in this issue
	Exercise: Telephone Game - In Charades Exercise: The Black Box Exercise: Building Blocks Defining Training Objectives

Exercise: Telephone Game - In Charades

This exercise is a fun way to illustrate how messages get lost or misunderstood. Divide the group into two teams. Each team should be about 7-10 people. If you have a large group, you can create three teams. Tell each group that they must come up with a scenario for the other team to act out. It can be anything that can be acted in less than one minute. Have the first team line up all facing the same direction, each looking at the back of another person's head. Give the person at the back of the line the scenario to act out (from the other team). That person taps the shoulder of the person in front of her (who then turns around) and acts out the scenario. Then that person taps the shoulder of the next person and acts out what she just saw, and so on until the end of the line. The last person in the line has to try to guess what the scenario was. Then have the next team follow the same instructions. In your debrief, discuss how different the final guess was from the original scenario. Ask how it happened. Make a comparison to how our view of a situation sometimes gets twisted when we hear information second (or third) hand. Discuss how we sometimes completely misinterpret something even when we get the information directly. This activity can be used for communication skills (listening, explaining), supervisory skills or problem solving (investigating situations before drawing conclusions), and conflict management (recognizing when we don't correctly interpret another person's message). And because it's non-verbal, you can make the point that how we say something often has as much or more impact than what we say. Best of all, it's lots of fun to see how the scenario changes down the line!

Exercise: The Black Box

This exercise is from my old high school science teacher. Mr. Large would bring in a black box and we would try to guess what was in it. I can't remember the point of the activity at the time, but I do have some ideas about how it can be used in today's business training. You will need a box about the size of a cigar box. Find an everyday object or a company product, something that most people would be likely to recognize. It should be small enough to put in the box and move around freely. Place it in the box and tape the box closed with black tape so that it isn't easily opened. Divide the group into small teams of 2-3. Give each team an opportunity to hold the box and guess what's inside. Have them write down what they know about the object along with their guess. After all teams have shared their guesses and the characteristics of the object, tell them what it is. (You don't actually have to open the box.) This activity can be used to discuss how we gather information, how comfortable we are when we don't have all the information we want, and how we work with others to analyze information. If you add the time element (you must record your guess within 1 minute of holding the box), that can lead to a discussion of how we may draw the wrong conclusion because of time pressure. So many possibilities - thanks to an old science memory from long ago. Thanks Mr. Large!

Exercise: Building Blocks

This exercise helps illustrate how hard it is to give good direction. It can be used for delegation training, management or supervisory skills, or any general communication workshop. You will need two sets of wooden blocks (or other building toys). Divide the group into two teams. One team will be the Builder, the other will be the Imitator. Have the Imitator Team select one person to observe the Builder Team. The remainder of the Imitator Team must have their backs to the Builder Team at all times. Instruct the Builder Team to create a structure with their blocks. The Observer from the Imitator Team must watch the Builder Team as they create. When the structure is finished, the Observer must instruct his team to recreate the same structure. However, the Observer may not look at his team while they follow the instructions given. They can ask questions of each other, but may not look at each other. Debreif by discussing how difficult it can be to follow instructions without face-to-face communication, how hard it is to give clear direction, how important good questions are to full understanding of a task, or other points that fit your training objectives. Tip: You may want to limit the number of blocks used or the amount of time to recreate the structure so that the lesson is learned with the most efficient use of time.

Defining Training Objectives

One of our challenges as training designers is learning the objectives for the training. That is, finding out what the customer (internal or external) is really trying to accomplish. Granted, sometimes they just want a check mark to say that they took action. But in reality, something isn't working right and needs to be fixed. And they are coming to us to fix it. If we don't know the true problem, we might not provide the right solution. And if we and the customer don't understand the cost of the problem, we might not be able to justify the cost of the right solution. We can add value to the organization by consulting with the customer to uncover the root cause of a problem, quantify that cost, and then measure the results to confirm that a return on investment has been realized. The most important skill needed to make this happen is questioning. Good questions help the customer define the problem, quantify it, and estimate the potential return. Here are some good questions to try the next time you've been assigned a training initiative: What would you like to accomplish? How do you know there's a problem? Why is this important now? How often is that happening? How many people do that? Let's assume that you have star performers, underachievers, and average performers. How many people fit into each group? What differentiates a star from an average performer? What is the cost to your department, in dollars, people, time, opportunity, etc.? How would it help if things were different? How do you measure that? What is it now? What do you think it could be if we are successful with the training? I encourage you to ask a lot of questions. You aren't prying - you are trying to do your job and add value to the process. And if you establish quantifiable measures for training results, you will be building credibility for you and your training organization. There are some great books available if you want to explore training measurement. Or attend a training class or measurement session at your next training conference. Expand your own skills in this area and make even more of a difference with the work you do.