Appraisal
Training Exercises and Resources

This uplifting and extremely positive exercise is suitable for a group of people who know each other well. The exercise helps delegates appreciate and reinforce each other’s positive traits. It is known that some people get quite positively affected by this exercise and tend not to forget the results they get; sometimes for years.

This is a great exercise for a team that has been working together for a while and you want to bring them even closer and make them appreciate each other’s inputs.

This exercise is also ideal for kids as they get to reinforce each other’s qualities. Often kids are unaware of their traits or don’t yet know the significance on others. The exercise brings this out and helps them become more experienced on what people consider as positive traits and what other see or don’t see in them.

While managing a team you may give a series of tasks to various team members. Each time you delegate a task, you expect a member to perform and deliver results. This leads to the concept of accountability. A well-functioning team must be held accountable for what it does. This exercise is designed to help increase accountability of team members by providing a practical system that can be implemented and used on a daily basis.

Note that this is not an exercise to go through in a training course; instead it is a system to implement. The following description covers the application which can be used for a team with any background or industry.

Fast forward to an imaginary future. You are receiving a standing ovation. The applause does not seem to stop. People admire you and your achievement. You are the centre of attention at this moment.

Full immersion in this simple visualisation can create a wonderful and positive feeling. This exercise helps to turn this energy into something that will benefit people by getting them closer to this dream.

This technique is particularly useful for those who might be wondering what they want to do in life or thinking that what they are currently doing is not what they want to do forever. By focusing on an emotional event such as receiving a standing ovation, you can focus their thoughts towards what they truly like as opposed to getting carried away by their current limitations or past direction.

Some questions are meant to increase our awareness about where we are and encourage us to learn from our experience. However, the way a question is formulated can make a huge difference in what you get out of it. This is applicable both to asking the question as a trainer or asking the question from yourself when self-reflecting.

In fact, there is a class of such questions called reflections on past performance. Here, you will be introduced to these questions and will see how to formulate them correctly for the best results.

To start, consider the following questions...

When first presented with new ideas, many seem to be quick to highlight the potential problems with the idea rather than focusing on its potential. This attitude often leads to destructive criticism which can be particularly ineffective in brainstorming sessions and meeting. This exercise helps to highlight the negative aspects of destructive criticism and how positive feedback can significantly boost enthusiasm and encourage further contribution. Delegates also learn how to formulate their negative feedback as constructive feedback during this exercise.

Positive feedback can have a dramatic effect. In this exercise, delegates will learn to appreciate the power of positive feedback, however small, when it is provided repeatedly during the course of a conversation. The aim of the exercise is to be thought provoking so you can then continue with a session on giving appropriate positive feedback. As a result it is ideal to go through this exercise at the beginning of a session on giving feedback.

The core idea in this exercise is that one person has a particular goal in mind and uses that goal to direct the conversation to a particular topic. The conversation is directed to a new topic using positive feedback.  

This is a simple yet powerful exercise in getting people to share their perception about others. Sometimes seeing the world from another person’s point of view can have a significant benefit for us. This exercise facilitates this process and is most ideal for delegates who know each other so you can use this as part of a team building course.

This activity allows people to help each other anonymously. Sometimes we may feel stuck or wonder what we could do to improve our behaviour or skills. We may however not feel comfortable to directly ask others about them. This exercise sets the scene for people to open up and help each other without fear of being wrong or obvious.

This exercise helps delegates to better understand each other and also gives them an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback. It is a rather simple exercise though can be quite revealing as people get to understand what others think of them. The exercise works best when a lot of people are involved (for better anonymity) and who know each other well (for better feedback).

This is a suitable exercise for getting people in a team to express their feelings about each other but in a very indirect and controlled way. It also gives delegates a chance to see how others think of them. It also helps them to discover how much they know about other people’s view of them. This exercise is suitable for a group of delegates who know each other.