etc.-so, ENJOY!
Copies of the handouts follow.
Note: A single "strategic cross" is completed by starting with 1 move in one direction, followed by 2 moves in the other direction, then 3 moves from the 1st direction, 4 moves from the other direction, and so on… then in descending order once people start arriving at their final positions.
STRATEGIC RE-ALIGNMENT
INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEADQUARTERS: Team A-B
THE GOAL:
The task is complete when all team members in the field locations complete the objective of moving from their initial positions to their final positions.
CONSTRAINTS:
- Only one representative from each management team may serve as a liaison with each field team at any given time.
- All but the liaisons must remain in the HQ designated area.
- This paper my not leave the HQ designated area.
- The time limit for the task is 30 minutes.
INITIAL POSITIONS:
 |
STRATEGIC RE-ALIGNMENT
INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEADQUARTERS: Team C-D
THE GOAL:
The task is complete when all team members in the field locations complete the objective of moving from their initial positions to their final positions.
CONSTRAINTS:
- Only one representative from each management team may serve as a liaison with each field team at any given time.
- All but the liaisons must remain in the HQ designated area.
- This paper my not leave the HQ designated area.
- The time limit for the task is 30 minutes.
INITIAL POSITIONS:
 |
STRATEGIC RE-ALIGNMENT
INSTRUCTIONS FOR FIELD LOCATIONS
You are a sub-team located in a Field Location, and will be so for the next 30 minutes.
You might take time to discuss how you want to work together.
You must follow the guidelines below.
- There are only two (2) legal ways of moving.
- You may move into an empty space directly in front of you.
- You may move around one person if that person is facing you and there is an empty space directly behind that person.
- No one may turn around or move backwards.
- If the team reaches an impasse, you must start over from the beginning.
- Only one person may move at a time.
- Only one person may occupy a square at a time.
A big thanks to all the folks on whose work Ive piggy-backed in creating this variation of the Strategic Cross, a.k.a. "traffic jam."
HOW TO GAIN EXECUTIVE SUPPORT FOR A LEADERSHIP PROGRAM
I’d start by asking the following questions . . .
What is the business context? What are current business issues driving the need? Tie TLC to the specific business objectives. For example if the company is losing ground, point out that a leadership culture is more innovative. A study of the Financial Times 1000 found the #1 factor in determining innovation (defined by revenue of new product in last three years) is management trust, "I feel trusted more."
What are the expectations? What results are you looking for? Set goals and measurements, establish success factors. What will success look like when we have implemented TLC? If, for example, your organization is concerned about succession planning (by the year 2015 the present ranks of management will be thinned by one third, simply by retirement) then establish success factors based on the expectation that you will be developing leaders to replace those that are leaving.
What is happening in their business world thats affecting their role as leaders? Only 2.4% of the top three levels of executives spend their time thinking about the future. Probe for areas where future thinking could positively impact the business.
— Jeni Nichols of Sonoma Learning Systems is an Authorized Public Workshop and Facilitator Training Provider
A Leaders Walk of Trust
Leadership is a relationship. The cornerstone of effective relationships is trust. Without trust, relationships are destined for significant problems. Without trust, relationship will often end up being short term.
Trust is one of the dynamics we explore within the Leadership Challenge Practice of Enable Others to Act. One of my favorite Workshop activities to explore this trust dynamic is the Leaders Walk of Trust, which works like this:
We ask everyone to stand up and prepare to encounter the other program participants. It is challenge by choice, so people are allowed to choose whom they encounter, but the goal is for them to encounter everyone.
As they meet each person, they are to say one of three things (and nothing else):
"I trust you,"
"I dont trust you," or
"I dont care to say."
People are immediately struck with the dilemma of what to say and how truthful to be in their communications. After all of the encounters and communications take place, a very interesting debrief tends to follow.
Some typical debrief questions are:
How did that go?
What did you say?
Was anyone surprised by what they heard?
Did anyone say anything other than I trust you?
If you said I trust you, what were you talking about? You trust them with what?
