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::  :: Leadership, Exercises, Team Building, Communication Skills, Coaching, Motivation, Giving Feedback
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Negativity is contagious. It’s all too easy to complain about everything that goes wrong and this can quickly spread to others. Fortunately there is a simple trick that can be used to eliminate negativity; simply don’t say negative words. Aiming for positive remarks helps people to get energised. Rather than looking for blame, seek opportunities to improve and progress forward.
Here are some examples of negative statements that people commonly use:
- Don’t do that
- We can’t do it
- It can’t be done
- We don’t do such thing
- It is against our policy
- We have never done this before
- It has never been done
- No one knows how to do this
- You don’t know how this works
- The management is clueless
- The staff are clueless
- They sit there all day and do nothing
- No one cares
These statements do not help and are sometime stated as a reflex reaction rather than with an appropriate thought. Sometimes they become a habit and it is important to eliminate them as bad habits.
This simple two stage exercise helps to increase the awareness of delegates about this issue and helps them to address it. It is ideal for delegates who work closely together or are part of the same team.
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::  :: Exercises, Creativity, Attention and Focus, Marketing
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We are exposed to many brands every day in our environment as well as direct advertisement. It is estimated that an average American sees as much as 16000 brands every single day! What does each brand mean to us? How do we respond to each brand? How should brands be marketed to have the highest impact? How do brands compare?
This is where marketing comes into place. With so many brands competing for attention, we have little time to notice them all. We have learned to filter out a lot form our complex environment so we can focus on what matters to us. Only a select few brands can stand out and become memorable or at the extreme end of the scale, come to define a particular way of life on a global scale.
This engaging exercise is designed to kick start a discussion on branding for delegates who attend a course on branding, marketing or a similar topic. It can be used for:
- Branding
- Logo design
- Brand familiarity
- Analysis on use of colour, shapes and common patterns in logos
- Typography
- Social trends
- Behavioural patterns
The exercise requires a pre-course activity where delegates have to prepare materials and bring them to the class.
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::  :: Leadership, Exercises, Communication Skills, Decision Making
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This is an entertaining exercise encouraging delegates to think on the spot, make decisions and self-organise to complete a task. It is ideal for teambuilding and leadership courses to show the value of communication from all members and how a leader can coordinate the activities and information exchange to significantly increase the performance of the group as a whole.
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:: :: Public Speaking, Exercises, Train the Trainer, Presentation Skills, Large Group, Attention and Focus, Memory
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To reduce learner passivity and increase interaction and reflection, a technique known as the “Three Minutes Pause” is very useful. The idea is that after covering a topic or a complex concept, you pause and let the participants ponder over what has been discussed in a systematic way. This allows participants to clarify areas they may not have understood well and prepares them for the next part. The interaction and expression of ideas also helps memorisation of the content.
This technique is particularly useful for lectures since they are usually very passive and encourage non-participation. The Three Minutes Pause allows you to bring interactivity into a lecture without much time cost while significantly helping the audience to understand and memorise the content. It also allows you to monitor participants and receive feedback about areas that you may need to expand on more.
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:: :: Exercises, Body Language, Large Group, Acting, Attention and Focus
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Sometimes a little action can lead to a lot of change as the actions are amplified. This exercise helps delegates see this effect in a symbolic exercise on what is famously known as the “butterfly effect”. It is ideal for courses on team building, communication skills, change management and leadership skills.
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:: :: Exercises, Train the Trainer, Negotiation, Decision Making, Problem Solving, Report Writing, Questioning Skills, Attention and Focus
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Reciprocal teaching is a technique used by trainers and teachers to facilitate understanding a piece of text. It is designed to promote comprehension by looking at a text from several different angles.
The technique was developed by Palinscar (1986) with an aim to facilitate collaborative investigation. The four comprehension strategies used in this technique are:
- Summarising
- Questioning
- Clarifying
- Predicting
By alternating between these roles, group members can share their analysis with each other systematically while focusing on many aspects of a piece of information or text.
This technique can also be used as a brainstorming technique to prepare for negotiations, making critical decisions and problem solving.
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:: :: Exercises, Team Building, Creativity, Exercises for Kids
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This exercise is suitable for children as it allows them to express themselves artistically and reveal significant character traits which are important in team building. They will get to analyse their T-Shirt designs and also come up with new designs that best capture the message they like to convey or the way they see themselves.
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:: :: Articles, Train the Trainer, Presentation Skills, Personal Impact
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Some mistakes are small and irrelevant while some have bigger but yet manageable consequences. There are however some mistakes that can bring your entire training career down. These are often mistakes that you are not aware off, carrying them out habitually. Some trainers realise such mistakes after years of suboptimum training while others don’t understand what is preventing their training courses to be successful.
The first step in combating mistakes is to know what they are. Your awareness of them combined with taking alternative actions will help you avoid damage. The following are 5 mistakes every trainer needs to avoid when providing a training course.
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::  :: Games, Exercises, Exercises for Kids, Large Group, Attention and Focus, Memory, Planning, Sport
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This is a physical exercise ideal for physical training as well as concentration and focus. This exercise touches on many areas with the aim to make an individual more agile and precise while under pressure. In particular, participant will cover the following:
- Think strategically to plan ahead and determine your moves
- Execute moves perfectly based on a strategy
- Move quickly with maximum speed and minimum error
- Concentrate without making mistakes
- Compete with others both physically and mentally
You can run this exercise as a competitive game and offer a prize to the winner.
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:: :: Games, Exercises, Team Building, Communication Skills, Large Group, Giving Feedback, Listening Skills, Memory
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This activity helps delegates to improve their teamwork and communication skills while going through a specific task. The task is fairly simple. To succeed at their task, the team must be able to self-organise, communicate well, and work together to resolve issues. Optionally, if you have a large group, you can divide them to several teams where they can go through the exercise in parallel and at the end compare their performance.
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:: :: Exercises, Coaching, Motivation, Anger Management, Goal Setting, Giving Feedback
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This exercise is useful in showing people how resourceful they already are. People who suffer from lack of self-esteem tend to focus on their weaknesses or to blame others for their problems. This lack of belief in their abilities makes them less confident which in turn confirms their negative beliefs. Most of their energy is then spent figuring out who did wrong and who is to blame.
This exercise helps to break this cycle by highlighting that everyone has certain resources and strengths that they can tap into. When a person doesn’t see his strengths, he starts to develop a defeatist personality. This exercise helps bring positive strengths and qualities to surface, kick starting a more positive view of life.
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