Of Marshmallows and Learning

Posted on June 23, 2010 by pdncoach

At Performance Development Network, no matter what kind of work we are doing, we are helping people achieve something new based in part on what they already have or know.  Breakthroughs to individual, team or organizational success might come through an intensive leadership development or strategic planning process; it may come from facilitating something as simple as “The Marshmallow Challenge”.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

I don’t “teach” much – I haven’t found it necessary too often.  Most people already have more knowledge and skills than they actually use. And when you assemble a team of multiple people, the skill sets increase exponentially.

Instead, I ask questions. The right questions help people discover hidden potential.  Even the simplest of questions, asked at the right time, help people discover new possibilities for applying what they already know and know how to do.

And I nearly always involve experiential learning and iterative techniques, among other disciplined approaches.  I give people an activity to do, as a team for example. Then I ask questions about their experience, what they learned and how the experience and lessons might apply in their daily circumstances or to the challenge they are trying to address.

People don’t like to be taught, but they love to learn.  They love to play, too.  But activities don’t have to be “fun”, because when people are learning they come to appreciate the struggle to learn. We learn best through experience and we retain most through repetition. It’s a brain thing. Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, says this:

“If you are in education you are in the business of brain development. If you are leading a modern corporation…you need to know how the brain works.”

This is true for strategic planning, for customized workshops and seminars, for development processes focused on broad issues such as leadership, sales and customer loyalty, for the myriad of “team building” approaches I provide, even for keynote addresses and inspirational presentations.

I provide something for people to experience in the moment – and I ask questions.  Make them use their noggins.  And the outcomes are amazing.

Lived experience, especially shared experience, also generates lateral thinking.  We do something together here and now, even something as distracting and seemingly meaningless as building a marshmallow tower, and it informs us. We learn from the distracting activity:

  • how we work together in other situations
  • why we get less than desirable results in other situations
  • how we might want to change our daily environment, the actions we take in that environment, and the processes we use in that daily environment 
  • what we must do to improve our results in our daily environment

It’s not magic, but if your team is struggling with a challenge or opportunity, a skilled facilitator with the right activity and the savvy to ask the right questions may help you produce some miraculous results.

[The Marshmallow Challenge is a remarkably fun and instructive design exercise that encourages teams to experience simple but profound lessons in collaboration, innovation and creativity. The task is simple: in 18 minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top.]
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=msturgell&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1422126005&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in Brain Rules, experiential learning, facilitation, lateral thinking, Marshmallow Challenge, questions | Leave a comment

Where New Possibilities are Born

Posted on June 22, 2010 by pdncoach


The struggle is the point.
That’s where new possibilities are born.

I see it all the time – individuals, teams and organizations trying to make decisions with as little struggle as possible. They look for “low-hanging fruit”, which can be a great strategy to gain quick wins but a lousy one to reach the plump juicy fruit at the top of the tree!  The best stuff requires climbing, reaching, extra effort, a higher cost.

Several events last week have reminded me of this basic truth about learning, development and personal growth. I’ll share two of them.

First, I worked with a group of adult summer day camp staff and their young campers (middle school age) in our Team Building Adventures outdoor challenge course.   This particular group had some issues with authority that were holding them back. Not the typical issues of kids challenging the authority of their adult supervisors. Quite the contrary!

One staff person so earnestly wanted the kids to succeed that he directed them in everything, tried to be the sole problem-solver, planner, decision-maker, etc. – and the kids let him even though it wasn’t working.  One young lady quietly confessed she wanted to offer an alternative to his ideas, “but that would be disrespectful.”

So we discussed as a group the difference between authority and leadership, how each has a proper time and place.  I also muted the adults (no talking!) for the next challenge, since they were trying to eliminate the struggle. This small change in group dynamic required the youth to communicate, plan, offer alternatives, resolve conflicts, share and evaluate one another’s ideas, allow one another to lead and, ultimately, succeed for fail on their own as a team, even though they still had the physical resources of the adults on their team.

I’ve long since learned to trust group process and intervene only when absolutely necessary. This group struggled, REALLY struggled at first. They seem to have grown dependent on adults making or arbitrating all decisions and I took that luxury away from them, leaving them on their own.  The didn’t like me very much at one point during their struggles, but they persevered, and they discovered they had all they needed to succeed.

Typical goals of our facilitated challenge and team building processes are:

  • To build commitment and camaraderie by having some FUN together!
  • Emphasize the interconnectedness of the team members and how they impact each other.
  • Recognize the different contributions/skills of each team member and strategize ways to utilize them effectively.
  • Transfer the team member’s experiences during this experience to what they experience while working together as a team in ever day situations.
  • Practice team skills like:
    • Clearly communicating ideas, asking questions, listening to others, actively sharing information, keeping a positive attitude, taking initiative, setting goals, following through on goals, building commitment to goals, solving problems creatively, making group decisions and resolving differences productively.
  • Build Trust! Recognize the importance of demonstrating trustworthy behaviors such as reliability, consistency, honesty and confidentiality.

These are exactly the kinds of things that began to happen among group members as they struggle to find their own way. This group didn’t like me much at times, but in the end, their consensus evaluation of the day was “I never would have believed what we could achieve together before today,” and “I trust people in this group a lot more because of what we achieved.”

The struggle is the point.

That’s where new possibilities are born.

Second: last Friday, June 18, I was the featured guest on the Blog Talk Radio show Diane Viere hosts called Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children. Diane and I discussed how The Intersection of Purpose and Now is relevant to parents of adult children who struggle to succeed.  Of course, the basic connection is that without Purpose and clear, concrete values we become victims of our circumstances. We have a tough time making decisions and value-judgements because we lack the necessary clear, concrete values to do so. As a result, we are dependent on circumstance and the feelings of the moment, with little else to rely on to make sound decisions.