What is most interesting about this activity is it allows people to experience the dilemma of how truthful to be and what it means to communicate trust. These three messages (I trust you, I dont trust you, or I dont care to say) are the meanings people are getting from our everyday actions in the workplace. What matters more than our words are the actions we take; people are getting those messages we are sending very clearly.
A Leadership Challenge for all leaders is to communicate, "I trust you" in our everyday actions. Since trust is an inside out development dynamic, we must elevate our own ability to be vulnerable and trust others before we can ask others to raise their level of trust.
Contributed by Craig Haptonstall of Leadership Mechanics, LLC
Leadership Beanbag Volleyball
Objectives
- To raise awareness and characteristics during the launch of a leadership training program
- To provide an energizer to introduce the topic of leadership
Audience
This activity is designed for a group of 12-16 participants in a leadership development program
Time Required
About 20-25 minutes
Materials and Equipment
- Two easels with flip chart pads
- Flip chart markers
- Roll of 1-inch masking tape
- One beanbag approximately 3 by 3 inches
- Bags of wrapped candy for prizes
Area Setup
An empty area approximately 30 by 30 feet. Position easels in corners along a common wall.
Process
- Divide the room space in half to form a volleyball court. Use masking tape on the floor to identify two different playing areas
- Divide the participants into two equal teams. Have each team line up on opposite sides of the court and arrange themselves into volleyball team positions.
- Explain to all participants that they are going to play a game of Beanbag Volleyball.
- Toss the beanbag to one of the teams as preparation to start the game and explain the rules of the game
- The game begins when one team member makes a "soft" underhand toss to the directly opposite player on the other team.
- If the player on the other team catches the beanbag, he of she has the right to name one characteristic of a successful leader.
- The facilitator writes the characteristic on that teams flip chart and makes a reinforcing comment
- The teams alternate throwing and catching with a catch required to name different characteristics. If the beanbag isnt caught or is dropped, the right to name a characteristic is lost. Characteristics may not be repeated during the game.
- A characteristic on one teams flip chart may not be on the other teams flip chart.
- Throwing and catching the beanbag is rotated among all players on both teams.
- One round is completed when everyone has had an opportunity to throw and catch the beanbag.
- Play two complete rounds
- The team with more characteristics after two rounds is pronounced the winner. If the two teams are tied, both are declared the winner. Provide candy to the winners.
- Contine the activity by calling everyones attention to the lists and make "Bridging" comments to translate to the next activity in the session.
Insider Tips
- Make sure that all the beanbag tosses are thrown softly and underhand.
- Relate the flip chart lists to the actual content of the training program.
- Be sure to allow flexibility to anyone with a disability.
- Encourage teams to clap each time a member catches the beanbag.
Created by Robert C. Preziosi, D.P.A. and submitted to 90 World-Class Activities by 90 World-Class Trainers, edited by Elaine Biech.
Robert C. Preziosi, D.P.A., a professor of management in the Huizenga School of Business at Nova Southeastern University, teaches nontraditional graduate students in HR, HRD, and leadership. Bob has been training trainers for over 20 years and is the editor of the Pfeiffer Annuals on HRM and management development. You can contact Robert via e-mail at preziosi@huizenga.nova.edu.
An LPI Workshop Design by Jo Bell
For clients who are not quite ready to adopt The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, but who want to introduce the LPI into their organization, I have found that an LPI Workshop is an excellent way to meet their needs.
What follows is the design I use, which has been successful solution for many of my clients.
Prior to the Workshop and before the LPI is administered, I meet with the key contact and a sampling of executives in order to understand their business issues and their anticipated outcomes for the application of the LPI. I use The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership summary article to provide a foundation of understanding for the participants, and I advise the participants about selecting observers who can provide meaningful feedback. For the administration of the LPI, I work with Fine Points Professionals clientcare@finepointsprofessionals.com. After the LPI is administered, I give the participants a pre-work assignment that includes reading selected pages of The Leadership Challenge.
The Workshop is a 6-8 hour design (depending on the number of participants) and is very similar to the one outlined in the LPI Facilitators Guide. For past clients I have used the LPI Participant Workbook, but I plan to use the LPI Leadership Development Planner in the future. I also use the book, The Leadership Challenge as a resource during the Workshop for reflection questions that create a dialogue within the group.
Welcome
- Senior leaders opening comments regarding his/her LPI experience
Three Pivotal Lessons of Leadership from the Research
- Leadership is a Relationship
- Leadership is Everyones Business
- Leadership is Self-Development
Orientation to the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)
- Jim Kouzes and Barry Posners research
- The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®
Explanation of the LPI Feedback Report
- Explain data and layout of the Feedback Report
- Analyze LPI data for a hypothetical leader
- Introduce and share initial interpretations of the groups Cumulative Percentile Ranking
Guide Participants Through Their Own Feedback Reports
- How to get the most from the feedback process
- Distribute LPI Reports and acclimate to the data
Analyze and Interpret the LPI Feedback
- Self-analysis of the data using a set of guided workbook questions
- Coach participants during analysis
- Share impressions with 1 to 2 partners
How Leaders Learn
- The Three fundamentals of how people learn to lead
Individual Leadership Development Action Plans
- Leadership Development Worksheet for self-development
- Coach participants during planning
- Share plans with 1 to 2 partners
Share Feedback Results and Action Plans for Development
- Value of sharing feedback
- Guidelines for sharing feedback with manager, co-workers, direct reports and others
- Share one action each leader will take towards leadership development
Next Steps
- The Best Learning Practices
- Follow-up coaching
Immediately following the Workshop, I work as a coach to the individual participants to help them personally interpret the LPI results, to learn to use The Leadership Challenge book as a resource and to make plans for follow-up with those who gave them feedback. The initial coaching time is one hour, followed by two coaching sessions after they have conversations with their observers. The two follow-up coaching sessions include a Values Clarification Exercise as well as crafting a Commitment Memo to their constituents. I have found that this process has been successful for individuals as they create a map for their self-development. I have also found that this experience has led most participants to literally use The Leadership Challenge book as a field guide for their self-development, just as Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner refer to it in their preface.
NEW EYES CEREMONY CONTRIBUTED BY MARK WARNER
This is one of my favorite activities that I created to open a talk, conference, workshop or seminar. It is energizing and sets a tone for a leadership development session.
Facilitator Says:
I need you to stand up where you are. (I usually stand on a chair, unless Im on a stage).
Now I need you to put your thumbs and index fingers together to make little circles. Put them up to your eyes (I demonstrate). Dont worry about looking foolish . . . because you do. These are your new eyes, but you dont get them for free. You have to repeat an oath. (you might have to remind them to keep their new eyes up to their face). For this to work, I need to hear you repeat this loudly. Ready?
Today I have a new pair of eyes.
Eyes that will help me see my role in (leadership) differently.
We have great potential, and . . .
Now is the time
To share ideas, dreams, and strategies
And in collaboration with each other . . .
We can make a difference.
(Facilitator Note: Any topic or organization name can go in the parentheses.)
Now sit down! (Usually some laughter at this point.)
You know the great thing about these new eyes you just got? They are portable. You can put them in your pockets, take them to the shower with you . . . However, if you are going to make a difference you have to consciously put them on.
Think about it this way. Imagine your bedroom, and the pictures you have on the wall. My guess is that if you have lived in this place for over six months, you dont even see the pictures any more. And the reason is that youve walked by them so many times that they dont click up here (point to your head). It is the same in our personal or professional lives; if we dont look at the world in a different way, we will not be able to make a difference.
Today, I urge you to keep the new eyes on. Challenge yourself to be a little vulnerable, and intentionally look at the world differently. Hopefully during our time together, we will be able to appreciate and use our new pair of eyes.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiots Guide to Enhancing Self-Esteem by Mark J. Warner
About Mark Warner
Mark Warner is co-author of the book Inspiring Leadership: Its Not About the Power and author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Enhancing Self-Esteem, now in its ninth printing. Mark is Professor and Senior Vice President of Student Affairs and University Planning at James Madison University as well as an active speaker and consultant in business, government, education, not-for-profit, and religious sectors. He can be contacted by phone at (540) 568-3685 or by email warnermj@jmu.edu.
Point North Contributed by Mark Warner
I discovered this activity (one of my favorites) several years ago while watching a consultant. Although she used the activity to make a different point, I thought that it was a perfect way to demonstrate the importance of Inspiring a Shared Vision and adapted it accordingly. I use this as an introductory activity; it not only serves as a humorous energizer, but also makes a great visual to create the lesson. I do not know the originator of the exercise, but KUDOS to that person.
Facilitator Script
"I need everyone to close your eyes. Now, keeping your eyes closed, point north. Point so I can see where you are pointing."(You will hear nervous laughter).
"Keeping your hands where they are, you may now open your eyes and look around the room."(People will be pointing in all directions, and you will hear more laughter).
"Now put your hands down before you embarrass yourself. It is obvious that we have some navigationally challenged people in the room."
"Our job as a leader is to get everyone pointing in the same direction. (Point north).
"If we are all going in different directions, then we will never be successful in accomplishing our goals. And we can only truly get people to go in the same direction if we work together to decide where "we" want to go. A shared vision is just that—shared. If I try to impose my vision on you, you might think to yourself, that may be your vision, but thats not my vision and there will be no ownership of the vision. The way we get ownership is to talk with folks, formally and informally, to see what their dreams and aspirations are. This will help us, as leaders craft a vision that will be owned and supported."
Snowball Toss
Here is a quick energizer that allows the workshop participants to affirm and strengthen their learning. It is an "up-out-of-your-seat" exercise. And it is fun.
I call it the snowball toss, and I usually conduct it as a morning exercise to launch a second or third day of a workshop session.
The Exercise
Here is how it goes:
- Ask the participants to reflect back on the prior day and to write down one "aha," one significant learning.
- It is best if you ask them to:
- jot down their thought on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper
- write legibly - so that you would be able to read their writing
- When sufficient time has elapsed for everyone to write down their thought, invite the participants to get out of their seats and form in a circle (okay, something approximating a circle). Often times, I will have them form the circle outside of the workshop room, if I can find a nearby open space. (A brief "field trip" of sorts).
- I ask them to crumple up the sheet of paper in their hands into paper snowballs.
- With the circle formed, I interject a comment about winter or snow, and invite them to "have at it" with their snowballs. Here is an example from a recent workshop in Phoenix, where the temperature was 78°: "Last week, New England and New York experienced some of the heaviest snowfall on record. For those of you who are envious and missed the fun of the snowfall, I thought wed create some of our own winter fun. So, let me ask you to crumple up your papers into paper snowballs, and have you own snowball fight." The snowballs flew.
- I encourage the participants to pick up the paper balls and continue to throw them at one another for a few rounds (say 30 seconds). Finally, I ask everyone to pick up one the paper snowballs.
- Reforming the circle, I ask everyone, in turn, to read ALOUD the thought that one of their colleagues wrote down.
The Benefits
Each participant strengthens one learning from the prior day. I trust that the learning that is written down is an element of leadership that will serve them and their direct reports well. This is an opportunity to solidify the learning and not allow it to melt away!
The participant and the facilitator hear some key thoughts from all of the workshop participants, creating an opportunity to learn from one another.
The snowball toss safeguards the anonymity and privacy of the participant. (I do not tell the participants that they will need to personally share their thoughts with the group. Therefore, I trust that what they write down is authentic).
Experience from the Field
The snowball toss is fun!
I, as the facilitator, become aware of the "ah-ha" moments that are important for the group, and can refer back to them during the course of the current day.
More recently, I have kept the individual paper snowballs after the exercise and recorded the comments in order to email them to the participants in the few days after the completion of the workshop.
So, lets look at a live example from a recent seminar. On day one, we talked about Values, Credibility, and Inspiring a Shared Vision. Here are the "ah-has" that the seminar participants recorded in those paper snowballs on the morning of the second day:
Values and Credibility
- I found out how much my personal values help/hinder building relationships with certain direct reports. (Values dont have to be so black and white, there can be common ground).
- The values Ive been living out lately are not my stated core values - not against them, just not the same.
- You have to know who you are and what your values are before you can create a true vision for your team.
- Credibility and values must stay in alignment to make them true. Sanity check this!
- Credibilitys root is "credo" requiring consistent performance.
Inspiring a Shared Vision
- Sharing thoughts and using group brainstorming is much more efficient than coming up with ideas on my own.
- Using the group to help me form images/metaphors is very powerful. It is also more inclusive.
- The metaphor/imagery must not only fit the situation, it must fit the group of people to whom the vision will be described. It must connect with them.
- I have a wealth of stories that apply to my job, and that excite me about my job when I tell them.
- I know now that I need to paint the picture of my factory into my work group vision so it becomes more clear and shows alignment from my team to the factory.
Have fun in the snow. "Ah-ha" is always in season!
VISUALLY IMPACTFUL LPI DEBRIEF
Osceola County Government in Central Florida, one of the fastest growing counties in the United States, was intent on linking their human resource training efforts to the areas of most need, but there was frustration from the executive manager that people were reluctant to look for new and better ways to improve the organization. With these expressed goals and concerns, we implemented the LPI and developed a way to pinpoint the areas where the most improvement would be needed and areas where the group is the strongest using the following activity.
In the Leadership Practices Inventory Facilitators Guide, Third Edition, Part III: Appendixes contains an Appendix G, LPI Statements by Leadership Practice (page 211). This one page lists The Five Practices and the six behavioral items in the LPI that measure each of The Five Practices. It is a great summary page. For this activity we had in enlarged to poster size. At the end of a two-day session using The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, and prior to the Commitment portion, we asked each participant to identify the top three items that they felt were their strongest behaviors. We purposely chose to focus on strengths rather than weaknesses. Each person was given three dot stickers on which they were to put their initials. They were then asked to place their dots next to the three items in which they were strongest. (They could choose their highest self scores, the highest Observer scores, or a combination).
The results had a great visual impact. First, we could plainly see that this group was very strong at Enabling Others to Act but only one person (out of 30) placed one of the three dots in Challenging the Process. It plainly reinforced the frustration that the Executive Manager had expressed in the quest for process improvement. Second, this very visible snapshot of strengths and weakness gave the human resources staff some good ideas for the type of training needed to improve areas in need of attention. A third benefit used from this activity was that each person could look at areas where he/she would like to improve and partner with a person that had that item or area as a strength. During the Commitment Memo activity, there was great discussion around how someone who wanted to improve in an area could benefit by what another is doing or saying (behaving) that made others perceive that item as a strength.
The participants thought this was one of the best activities they did in the two days and we summarized the results and distributed to all for future reference. In this way, they could continuously remember the strengths of each other and use that for formal and informal mentoring.
— Stephen Hoel is President of Diversity Leadership Consultants
WHEN WORKING ON VISION, GET INSPIRED! CONTRIBUTED BY CRAIG HAPTONSTALL
If the group Im working with ever gets stuck on the "the Vision thing," the following is a piece of advice that I offer them. If you have the time and the proper setting, you could also turn this into an actual activity where the group leaves the classroom in search of something that inspires them. When they return, ask each individual to share what it is that they found inspiring and why.
Say:
Creating and communicating a Shared Vision with co-workers is one of the most difficult challenges a leader will ever face. The Vision behaviors are some of the least frequently demonstrated, and the hardest to implement, as measured by the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). This is no easy task to accomplish.
So, lets stack the deck in our favor! The next time you find yourself needing to Inspire a Shared Vision-be it as simple as the description or completion of a project, or as complex as the future of your department or organization-get out of the office! Most office environments are designed for maximum productivity, but not necessarily for maximum creativity. Switching out the workplace for a less conventional atmosphere can make this creative challenge a lot easier. Take a lunch break and head over to the local museum. Walk around and notice what other inspired people have done in the past, and are doing these days. Often, there are even local artist displays where you can view the work of inspired people residing in your area. Just half an hour spent looking at these works can provide real inspiration for you and your team, and provide fuel to create a more compelling vision of the future.
Try this the next time you need a little inspiration! Your team will be glad you did, and the vision you create will be more compelling and inspired than if youd stayed in your office and attempted the work.