When it comes to our children, those “feelings of the moment” nearly always involve love. I believe that every parent loves his or her child. A relationship may not seem to others as having love, but it’s always there.  Love is the foundational value of any healthy relationship, but it’s not enough.  Other values shape and determine the effects of love.  We cannot lead our families well without love, but love alone still leaves a lot to circumstance.  “Spoiled” children were typically raised with a lot of love in the home, but perhaps not enough other values to develop in them a sense of responsibility and personal accountability, for example.

In short, parents must learn to “suffer through” their children’s struggles. Seeing your children (or your employees) struggle may “break your heart”, but the heart is a muscle and needs to struggle to build strength. Certainly, we can support others and help them along the way, but NOT to remove the struggle. The more we own our struggles, the more we own the possibilities for growth from those struggles.

The struggle is the point.
That’s where new possibilities are born.

In case you are interested in listening to the Blog Talk Radio interview, here is the link.

Listen to internet radio with Diane V on Blog Talk Radio
Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in decision-making, group dynamics, possibility, team building, teams, values | Leave a comment

Why Teams? Why Team Work? Why Team Building?

Posted on May 4, 2010 by pdncoach

“Team Building” seems to be one of the most frequent requests I get from prospective clients.

“We need to improve our team work”, they say. Why? “So our people will focus more on the work that needs to get done instead of focusing on each other!”

Does the typical approach to team building create the desired outcome and lasting impact?

No. I have seen a great deal of time and money wasted on “quick fix” approaches to developing team performance, trust and communication as well as group problem-solving, decision-making and planning abilities.

Yes. Team building, planned well and supported with the right resources, can be effective and optimize the performance of teams – even an already top-producing team.

My friend Becky Robinson of Mountain State University gets right down to it when she asks “Why Teams?” After all, working on a team can be difficult as she so aptly describes. When people work on teams:

  • They may experience confusion about the team’s mission, role or assignment.
  • They are compelled to rely on others.
  • They feel frustrated if everyone doesn’t contribute “equal” effort to the team’s process and goals.
  • They don’t understand each person’s role, let alone their own!
  • They struggle with scheduling, timeliness and getting things done to a common standard.
  • Communication gets complicated, as does decision-making and problem-solving.
  • Each team member’s performance and success is contingent on others.

So can Team Building really have a measurable impact on Team Work?

How do you know there is a problem?
Is the primary purpose of your team clear? Do you strongly share a common interest? Are you achieving predetermined team goals? Are you meeting milestones and deadlines? Are you or your teammates frustrated with your roles? Do you even understand your role on the team? Do you understand the value of your teammates’ roles? Is everyone playing by the same rules (including both written policies, procedures and regulations, as well as “unwritten” rules that the team uses to govern behavior and process)?

What if you are the problem?
The biggest mistake I see with teams is that leaders schedule team building activities and programs without giving serious thought to how they are contributing to problems on the team. If you don’t recognize your contribution to current team success and setbacks, it is unlikely you will play a valuable role in improving team performance.

If the team has taken weeks, months or even years to develop its current culture, level of performance and expectations, why do you think it will only take a few hours to improve them?
Team building shouldn’t be a program or a workshop. I’ve never seen a team advance while in “retreat”. Certainly, “getting away” from production and customer service issues for a time to focus on team culture, processes and relationships is critically necessary from time to time. Spending a few hours with a facilitator on a team building course can be quite valuable – as long as that is not all you are doing to develop your team.

Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the BoxIs team work training what you need, or could leadership development and strategic thinking create more measurable and sustainable results?
One of the best ways to improve a team is to improve team leadership.  One of the best ways to measure leadership is to measure the production and performance of the leader’s team.  Develop the leadership and this should have a direct positive impact on the team. Likewise, one of the most effective and meaningful projects for developing any team, for any reason, is strategic thinking and planning.  When done right, this process allows team members to conceive or develop a sense of ownership for the team mission and strategic aims, clarify role definitions, clarify shared values and rules, and iron out any behavioral style differences.

There is nothing like a few simple strategic thinking sessions to get people focused on taking the right action on the right objectives instead of whining over the water cooler about one another’s “difficult personalities.”

Strategic planning can be a long, drawn-out process that changes little about the team or its outcomes – but it doesn’t have to be. We have helped numerous teams develop their strategy and implement those strategies as intended.  Strategic thinking can be hard work…and as a result it can be some of the most rewarding time any team spends together.

Performance objectives for team building can include standard business measures such as cost reduction, increased sales, reduced waste and variance, and raising your organization’s Customer Loyalty Score. Other outcomes may include:

  • To build commitment and camaraderie by having some FUN together!
  • Emphasize the interconnectedness of the team members and how they impact each other.
  • Recognize the different contributions/skills of each team member and strategize ways to utilize them effectively.
  • Transfer the team member’s experiences during THIS ropes course to what they experience while working together as a team in the classroom.
  • Practice team skills like:  clearly communicating ideas, asking questions, listening to others, actively sharing information, keeping a positive attitude, taking initiative, setting goals, following through on goals, building commitment to goals, solving problems creatively, making group decisions and resolving differences productively.
  • Build Trust! Recognize the importance of demonstrating trustworthy behaviors such as reliability, consistency, honesty and confidentiality.

Strategic team building can be fun. At Performance Development Network, we have numerous methods and plenty of experience in developing teams. If you think we could help you and your team, ask me about our Performance Vehicles program, the Personal Responsibility Pledge, Search for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, Pelican Island, Team Building Adventures and similar programs.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=msturgell&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0071482660&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment