Team Building Leadership Blog - Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse Team Building Leadership

Come to the new site Create-Learning.com/Blog

2012-01-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

This blog has moved and all the great old & new stuff is at http://create-learning.com/blog

come and join us!

How to Lead Awesome Team-Building Programs. E-Book

2010-12-01T16:44:00.001-05:00

Did you ever wonder “How does one lead AWESOME team-building programs? The ones that ensure that content and learning take place. A teambuilding program that is fun, and teams leave better than when they arrived?”

Now you can find out.

In this 55 page E-book you will find applicable strategies, team-building activities, facilitation, de-briefing, and processing activities + theory that you can use immediately.

Content sections:

Theory Based Facilitation and Experiential Learning;

Providing a theoretical foundation to leading team-building programs. In this section you will learn – Ideas and practical applications of team-building, instructional design, and hands-on learning.

Question based facilitation and Experiential Learning

Over 10 different techniques for using questions for learning, and applying content to the team-building and experiential programs.
Many, many, many questions that will engage and allow the content learning and team-building to stick
Hand-outs that you can use immediately in your programs and meetings
Interactive learning activities that use questions to enhance your presentation, and team-development

Activity Based Facilitation and Experiential Learning

Learning by doing…making de-briefing and processing fun! If you are new or you are a seasoned veteran the activity based facilitation of team-building programs will make your programs better and you be the BEST facilitator possible.

Questions? Contact Mike…

to purchase click here

The Party is over – Join the fun at our new location

2010-05-26T12:36:00.001-04:00

Here is what you are missing – The Grass is Greener and you will be smarter here!

Create-Learning Team Building & Leadership Blog

Leaders Combine Challenge to achieve greatness
Team Building Activities & Application to Work – Nail Puzzle
Cereal Management Continuum
Questions I like to ask prior to developing a proposal for Team Building / Leadership / Innovation / Coaching Processes
Pipeline – Team Building Activity
Leadership Development Process, a Success Story!

You still here? The Blog has moved.

2010-04-10T09:03:00.001-04:00

Mike moved the blog to this new place – http://create-learning.com/blog

Here is what you have missed;

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED!

2010-03-24T19:00:00.001-04:00

Please come with me to the NEW BLOG LOCATION

http://create-learning.com/blog/

Change your RSS Readers and come to the new blog & Create-Learning website

Thank you for allowing me to serve your Team Building & Leadership needs.

And come to the NEW site with even more amazing content and ideas to share….

Michael Cardus

STAR Method for Facilitation & Processing

2010-03-06T17:29:00.001-05:00

The STAR method is a behavioral interviewing method that organizations use to explore predictors of future performance. The idea is this that most accurate indicator of future performance is past performance in a similar situation.

This STAR method can also be used for processing (de-briefing) a team building and learning simulation.

Here is the Model – from MIT Careers Office

STAR Method

Situation: give an example of a situation you were involved in that resulted in a positive outcome

Task: describe the tasks involved in that situation

Action: talk about the various actions involved in the situation’s task

Results: what results directly followed because of your actions

The use of open ended questions and ability for reflection fit into the Experiential Learning Model where learning and transferable application of skills is processed.

Here is my alternative facilitation processing application of the STAR method.

The team completes a team building activity, then the facilitator guides the team in the following manner;

Situation: What from the (situation) experience resulted in a positive outcome?

Task: Describes the tasks (steps, processes, planning, etc…) involved that resulted in that positive outcome.

Action: share with the team your personal actions involved in the task (steps, processes, planning, etc…) the personal action is used because every person experiences differently. Once the individual contributors share their knowledge a deeper pool of team knowledge can be constructed to read more about this

Results: Describe the results. How can we transfer these team & personal actions that led to these results back to your team (organization, community, family, etc…)? List the action steps that can be taken to implement the new actions (learnings, skills, communication, etc…).

Michael Cardus

Create-Learning New LOGO

2010-03-02T15:39:00.001-05:00

Laura and Matt at 12Grain Studio have been creating some amazing new branding and identity work for me over the past couple months.

You will notice the new blog title image and above is the new logo…what are your thoughts? likes / dislikes?

Soon a re-launch of the Create-Learning Website (I will keep you all informed)

Also the blog will be moving to a new site and location once all that is complete and I am ready for the reveal I will send notice.

Thank you all for allowing me to serve and facilitate you, your teams and organizations, and I look forward to many more great years sharing and creating new ideas with you.

Mike Cardus

Corporate Team Building for Collaboration

2010-02-26T18:53:00.001-05:00

Above is an image from a Corporate Team Building Program

Following a content training on inter-department collaborative project planning with a step-by-step action plans for enhanced collaboration on team projects including the following steps:

Purpose
Vision
Inventory
Goals
Action Steps
Resources
Communication
Execution
Followup

The teams were challenged to get into mixed department teams and place their collaboration project plans into action.

Gutterball
Gutterball offers insights into the needs that different team members have for information and detail, how people like to work in either a structured or unstructured approach to problem solving and change, and how quickly and slowly people are willing to move ahead with a plan based on how much they know and understand about the solution.

Michael Cardus

Decision Making Methods for Team Effectiveness

2010-02-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Decision Making Methods for Teams

While a decision within organizations often relies upon facts and data, teams must agree upon a method for making decisions based upon the data. Ensuring that the decisions made are done with a process and purpose that the team can utilize to make the best possible decision with the given facts and data.

There are many different decision making styles, two methods must be chosen to serve as guideposts for decisions made. The primary method must be agreed to by the team and a back up method must also be chosen. The methods can and will vary upon the people and stakeholders making the decision as well as the knowledge of the facts and data that the team possesses when making the decision.

Below is a decision making spectrum as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Authoritarian
Authoritarian decision making is a decision that is placed within the hands of one person who chooses quickly and without regard for input from others. Typically this method is utilized when either there is a crisis and calls for an immediate decision or when the decision is mundane in nature.

Advantages and uses;
•    Quick decision made when the leader may possess more information than those being affected by the decision.
•    When the authority figure has the trust and “best interest” of those who are affected by the decision.
•    The speed of the decision being made, decision can be made quickly
•    Decision is not watered down with compromises

Disadvantages;
•    Decision lacks involvement of those who are affected
•    Those affected have decreased chance of “buy in” to decision made
•    Chance of incorrect decision based upon poor judgment and incorrect facts

Consultative
Consultative decision making is the type where decision making power is in the hands of one person and the person actively solicits the ideas, suggestions, and opinions of others.

Advantages;
• People who are affected by the decision are sought out for their input, allowing for greater buy-in to the ultimate decision made.
• By seeking input from varied sources a better and more knowledgeable decision can be made

Disadvantages;
•    It takes longer
•    Buy-in of the ultimate decision with the consultative method only occurs if your input is finally decided on by the decision maker
•    If the decision maker already has a pre-determined choice in mind and is only “going through the motions” showing a false consultative style, this method backfires rapidly.

Consensus
Many misconceptions haunt consensus; it is not a tool in total agreement among the team, nor is it a type of voting.
Consensus is a decision making method where all parties involved have input of the decision to be made and whatever agreement is reached (i.e., compromise) will not be sabotaged by the team.

Advantages;
•    Full participation by the entire team; involves total involvement of the team
•    Total participation increases buy-in to the decision made
•    With input from the total team the ultimate decision is not made until there is agreement therefore showing total buy-in from all team members.

Disadvantages;
• Necessitating buy-in from the total team take a longer time frame
• Final decision made are often “watered down”

Majority Vote
Consensus will often prove to not be a viable option. Therefore a backup is needed; usually majority vote is a suitable back up. Majority voting is rarely ever used as the primary decision making method.

Advantages;
• Decision can made with a less watered down solution
• Speed of decision can be increased, following a lengthy consensus process

Disadvantages;
• Voting creates winners and losers
• Those who lose may be more inclined to sabotage the decision, creating the possibility that whatever decision reached will not be properly implemented.

100% Agreement
It is a rarity when a diverse team is asked to make a decision that 100% agreement is ever truly reached.
Thus it is strongly recommended that this method should never be used, not even as a back-up.

Michael Cardus

Team Building Consultant | Trainer | Facilitator; 3 Overlapping Roles for Success

2010-02-16T11:28:00.000-05:00

Team Building consultants generally use three overlapping, but distinct roles. Each role mentioned below keeps the learning and Team training meaningful, self-reflective, team-reflective, and fun!
The overlapping of roles are best summarized in the explanation below:

• Consultant. In this role, he establishes and maintains contact with the client, jointly assesses the client's situation, elicits information, designs programs, serves as confidant and adviser to the primary client contact.

• Trainer. In this role, he sets the tone of the training, then communicates, educates and improvises as he orchestrates and delivers the content through a sequence of activities and facilitated group discussion

• Facilitator. In this role, he leads the debriefings [processing], engaging and challenging participants to dig for deeper meaning, mediating disagreements and pushing for ever-greater clarity and understanding.

Each of these roles is inter-dependent upon each other. For example if the training lacks the full "buy-in" or approval of the primary client contact, (usually Executive Level, Team Leader, or a Supervisor in some capacity), the program will fail to reach a higher level of success and fail to have a long term effect on the team and the participants within the team.

It is imperative that a discussion takes place between the Team Building Consultant and the client contact. All parties need to reach an agreement on how the program will progress, what objectives and goals are going to be reached as well as how to follow up the Team training program.

What if the client contact is unclear about what objectives and goals to be reached? That is where the Team Building Consultant should meet, process and enable the client contact to better see and understand what it is that really needs to be addressed in the training session. If the Team Building Consultant can not facilitate a discussion to lead to clarity on goals and objectives both parties, the consultant and the client, should agree to go elsewhere.

Additionally during the training new evidence of inter-behavioral barriers may present themselves and the program takes an unexpected turn. This is when the true test of a trainer's ability becomes evident.

Does the facilitator choose to stay the course and work on the pre-defined objectives?
Does the trainer choose to go in a different direction and follow what has just arisen?
Does the trainer have the skills, knowledge and abilities to in a synergistic fashion meld both together?

Experienced Team Building Consultants have been in all three situations and the answer really is "YES". It all depends on the situation at hand.

That is why when choosing a team building consultant and team building company an organization must research and feel comfortable with the qualifications of the facilitator.
Some questions to ask team building companies are as simple as;

who are your facilitators?
Can you tell me an example of a program you have lead that is like our situation?
Can you supply me with a list of sample questions you ask during the debrief [processing]?
Give us a specific example of a program you have created that was a success? A failure?
Can you provide my organization with a written proposal or agenda of what will be accomplished during our team training?

An effective team building consultant has the ability to move seamlessly through the consultant; trainer; and facilitator role. This comes from experience and Team Building consultants who are well educated and trained, in several fields. Choose the right consultant and who puts your team and success first.
*
*
Michael Cardus

photo by Kecko

5 Questions for Processing Team Building Initiatives

2010-02-15T14:06:00.001-05:00

5 Questions for Processing;

1) Did you notice…..? by opening with a closed ended question you give the group a common starting point, this opening question will set the tone, if possible keep it a positive observation.

As a facilitator take special notice to what is happening, this is challenging and takes practice. Pay attention to the power dynamics, who is taking the lead and who is following, watch body language active and inactive movements, additionally focus on how topics are being addressed and spoken about the tonal culture of a group will give you some great starting points.

2) Why did that happen? or What factors led to that happening? or How does something like that happen? all variations on the why did the 1^st question that was noticed happen. Allow group members to discuss keep them at the current position, DO NOT GET AHEAD keep the focus on why that happened in that activity. Allow what you feel is sufficient amount of time, when the energy drops and the group is silent for ~45 seconds move on…

3) Does that happen in life? or Does that happen in the office, classroom, playing field, team meetings? insert proper context to question based upon who you are working with.

Returning to a closed ended question will again give the group a common concept to think about. At this point you are transferring the program to their lives moving into the conceptual concrete of the learning.

4) Why does that happen? or What factors lead to that happening? or How does that happen in office, classroom, life, etc…?

Now returning to an open ended question…facilitating the group to a convergent thought of the activity in a context of their lives and workplaces.

5) How can we apply this?

At this point challenge the group to find the connections and develop some action plans on learning and transference of gained skills, techniques and behaviors can return to work with them.

Michael Cardus

Idea from: Open to Outcome (Jacobson & Ruddy 2004)

Leadership Levels have Different Indicators of Success

2010-02-13T09:51:00.001-05:00

An amazing graphic representation of the indicators of successful leadership necessities.

Illustrating that as people progress through their leadership careers the skills they need do not remain static.

At the executive level, for example, directive leadership actually played a negative role. Empowering leadership is what is required at this level. Although a top-down, command and- control approach proved to be counterproductive, neither supportiveness nor abrasiveness differentiated the effectiveness of executives at this level. That is, interpersonal skills are not as important at the top as they are at other managerial levels. Interestingly, work-life balance proved to correlate negatively with effectiveness, confirming what most executives already assume: anything less than full devotion to the job may compromise results….to read original article from Korn / Ferry Briefings on Talent & Leadership.

One area that is common to all is a need for the skill in “Learning Agility”. This indicates that for effective leadership (as well in life) the ability to learn and apply the new learning is across the board is necessary.

Does your leadership culture encourage learning agility?

What are your thoughts about the negative indicator of the work / life balance of executive leaders?

Graph from Korn / Ferry Briefings on Talent & Leadership.

Michael Cardus

Leadership Development Process Program

2010-02-09T18:17:00.001-05:00

Leadership Development Process

“People join organizations;
People leave bad bosses.”

Create-Learning’s Leadership Development Process is developed, customized, and focused on you and your leaders to ensure the greatest return on investment.

Available to Individuals and Organizations contact Mike to flourish as a leader

Within the process examples and case studies from your organization are used to train, create, facilitate and increase leadership.

The mix of learning simulations, personality profiles, 360° feedback processes, organizational leadership examples, Leadership Coaching and the knowledge shared by the participants make this leadership program able to supply people with immediate skills, practices and techniques that can be utilized within their teams, organizations, home lives and communities.

Within the Leadership Process people learn the emotional, organizational, and professional skills to be the leader that people look to as the reason to remain with your organization.

Equaling trusted leaders, increased effectiveness of work teams, increased ability to leverage available time and team members’ time, increased retention of team members, utilization and maximization of resources and staffing.

Outcomes to leaders from the Leadership Process;
•    Ability to properly implement process and people leadership
•    Tools for the measurement of team effectiveness
•    When, How to, and why to use tools for the measurement of team effectiveness
•    Effective development and placement of people on High Functioning Teams
•    How to establish and guide team processes
•    Effective skills, and techniques to coach team members
•    How to coach and re-focus underperforming team members
•    Leaders are able to reflect upon their own behaviors and able to adjust accordingly based upon what team and whom they are leading.

How does it work?
• The process lasts for 6 months

• Leadership Process meetings twice a month

• Leadership Coaching Sessions individually with each person once a month

• Monthly field assignments that are real organizational applications of Leadership

• Creation and utilization of a private invite only website for the Leadership Process Participants to post their field assignment results, share information and best practices, comment on each other’s progress, and to serve as an organizational best practice leadership tool.

• Each Leadership Process Participant plans, implements, refines, and presents a Leadership Project.

Once you are ready to Flourish as a Leader and / or develop an organizational culture of Flourishing Leaders contact Mike and take action to reach your potential as a Leader!

Mike has won the 6 Sigma Commenter Award for the 2nd Year in a ROW!

2010-02-06T14:17:00.001-05:00

On Wed., Feb. 3, iSixSigma Live! presented its annual awards breakfast honoring the companies and individuals who have successfully applied strong practices and achieved breakthrough results through continuous improvement. The morning began with the iSixSigma MVP Awards, recognizing the voluntary contributions to the Six Sigma community through the iSixSigma Discussion Forum, Blogosphere and Twitter. The winners for 2009 were:

Most Prolific Poster on the iSixSigma Discussion Forum: Stan

Most Helpful Poster on the iSixSigma Discussion Forum: Robert Butler

Best Blogger on the iSixSigma Blogosphere: Sue Kozlowski (for the second year in a row!)

Best Commenter on the iSixSigma Blogosphere: Michael Cardus

For the 2nd year in a row – I have won the 6 Sigma Blog commenter of the year – It is great just to be nominated, and to win 2 years in a row is a point of pride for me!

Especially as I am presenting at the Buffalo NY, ASQ (American Standard for Quality) to present a workshop at their conference in October of 2010 on Team Building (development) for 6 Sigma Projects.

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Analog Planning for 6 Sigma Team Building Workshop

2010-02-03T22:24:00.002-05:00

While talking with a group last week, I was asked how I plan team building & leadership programs. Analog – on a chalk board in my office, following a discussion with the decision makers and stakeholders in the program spending on average 8-12 hours planning (depending on the length and objective of the program).
Recently I was invited by the Buffalo NY, ASQ (American Standard for Quality) to present a workshop at their conference in October of 2010 on Team Building (development) for 6 Sigma Projects.
Re-learning much of my green belt training and reading some great books on process management, 6 Sigma and Team Building. It has been FUN!
So the point of the picture is to plan without the computer – meaning that before you sit in front of and even turn on the computer list list your ideas on the black board. This method is very effective and very tactile (also experiential)
By writing your ideas on a large board and examining them from various perspectives you are able to create a neurological connection that makes the material come alive. Try this next time you are planning a project or a presentation. Instead of going right to power point or writing it in a document take about 2 to 4 hours and write it on a chalk board, white board, paper whatever you can find. This method of visually exploring it in a medium that is not digital will make you a better presenter and facilitator.
Also it will give your material the needed spark of life that make it interesting and compelling, so go analog on paper then if you need to transcribe it to the computer.

Michael Cardus

CREATE-LEARNING

2010-02-02T20:02:00.002-05:00

The create-learning website is currently under re-construction
I will continue to blog and keep you informed
With a planned re-launch in March 2010!
Michael Cardus

Plan Plus Process – Shout out by FRAGMNT.TV

2010-02-01T17:30:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Steven J Barker of Fragmnt.tv for the mention in his podcast.

Check it out and tell him what you think about planning….

Michael Cardus

Hard Skills Depend Upon Soft Skills

2010-02-01T09:30:00.001-05:00

I was consulting / facilitating with a large utility company in New York, we were focusing on adapting Kouzes & Posner’s The Leadership Challenge to complement their existing leadership development program.

The above image is of an activity I call “Hard Edge and Soft Middles”, I led this initiative as a table top simulation to connect the content piece of how our communication, emotional intelligence, delegation, empathy and other skills are the foundations of process effectiveness. The leaders (until the point of our de-brief) were having a challenging time transferring the idea of the “Leadership Challenge” and facilitative leadership style vs. a command and control style that was being used too heavily within the teams.

The discussion following was in-line with the need to determine relevancy of the companies work, great examples and techniques to Enable others to act and how to Encourage the Heart of the leaders and those on the teams.

How do you deliver content that enables people to transfer a “soft skill” (people skill) into a “hard skill” (process skill)?

What steps can be used to connect the pieces?

Michael Cardus

Leadership – Vision + Time Management

2010-01-30T19:02:00.001-05:00

Brian co-facilitating the time management section of a Leadership Development Program for a group in Buffalo NY.

Acceptable Criteria Increases Effects

2010-01-28T08:52:00.001-05:00

“The Gods do not quarrel about length and weight of such matters, but about good and justice. Where there are acceptable criteria (rules of measurement for instance) for settling disputes wars are unlikely.

But where there are apparently insolvable disagreements, involving appeal to differing standards, might may seem the only way that can make right”

Socrates point in Euthyphro (7b-d)

Examine conflicts and agreements currently within your teams, has a rule of measurement an acceptable criteria been established?

Was the measurement of quality work and time frame agreed in actions and words?

Are you attempting to force your might to make right upon the teams’ systems.

Do you have conflicts and a feeling of we must force our will to make them understand then examine what rules of measurement (metrics, performance evaluations, systemic processes, behavior, normative culture, etc…) are clearly defined and measured.

Once the acceptable criteria is established disputes can be held against the criteria that was established and then team members can avoid disputes and remain effective.

What sources of criteria are you using?

What criteria is implicit and what is explicit?

How do you know that that your implicit criteria is the same of others’ implicit criteria?

Team Membership Program

2010-01-26T18:49:00.001-05:00

Team Membership Program

Utilizing the Team Dimensions Profile

The Team membership program will help the participants understand the way they prefer to work.

This is accomplished by the participants gaining insight to work from their strengths by identifying their most natural team role, while giving them appreciation for the contribution of others.

The profile identifies the following five team roles; Creators, Advancers, Refiners, Executors, Flexors. After the team defines their roles examination of a profile map for assigning roles, completing tasks and handing off tasks to other team members through the “Z Process” is discovered. In this relay process tasks are passed from Creators to advancers, from advancers to refiners, and from refiners to executors – flexors fill in the gaps to keep the process moving forward.

The team will have a common language and understanding of a process to

innovate
problem-solve
reduce cycle time (Process Improvement)
understanding and capitalizing on individual approaches to group processes to develop high performance results

The Team Dimensions Profile works by;

• Matching individual strength with team roles
• Building team unity
• Fostering innovation
• Shortening Project Cycle Time
• Reducing Conflict

Complementing the Team Dimension Profile Create-Learning will lead content based experiential-facilitated discussions and simulations to connect the relevance of team membership and leadership reflection to the team and workplace.

The participants will have an understanding of;

Successful resolution of team conflict
How to delegate and ensure commitment of responsibilities to team members
How to determine team member strengths and weaknesses

Your Content Means Nothing

2010-01-26T07:59:00.001-05:00

Attention trainers, facilitators, speakers, consultants and people involved in providing services

YOUR CONTENT MEANS NOTHING!

If people want information they Google it – if they want to read and watch a 70 slide power point on time management it can be found on-line for free.

If they want to learn about communication they can buy one of the many books available.

STOP fooling yourself to think that your content is what make you special it is YOU that provides value and makes you valuable.

People find value in;

Your knowledge

Experience

Personality

Ability to transfer learning into their organization

The trust they have that your service will improve their lives, leadership, families, employees, teams

So instead of offering the same workbook you created in 1980 (when content had value) customize your materials to add value to their organization. By customization I mean that you change the content and make it applicable and special just for them. I have seen “customization” by other consultants and all that is customized is placing the companies name in the footer. This is not customization.

Customization is examining how what you are providing is making that specific group better, going through the materials and how you will lead the program and learning about their unique people, culture, behaviors, actions, mission, language and creating new content that is specifically for the group you are providing value too.

Remember – YOUR CONTENT IS NOT OF VALUE

Team Building Pitfalls

2010-01-23T10:12:00.001-05:00

My friend Anne Thornley-Brown of Corporate Team-Building and I have been speaking about team building and how to lead successful team development programs for some time now.

In her latest blog post Top 10 Team Building Pitfalls she lists areas of focus for any organization (corporate, community, youth, etc…) ought to be thoughtful of…you can read each of these in greater detail on Anne’s Blog;

Failing to allocate sufficient time for planning
Scheduling your session to end on a day before your weekend
Choosing your venue before you have determined the content of your team building session
Failing to stay where you intend to play
Not factoring in the impact of weather and allowing extra time to get to your venue.
Failing to allocate more time for your session if your group is highly analytical
Not leaving wiggle time in your agenda
Not giving people enough down time
Failing to have an emergency plan
Not scheduling checkpoints with your facilitator and involving your facilitator in problem solving

I would like to add one extra step – Constantly challenging your facilitator (team building provider) with the question of “How does this apply back to our work?”

A team building consultant (and not recreation specialist) will be able to facilitate, process, and empower your team to connect the dots and determine the relevance of what is being done to how it will improve their team. You are paying for a program that is meant to increase team work and in turn make your organization more productive and successful. This requires purposeful discussions and initiatives that explore behaviors, habits, actions and processes that are embedded in the team. When the team building facilitator is working with the team every step, every process, every initiative, should have content and purpose that is focused on your team and goals.

A drum circle is great although beating a drum next to a co-worker is not going to create a stronger team unless there is a discussion about; How does this apply back to our work? The facilitator must be able to answer this at every part of the program.

Constantly challenge the facilitator with the question “How does this apply back to our work?”

Team Leadership Program – Case Study

2010-01-18T11:22:00.001-05:00

Team Leadership Program

Team Leadership Program Situation Summary:

Create-Learning was contracted to develop a Leadership and Social Development programs for 15 people at the director and manager level of a retail operation.

The average age of the participants was 36, the average experience in the retail field is 10 years.

The leaders would benefit from experiential programming to enhance teamwork and effective membership within a team.

With a focal point on leadership based context of social & emotional intelligence, for internal teams (staff members, direct reports, supervisors) as well as external customers (customers, vendors, suppliers, etc…)

The Retail Directors & Managers are all driven, focused and intelligent.

When you have driven individuals the focus on the team and purpose of the project can be lost.

Once the purpose of the project is lost the learning and overall productivity of the individuals decrease.

The directors and managers are in need of skills, tools, and techniques to be high functioning team leaders as well as the emotional intelligences to effectively lead as a team member and function as a member of the leadership team.

High Functioning defined as - all individuals are committed in words and actions to the teams; Purpose, Decision Making, Expectations, Resources and Process.

Objectives for Team Leadership Program:

· Increasing leadership skills

· Directors & Managers to have a common language of Team-Membership and leadership

· Completion and report of a Leadership Project

· Develop skill sets in

Effective behaviors of Team-Membership
How to develop teams and team goals
Ability to properly implement process and people leadership
Tools for the measurement of team effectiveness
When, How to, and why to use tools for the measurement of team effectiveness
Effective development and placement of people on High Functioning Teams
For leaders to reflect upon their own behaviors and learn to adjust accordingly depending on the team that they are asked to lead and be a part of.

Value of Team Leadership Program:

· Trusted leaders

· Increased effectiveness of work teams

· Increased ability to leverage available time and team members’ time

· Increased retention of team members

· Utilization and maximization of resources and staffing.

Team Leadership Program Methodology:

Create-Learning facilitated 40 hours of programming (Utilized over a 6-month period)

Within these programs the leaders were engaged in experiential, content based programming.

The content covered;

Team-Membership - Individual, Social and Team accountabilities of team members
Leadership - Based upon the 6 Primal Leadership styles. Participants gained tools in what the styles are, when each style is most effective, how to spot other peoples style and how to fill the gaps in the styles.
Transference - guided hands-on application and relevance of Team and Leadership theory. Empowering the leaders to find applicable uses for the Team-Membership and Leadership styles.

Create-Learning used experiential learning simulations with small group content delivery to ensure lasting learning from the programs.

Additionally each of the 15 leaders had to propose, design, develop and institute a leadership project within their existing team. The projects guidelines were as follows;

Must utilize existing resources (no extra money and / or staff, etc…)
Must include staff (delegation, goal setting, decision making, problem solving, coaching)
Must be in-line with organizations mission, values, and culture
Must be measureable

Outcomes:

The leadership team was able to reduce overtime, increase the average sale to the customer and increase the average sales commission of team members. This was accomplished by the leadership team examining its existing processes and re-organizing the process to return maximum results.
Employee satisfaction (results gathered from employee surveys) increased, showing that leadership was better at developing strengths and creating challenging yet achievable goals for teams and team members.
The leaders were able to create a system for employees to fill in shifts at other locations. This system enabled the organization to maximize employee and leadership time as well as lessen burn out and stress amongst team members.

All Leadership programs are customized and developed for your unique organization.

Contact us to discuss and create a customized Leadership Program for your team!

Pass the Bottle – Team Building Activity

2010-01-17T17:26:00.002-05:00

Pass the Bottle to your name

Props Needed:

Dry erase markers
Stop watch
One less water bottle than participants, If you have 8 participants you need 7 water bottles.

Group Size:

8 - 12, you can have multiple circles going at one time

Instructions:
Ask the participants to stand in a circle. There should be one less water bottle that participants; i.e. 8 participants 7 water bottles.
Ask the participants, with a dry erase marker, to write their names on all the bottles within the circle (the dry erase marker will rub off and end up on the participant’s hands).

First Round:

Ask the participants to pass the bottles to their left one full time around the circle, the bottle that starts with you ends with you. While they pass the bottle from one person to the next they must say the name of the person they are passing the bottle too.
Have them pass the bottle several more times, until you feel that they are comfortable with all the participants’ names.

Second Round:

Ask them to now choose somebody across the circle from them, BUT do not let this person know you chose them. When you say “GO” the participant goes and stands in the place of the person they secretly chose.
“GO” once they are in place explain the instructions.

For the 2^nd round the participants will physically walk and hand the bottle to the person who in the first round they passed it to, and then take that persons space.

For example in round 1 Mike passed to Sue, Sue passed to Frank, Frank passed to Leticia etc…

Round two follows the same passing formation as the 1^st round, the difference is you must now walk the bottle to the person and hand it to them. After the participants hands off the bottle they take the spot of the person they handed to bottle to. For example Mike now stands in Sue’s place, Sue now stands in Frank’s place, Frank now stands in Leticia’s place etc…

Participants can only change their location when the bottles are exchanged. They cannot move people around between rounds.

Additionally tell the participants that you are timing them to see how fast this can be accomplished.
Have the participants go, keeping time of how quickly they complete the activity.

Third Round

Same guidelines as round two minus choosing a participant in secret and moving.
Give the participants 2-3 minutes to plan how they can accomplish the task faster.
Following the 2-3 minutes, yell “GO” and start your watch.
Once they are done announce their time.

Final Round

Same guidelines as round three.
This time ask the participants to set a goal of how fast they can accomplish the task as team. There must be a consensus on the goal time.

Give the participants 5-8 minutes to choose a goal and plan how to achieve it.
Following the 5-8 minutes, yell “GO” and start the watch

Once they are done announce their time.
*feel free to lead more rounds if you feel the team wants to. I have found that after 4 rounds they have had enough of Pass the Bottle to your name.

Processing:

- What strategies did the group use for an effective solution?
- What was the consequence(s) of change during the activity?
- How did the group develop solutions to the changes and exchanges within the activity?
- What strategies worked? what did not?
- What ideas does the group have for dealing with change when it happens?

Facilitator Notes:

This activity works effectively on two points; a) learning names in a hectic environment, b) working as a group to plan and adjust to changes.
While facilitating this activity observe how some team members are able to be “early adapters” - they are open and ready to take on any change. They do not care that change is happening they just want to do something.
The other mode that team members fall into is the “late adapter” - they do not and will not accept change until they fully understand what is going on. They freeze in chaos, observing these traits will aid the facilitator in processing and planning further actions with the group.

Idea From:
An activity called “Change up” that I learned at a Project Adventure Training I attended.

Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning

Feedback and Analysis of Processes within Service Industries

2010-01-12T11:55:00.000-05:00

Processes are made up of Machines, Materials, Methods, Measurement, Mother Nature (the environment), and the People in the process. These factors are called 5m's and 1p.

Within service businesses the predominant source of problems are within the methods being used.

The challenge with the feedback and question process is 2 fold.

1) Being able (when you ask question and provide feedback) to clearly identify which part of the process is the 'cause variation' = which combination and /or 5m & 1p is creating the process variation.

2) If it is the person then feedback as far as behaviors are explored (bad hygiene, lack of professional demeanor, etc..) these are not from the 5m's.

If it is one of the 5m's then ensuring that you are exploring the (m) that is the factor.

If it is the Methods being used for example using a donkey to deliver mail from one office location to another this method may not be the most effective in delivering mail. So an examination of the method is needed. Now the staff who care for, feed, and ride the donkey (the 1p) will and may feel threatened when you explain the we are examining the method for mail distribution.

While they are working very hard and feeding the donkey the best food possible and maximizing and shortening routes and route time they are doing exactly what the Process calls for.

Although you will (most likely) change your mail process method, and when it is changed the Donkey Care and work staff will have to change, and learn new processes to utilize the new 5m's you have put into place.

The important thing is to be sure to do all that you can to examine the 5m's & 1p to root cause where the process is not being effective. And as stated earlier in the service sector predominately it is the Methods being used, not the People.

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building

asphyxiation from apathy

2010-01-11T20:39:00.000-05:00

Here is a short snippet of a conversation I had, the names are changed to protect the innocent;

Me - Walk me through how the delegation project went.
Sam - I do not know where to start
Me - where are you feeling the strongest? What steps are you moving towards?
Sam - Steps! This has been happening for so long and I cannot act until it is perfect
Me - when will you know it is perfect?
Sam - once I can understand the reasons that my team is acting this way.
Me - Act in what way?
Sam - ways that are not perfect....I am beginning to feel apathetic towards them and now I am working greater hours and delegating less.
Me - What is happening to your passion for work?
Sam - Mike, did you not just hear me....I am strangling myself in the apathy of my team!

The conversation goes on - although I am going to stop it for you here.

You can never draw a perfect triangle; no matter how much you try to create the perfect triangle in all its triangle-ness will never be achieved.

And even when you manage to believe you have a perfect triangle it will still not be perfect - because even measuring devices to measure its perfectness are not perfect.

STOP - Believing that perfection is actionable!

So what do you do once you are "Strangled in apathy" you move! You find a step and you take it - you start and as you progress you build the strength and continue.

You have to start somewhere - why not now?
If you are happy with Apathy then be happy alone....
It is time to supply yourself with the oxygen you need to breathe and start building upon the passions that move success forward in a succession loop, and break the doom loop off from the trap that apathy creates.

It is a great time to breath, and put the "I' back into "team"

Step 1) Identify the conflict
Step 2) Identify your strengths
Step 3) Do something.

Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning

TeamBuilding & Leadership Images

2010-01-05T20:42:00.000-05:00

Favorite images of 2009!

The Corporate, College, Community, Classroom,

High Ropes, Low Ropes

Team Building and Leadership Development photos

that bring a smile to my face.

To see the album

-Michael Cardus of Create-Learning-Team Building

Thank You NASAGA

2009-12-29T18:49:00.000-05:00

Check out my blog post "Will friendship increase teamwork?"

featured on North American Simulation and Gaming Network.

North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA). We are a
growing network of professionals working on the design, implementation,
and evaluation of games and simulations to improve learning results in
all types of organizations.

Michael Cardus

Increase Purpose, Decision Making, Expectations, Resources and Process

2009-12-29T14:11:00.000-05:00

Below is a program outline for a 4 day training that I recently led.

In attendance were 25 Front Line Employees and 10 of the companies Leadership Team.

Over the 4 days the specific outcomes were;
- A focus, goals set, accountability recognized and action plans put into place to increase quality and productivity.
+ Leading to a decrease in wasted materials / resources and lost opportunity due to communication breakdowns and in-fighting.

- Increase in communication between shifts and between co-workers about work-related issues.
+ Leading to a decrease in over-lapping and repeated processes, as well as decreases in the amount of time needed for set up between and before shifts.

- Increase in team unity by getting the team to value the other team members and share information that will aid the team in success.
+ Leading to a decrease in lateness, absenteeism, and noticed decrease "us" vs. "them" mentality of Leadership and Front Line Workers.

Team-Building Program Outline:

Pre-Sessions – Introduce Mike Cardus to the team.
- All participants will take the DiSC assessment: DiSC Workshops. Overview of personal and team personality and behaviors.

DAY 1:
Open Program –
Who are we and why are we here (team and facilitators)
- Cover organizational; team; participant; facilitator Goals
- Team behaviors for the remaining programs – long term behaviors within workplace
- Intra-Department Team Listening & Speaking
- Inter-Department Team Listening & Speaking

DAY 2:
Revisit Goals and Behaviors as needed
- Tuckman’s stages of Group Development Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing-Adjourning
- Listening & Speaking for understanding of groups stage & implications on team planning
- Non-Verbal Communication skills & pitfalls on communication
- Stress & the effects on team performance and communication-skills to recognize stress within self & team members. Skills to listen & speak effectively within stressful interactions.

DAY 3:
Revisit goals & behaviors
How are we doing? What are you (the team) doing different?
- Sharing information for group success – breaking the “not my job philosophy”
- Creating group and team accountability – from the team leaders to the team members
- Conflict Styles – Competing; Collaborating; Compromising; Avoiding; Accommodating
- Using Conflict & Accountability to lower cycle time & increase throughput

DAY 4:
Revisit behaviors, communication (listening and speaking), Conflict-Accountability
- “Silo” development – how they can help and hinder individuals who make the teams.
- Shift to Team Goals and accomplishments – shifts working together for overarching organizational goals
- Overview of Team Performance Model
- Team & Personal action plans for the future
- PARTY! Team presentations celebration.
- Hand out certificates and award ceremony

FOLLOW UP: ~15 days after last session – done during shift times 60-90 minutes per shift
Revisit workshops and goals with teams
- What has changed within the teams (between shifts & within shifts)
- Reinforce information & Knowledge sharing
- Reinforce Team & Shift Accountability
- What do you (teams) feel you need more of from us (facilitators) from The Company for continued success?

All team building programs are customized and developed for your unique organization.
Contact us to discuss and create a customized indoor or outdoor TeamBuilding Program for your company & Team!

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Experience and Metaphors for learning

2009-12-24T18:19:00.000-05:00

Metaphor creates culture.

Experiential programs depend heavily upon metaphor for learning to take place.

By utilizing team building initiatives as a vehicle for the learning.

The concerns of metaphor and experience being wasted is when the content is not transferred into the experience.

For the initiative (which is serving as a metaphor) to develop a clear transfer, the facilitator is the central part in connecting the activity to the content to the process. This is accomplished by first beginining with the the individual; then moving to the team; and finishing with the organization.

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Thinking is Fun!

2009-12-13T19:55:00.000-05:00

I love this photo of Mystopher, the Camp Inquiry Kids, and me facilitating a program on Critical Thinking - relaxing in the Lycra Tube...
Looking forward to sunny days!

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Delegation – empowering others vs. power to command

2009-12-10T08:43:00.004-05:00

Delegation – empowering others vs. power to command

How much power to extend to team members and how much is retained by leaders?

Some leaders and managers view their role as authoritarian or or see themselves as a commander.

They might believe that their title gives them power over subordinates. What one might forget, is that perhaps giving power away accrues more power. This concept of gaining power can be accomplished by the sharing of goals.

Connecting this concept with my observations at work, I noticed the hard work managers put into maintaining their power over subordinates. Due to the lack of goal sharing, it is difficult for managers to empower employees.

In this case, delegation is power of command.

A solution for managers is to set shared goals or conditions so that team members do not feel the limits to their autonomy while management has assured that team members' actions are within desired parameters.

Team members desire a sense of control over their job and trust from the leaders. Therefore, managers must trust their team members to be able to delegate.

Trust is an essential tool for empowering others and gaining power.

A guest post from Nadia Fadonougbo - an Organizational Psychology Graduate Student

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

WorkPlace Department Perception - TeamBuilding Activity

2009-11-27T17:28:00.006-05:00

Organizational Perception Charts

Materials:
Multi-Colored markers
3 flip charts per department

Objective:
For team members to explore their perceptions of the other departments and for departments to explore their perceptions of other departments.

Additionally for departments to explain their role to people who are not in their department.

Preparation:
Prepare three flip chart pages per/dept and write the name of the department on the top of the flip chart paper.

Below the department title split each page into 3 sections and label these sections;
Feel free to alter any and all of these.

• High Points
• Low Points
• Goals

Tape these flip chart papers to the walls and allow plenty of room between papers for people to write and move around.

Instructions and Facilitator Script:
In a moment you are going to work as individuals on this following task.
You will see that we have affixed flip charts with each of the departments here today.
I am going to ask all of you to spend about 15 minutes walking to each department and listing what you feel are that departments;

• High Points
• Low Points
• Goals.

Please write on every department except the one you work for.
Please be honest and share your knowledge of the other departments.

Following the 15 minutes of writing on the flip charts please sit with your department, take down the flip chart papers about your department and spend about 10 minutes as a department discussing what others have written and perceive about your department.

Take time as a department and reflect and question each other as to why other people would perceive and not perceive these things about your team.

After the 10 minute discussion each department will have time to explore, clarify, define, and answer to what the perception of their department is.

Facilitator Notes:
With this be careful and ask the participants to keep an open mind.
If you feel that this will turn into a negative complaint-fest then DON’T DO IT.

Department and Teams can be insulted and challenged when faced with how others perceive what they do.
Work is a very personal thing to people, respect that and encourage the people to also respect that.
Do not rush this activity, allow it to move slow and take time.

Potential Processing Questions:
• What were some key items that you noticed during this time?
• What areas of our work could our own teams be blind too?
• How can we increase the knowledge of what is happening inside the organization?
• What are some factors that cause departments to have incorrect perceptions?
• In what ways can this incorrect perception affect our organization?
• How can we change this?
• How can knowledge of other departments high points, low points, Goals, etc… enhance our work and increase customer satisfaction?
• What are we going to do with this knowledge?
• What actions can we take when in the office to change these perceptions?

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

TeamBuilding Consulting

2009-11-27T11:00:00.004-05:00

A great post in Alan Weiss's blog Contrarian Consulting

The power of being a solo consultant, not associated with a large organization.

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Leading a Virtual Team

2009-11-25T10:20:00.003-05:00

The Virtual Office

How can organizations motivate virtual employees who work away from the traditional office?
Managing workers is particularly challenging, especially if they are not physically located near the main office.
Motivation determines how an individual engages in a work-related behavior. It is need-based, job-based, cognitively and behaviorally based.

Therefore, managers must find a systematic tool that can help them determine employees’ motivation in comparison to the standard in-house employee’s.

Looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, remote employees’ social needs and ego needs would not be satisfied. If these workers do not feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from office culture, or small social connections such as close colleagues, they will be unmotivated and dissatisfied with their job.

This need of belonging gives them a sense of control.

An approach to solving this problem is applying the path-goal leadership theory.

Leaders can adopt one of the four behavioral leadership styles to handle each situation.

Instrumental style includes planning, organizing
Supportive style shows concern from workers.
Participative style shares information and asks for employees input
Achievement-oriented style sets challenging goals and rewards performance.

These four different styles assist the leader in any given situation, and allow workers to have a cushion system that encompasses guidance and support.

Motivation & Employee Ownership

2009-11-22T10:44:00.006-05:00

A guest post from Nadia Fadonougbo - an Organizational Psychology Graduate Student

Ownership psychology / employee ownership is an idea that focuses on economic and moral concepts or perspectives.
*
Those who are drawn to the economic view point sees it as the pay-for-performance compensation arrangement.
*
People drawn to the moral view point, see it as an opportunity to address an imbalance of power between employers and employees.
*
The moral perspective argues for a sharing of power/balance of power between the two groups. I believe that employee ownership is a key ingredient in maintaining a high level of motivation in the workplace.
*
Experience working in a collection agency is an example of connection of theory to observations.
*
An economic perspective is taken within these agencies; in fact the job itself calls for a pay-for-performance compensation arrangement. Taking a moral stand would positively motivate employees, workers want to feel that they share ownership of problems and are part of the solution.
*
To maintain motivation in large-scale organizations supervisors, managers and others in managerial positions must allow a balance of power, after all, lower level workers also bring in knowledge, initiative, problem solving skills and more.

*
*
Questions:

What are some factors that would lead to organizations resisting a change in incentive based programs?
Describe the psychological make-up of an organization that has this "balance of power" with all levels of workers adding knowledge and problem solving skills.

photo- R▲▲S

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.Motivation

Sticky Situation - Revisited with Cray Paper

2009-11-19T08:38:00.004-05:00

A variation of Sticky Situation;
While facilitating the University of Rochester New York MBA students orientation (150 students at a time) I wanted to lead sticky situation to illustrate team work, as well as solutions to problems when working within a boundary (guideline, rubric) that is not defined by the group.

While traveling to Rochester NY I stopped at a party city. While wandering the isles thinking how can I lead Sticky Situation with 150 MBA college students indoor teambuilding program. I saw the cray paper and thought "This is IT!" The activity went well and the content delivery piece of working within pre-defined boundaries developed a rich discussion.

What variations of ideas and activities have you used lately? How else could I have accomplished the same goal?

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Processing and Reviewing the Experience - Expert advice by Jennifer Stanchfield

2009-10-22T17:27:00.003-04:00

Jennifer Stanchfield has been sharing great advice on reviewing and processing for Team Building and experiential Learning, below is a short clip of her wisdom;

A great way to engage participants in reflective conversation and meet the various learning styles of participants is to invite participants to leave their seats and blend dialogue with movement. Recent brain research makes a strong case for using active experiential methods in therapy education and training. Eric Jensen (1998), author of Teaching with the Brain in Mind, shares research that validates the use of movement and community building activities as integral tools for brain development, and for helping cement lessons. Physical involvement in learning life lessons creates “body memory.” If learners reflect on a lesson about leadership, communication, or physics in an active way, evidence shows that they might retain this type of learning longer and integrate it better into their life and future learning...read more

TeamBuilding from College Sports to Business Professionals

2009-10-07T11:50:00.005-04:00

University at Buffalo, NY - Womens' Softball Team

Here the team is focusing on accountability for your role on the team

A Business Group in Rochester, NY
Engaged in a closing activity that focuses on individual learning and how it can be applied to the team.

Buffalo, NY Teacher In-Service

Focusing on trust and effective communication to the teaching staff

Leadership Educators in Buffalo, NY

Engaged in a level 2 Rope Handcuffs activity.

Level 2 focuses on the group working together to accomplish a challenging task.

Team of Young Professionals

Corona of Convergence

Once you are in a department communication and collaboration between and within departments is necessary for organizational success

Mistakes Managers Make in Hiring

2009-10-03T09:52:00.003-04:00

Mike had a great mention in Tom Foster's Blog:
Management Skills Blog

Here is a short clip;

In a comment yesterday from Michael Cardus, he ends with this statement. "As people we can pass judgment on a machines value, a dis-comfort comes from judging a persons value."

And yet that is the task in the hiring process, to render a managerial judgment about a person's potential value to the organization. Why is this so uncomfortable?

Here are the top five mistakes managers make in the hiring process.
- Manager misses important information during the interview.
- Manager misinterprets responses.
- Manager allows bias and stereotypes to influence the process.
- Manager makes the decision too quickly.
- Manager loses control of the interview.

want to learn how to avoid making these mistakes?
Click here for skills and techniques that managers can use to avoid mistakes in the hiring process.

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Collaboration Team Building Proposal

2009-09-30T11:50:00.008-04:00

Sample Team Building
Focus on Information Sharing Proposal

All team building programs are customized and developed for your unique organization. The below is only a sample proposal. Contact us to discuss and create a customized indoor or outdoor TeamBuilding Program for your team!

Team Building Information and Collaboration Program Overview;

With the changes taking place within the organization communication and collaboration is being lost with the team members leading to a loss of trust and customer satisfaction.

With an increase of inter and intra department collaboration and communication the team will continue to thrive and developed talented leaders and team members in turn increasing customer satisfaction, sales and revenue.

This Teambuilding program will serve as an opportunity for the team members to discuss their roles and facilitate a discussion to gain clarity on areas and steps to improve the One Team feeling and communication / collaboration amongst the new and existing departments.

Objectives

The objectives for this project include;
- Increase inter and intra department communication
- Allow for people to get to know and learn from each other in an enjoyable environment
- Develop an enhanced accountability of the people within all departments and locations to operate in the best interest of their customers, themselves, their team, and organization.
- Develop plans for increased team member collaboration on projects

Measures of Success

Our metrics will include;
· Program evaluations
· Interviews and conversations with Leadership Team Members, as to effects on the team and team members
· Additional evaluation assessments to determine the impact of the reaction, learning, behavior change, and end results of the program are available for longer term projects (6 month requirement of program implementation required)

Values

The value of the program;
· Increased morale within the team
· Team members will feel ownership of changes within the organization
· Strengthened and new friendships amongst team members
· Increased collaboration amongst people and departments on projects and decisions within the organization
· Empathy and understanding of the other people’s positions and job pressures.

Team Building Methodology and Options

All options include unlimited meetings, phone conversations, any and all discussions and meetings leading up to and after the program dates.

Option 1: Create-Learning will lead team development, collaboration and communication based initiatives
We will facilitate the team through initiatives and reflections on improving trust, communication and collaboration within the Team.
Completing the program with action lists and items that the people and the team can use to begin to implement the learning and ideas gained from the program.

In addition we will facilitate problem solving and brainstormings with a focus on what the people need to achieve success and how they can utilize their internal strengths and resources better.

A focus will be on the ability of the individuals within the team to openly discuss their perspectives on the issues. Allowing the team to have a greater understanding of all the individual perspectives they will be able to institute the best option for success.

Option2: Includes option 1 plus;
Create-Learning develop a customized assessment for the participants prior to our time together, using their inputs to deliver the most targeted areas for team development.

Option 3: Includes option 2 plus;
All participants who are taking part in the program will take a

DiSC assessment. - http://create-learning.com/DiSC.aspx
Or
Team Dimensions Profile -
http://create-learning.com/teamdimensionsprofile.aspx

The profile assessments will be used to enhance the program.

All team building programs are customized and developed for your unique organization. The above is only a sample proposal.

Contact us to discuss and create a customized indoor or outdoor TeamBuilding Program for your team!

Googling job candidates

2009-09-25T17:41:00.002-04:00

I received an email from a friend who works for a company as there HR Person.
She sent me a short clip of a blog from Punk Rock HR; post Interviews, Unemployment, and the Cloud.
Here is a small piece of the blog:

In my opinion, Human Resources shouldn’t be checking anyone out via Google or any other website. I’ve said this before: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and the internet is neither reliable nor valid. You never know if the information is accurate. Also, f–k anyone from Human Resources or legal who wants to bring the holier-than-thou approach to the hiring process. You’re not perfect. Neither are your candidates.
That being said, many HR people are using Google, Facebook, and MySpace to check up on you. They might use Twitter. Some will review your LinkedIn profile.

at the end of the blog clip she asked, "Mike what do you think of this?"

here is my response;
This post comes from Laurie Ruettimann of the blog "Punk Rock HR"
I read her blog and my blog is listed under her blog roll http://punkrockhr.com/prhr-blogroll/
She has many readers - Additionally you can tell how popular a blog is by its comments - and she has fans who write comments!

I like her honest and straight forward approach - with that I agree with what most of the post says - especially "don’t work for a company that is more concerned about your online consumption habits than your knowledge, skills, and abilities."

Also that one has to be mindful that once it is on the web it is out there! in a philosophy class we were discussing sexting and the moral / ethical area of sexting (sexting is sending dirty pictures to people over your phone) once it is out there you no longer own it.
Once you use facebook - twitter - myspace - LinkedIn they can do whatever they wish with your content.

I compare it to working with an organization - once you are employed part of your pay is giving up some of your freedoms and autonomy for the organization - your values and the organizations may not align - and once that organization is paying you may have to widen your values.

Back to internet - once you put a photo on facebook and post something to the internet it is in the "Cloud" it may be used for any reason - they now own the rights to your photo and content - and once you agree to use their platform you are giving up some of your rights and autonomy for the use of their bandwidth and platform.

All of this is just a tool - and should only be used as a tool that is nuanced.

So - what do you think?

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Team Building Active Processing

2009-09-24T18:30:00.003-04:00

Story Line: An active processing activity

Following team building initiatives the learning comes from the processing.

Here is an active processing activity that I have found successful.

Materials:

3 to 5 feet lengths of rope (1 rope for every 2 people)

If you do not have ropes, I have asked participants to draw lines in the dirt, use flip chart paper and markers to draw lines, be creative - any great variation please share!

Instructions and Facilitator Script:

Ask the people to choose a partner - anyone they please.

This processing is called a Story Line - it is an active reviewing activity.

Once the people have a partner ask them to take the next 10 minutes and share their story of that activity.

Here is how they will share their story;

“Using the ropes to create a squiggly line with peaks and valleys, then one partner walks along the line sharing their story, personal and team ups and downs while walking along the ropes. The other partner just listens until they have completed sharing their story, then they switch places. The new partner creates a squiggly line with peaks and valleys and while walking along the line they share their story, personal and team ups and downs. The other partner just listens.”

Following the 10 (more or less depending upon the group) ask if any partnerships wish to share their stories.

I first saw an example of this team building processing activity on Roger Greenaway Active Learning Manual

what are you connections

2009-09-23T19:58:00.002-04:00

I made a list today of my online and social networking info;

Website - http://create-learning.com
Blog - http://teambuildingwny.blogspot.com
Blog - http://teambuilding-leadership.com
Blog - http://odofwny.wordpress.com
Linked In - http://www.linkedin.com/in/teambuildingny
Twitter - http://twitter.com/TeamBuildingNY
Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/create-learning/
Facebook - Team Building NY fan page

Also - here are articles I was interviewed for that may have some good content.
Entrepreneur.com - Team Building with a purpose
Thiagi - Team Building Program Design
Buffalo Business First - Rising Star
Gaebler.com - Starting a Training and Development Business
All Business - Small Business Success Story
Training Time - Do you like me...Or Like-Like me?

What am I missing? is there somewhere else I should be that you are reading?

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Team Building for Creative Problem Solving & Information sharing

2009-09-18T16:44:00.004-04:00

Infinite Loops

Materials:
Rope loops - one per person

Objective:
Small team and large group team building & communication and problem solving
For all partners to become separate, the activity is not complete until there is a full organizational success.

Preparation:
You are going to want to practice this one for mastery!
Each person is issued one section of rope.
Get a partner
Pass your hands through the loops of your rope section so that you and your partner are connected by your ropes.
Refer to the image above.

Instructions:
1. Your wrist loops must stay on your wrists throughout the entire activity.
2. The rope may not be cut (in any manner).
3. The knots may not be untied.
4. If partners get tangled up its allowable to take hands out of the wrist loops and start all over again.

Facilitator Script
“This next activity represents a challenge in problem solving plus the ability of our group to share best practices throughout the organization. The goal of the activity is to get free from your partner and to take part in sharing best practices throughout the organization.

Here is the way the activity works in a moment each of you will have your own infinite loop, one partner will place one loop in the rope on their left wrist then the other loop on their right wrist. Then their partner will place one of their loops of their left wrist, and before placing it on their right wrist they will overlap their rope a single time through their partners rope then placing the loop on their right wrist (visually illustrate this while explaining the activity).

The goal is to get free from your partner so the two of you can physically walk away, an additional goal is for all teams to be successful and separate from their partner making this activity a company wide success.
Here are the guidelines;
Your wrist loops must stay on the original wrist throughout the entire activity
The rope may not be cut (in any manner)
The knots may not be untied
If partners get tangled up, take your hands out of the wrist loops and start over again.

REMEMBER this is a 2 level objective, free from your partner & a total company success.”

Facilitator Notes:
For the solution - http://create-learning.com/Documents/RopeCuffs.pdf
This is a challenging activity and it is recommended that you practice this to the point of mastery and beyond.
Allow the group to struggle for some time.
All groups begin with dancing around and twisting.
Generally after about 8-10 minutes I will walk up to groups and illustrate quickly how to get out of the ropes.
Following this activity you can choose to show the group the solution, or you can choose to not show them the solution, either way the group will gain some valuable knowledge.

Potential Processing Questions:
Ask the partners to separate and choose a new partner - anyone they please.
This processing is called a Story Line - it is an active reviewing activity.

Once the people have new partners ask them to take the next 10 minutes and share their story of that activity. Here is how they will share their story;
“Using the ropes to create a squiggly line with peaks and valleys, then one partner walks along the line sharing their story, personal and team ups and downs while walking along the ropes. The other partner just listens until they have completed sharing their story, then they switch places. The new partner creates a squiggly line with peaks and valleys and while walking along the line they share their story, personal and team ups and downs. The other partner just listens.”

Following the 10 (more or less depending upon the group) ask if any partnerships wish to share their stories.

Questions;
With knowledge of you preferred team role and your original partners preferred team role describe the communication.

Who assisted your team in completion of the activity?

What would make someone just stop once they were separate from their partner?

What role, if any, did ethics play in this activity?

How can we apply some of the learning from infinite loops back to our office?

to facilitate team work, leadership

and

Innovation with your group.

Management Skills Blog

2009-09-18T09:40:00.003-04:00

A great mention from my friend Tom Foster from Management Skills Blog here is a short clip;

...This is a game we all play games within our workplace, we are programmed to play these work games.

"We cannot promise future employment" creates a counter-play. The organization plays the same game with employees, "things are not good, layoffs are happening all around you and the executives have had secret meeting at expensive resorts, and we cannot guarantee you will have a job tomorrow. BUT we still want you to work hard and get the job done."
What is one supposed to do?....

to read Tom's Response...

Thanks Tom for the mention your blog is Great!

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Large Group Team Building

2009-09-15T21:27:00.003-04:00

Video of 60 in 60 that Create-Learning led with University at Rochester, NY - Simon School of Business MBA Class. Large Group Team Building in Rochester NY with 100+ people.

60 in 60 overview

- The Group is split into teams of 20 to 25 people.

The intention of 60 in 60 is problem solving, collaboration, and sharing ideas.
Each large group is supplied with a beach ball and asked to split in half, with half on one side of a line and the other half on the other side. Teams gain points by catching the beach ball that is thrown from one side to the other. The teams must have all people throw and receive the beach ball.

Smaller groups work to produce a process that will allow them the most possible points in a limited time.

Multiple groups working at the same time - will it be competitive or collaborative?

Within this activity there is a hope that the groups share best practices.

this activity is from Sam Sikes excellent book "The More the Merrier"

Shift Happens 4.0

2009-09-15T20:32:00.002-04:00

This is another official update to the original "Shift Happens" video.
This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist.
For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com/ and
http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Are You Making the Most of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn?

2009-09-09T14:54:00.004-04:00

Are You Making the Most of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn?

Friday, September 25

9am to Noon (meet at 9, begin at 9:30)

New Era Cap, 160 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14202

Meeting Overview

Online communication tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have become a part of our everyday lives. As Organizational Development professionals, it’s vital that we stay up-to-date on the use of those tools for both personal and professional reasons.

To ensure that we are equipped with the knowledge to do just that, three different meetings are being planned to cover this robust topic:

The first meeting will review these communication tools – what are they, who’s using them, and for what? The session will end with some quick tips on how to get started using those tools.
The second meeting will focus on how to put these tools to use. For example, some organizations use the tools as part of their marketing and recruiting processes. And OD consultants can also make use of these tools to promote their services. (Target date: December 11, 2009)
The third meeting will explore the next obvious set of questions – how might the use of these of these tools create challenges and how can an organization respond? (Target date: February 12, 2010)

The first meeting in this three-part series, on September 25, will be facilitated by by Keith Burtis.

Keith Burtis is a successful Social Media Consultant who delivers business value to his clients by building, fostering and growing online communities. He has done this successfully in multiple markets ranging from large tech companies like Best Buy to artist communities like Niagara and Erie County Arts Council.

Keith will help answer the following questions::

What general purpose(s) were Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn created for?
What are the demographic profiles of the users?
What are some advantages and disadvantages of each tool?
How do you start using the tools?

The second meeting in this series is being planned for December and the third in February. We welcome you to attend any/all of the meetings that match your interests and availability.

if you are interested in attending and wish to gather more information please contact mike@create-learning.com

How do you keep teachers engaged and present in training programs?

2009-09-06T19:29:00.005-04:00

I have been leading many teacher team building programs this past month.

The focus has varied from enhancing the listening skills of the teachers, increased collaboration of inter and intra-discipline staff, facilitation of experience for students, leadership development for school administrators, and some amazing programs with the objectives of increasing trust and decision making between educational board members and administrators of the schools.

Many schools have been awesome to facilitate, and some have not.

As a professional facilitator and playful trainer I wonder about the individual school faculty that were not receptive and left the programs early.

What is it that makes them feel the workshops are not for them? What is distracting the teachers? and most importantly how can I improve my programs to engage those who choose to leave, either mentally or physically, from the programs.

I am focusing on teachers here because those are the programs I have been leading lately. Also I notice that when leading programs for teachers as opposed to non-academic organizations, many teachers either just sit and stare and some even just get up and leave (usually when I turn my back to grab something out of my bag).

I posted this question on my facebook page and received the following responses from some of my friends, the 2 below are the only ones that gave me a serious answer;

"do something that will not waste our time! LOL....seriously though, so many of our trainings seem like a waste of time and if you do something that we can either do w/ our students or will directly help us teach better it will be more well received by the teachers....good luck....what school are you working with?"

"I second [the 1st response]. Definitely do things that they can turn around and use with their kids. We hate programs that are not applicable to our classrooms. And keep it light and entertaining (that shouldn't be a problem for you!)"

I found both of these answers to be unsatisfying, so I responded in the following manner;

"here is a response - relevance can be seen in any and all programs. Perhaps a program that is meant to develop and enhance a teachers communication and listening skills can be seen as a waste of time. The challenge is for those involved in education to be aware that as a teacher one of your primary roles is to model continuous learning to the students. What that means is that skills, tips, techniques are their to be seized upon.

If you enter into an workshop with the mindset of this is a waste of our time then you will gain that. Much like a student who says "when are we ever going to use this" "why do I have to know biology, math, library skills etc..." Model behaviors that you wish for your students to have and you will begin to see the behaviors you wish for them to have.

Beware of a cognitive regression of "behaving like the bad learner". There is always something else to do, and like a great teacher (who is know part of my family) once told me "It will never be all done"

Now I am still searching for ideas and thoughts?

In an earlier post I felt that relevance was a solution, although I am now convinced that you cannot force relevance upon people, much in the same way that you cannot force motivation.

Relevance must come from inside the person's perceptions, their individual construct must be one that seeks and connects the dots of relevant information to the training program. If your view, your Individual Construct, is that the training is not relevant then your perception of the program from the time you walk in until the time you leave will not find relevance. No matter what I do as a trainer and whatever techniques I attempt to utilize.

So that brings me back to the question.

What and how can team building and training programs engage teachers and school staff?

The programs are not meant for the teacher in their classroom, the programs are meant to develop the teaching staff and education professionals and serve them in making themselves smarter and more effective in turn making their students smarter and more effective, making the team better.

Any advice? Thoughts? comments?

photo - david drexler

Creativity is in your Mind - Use it.

2009-08-31T13:27:00.005-04:00

Create-Learning has been leading many programs lately on using your brain to increase creative and fun workplaces.
The struggle is allowing others to be open to explore their perceptions of themselves and their environment in reference to creative development. For problem solving and creative, fun at work and home our perceptions must change.

Here Penelope Trunk gives some great advice on managing creative people at work;

1. Change your mindset. So much of solving our own problems is fixing our outlook. Bad situations breed creativity, but only if you feel responsible for fixing your own problems. So stop blaming your job or your boss or your work, and start looking to yourself to make your life more creative.
Also, you should know that it's as misguided to divide the world into creative and non-creative jobs as it is to divide the world into creative and non-creative people. All jobs have opportunities for creativity. Some have more and some have less, but you usually get more opportunities to be creative by demonstrating that you are a creative problem solver over and over again.
This usually means solving problems no one asks you to solve. That's right: Creativity at work is often about finding your own work, finding and solving your own problems. So most of you should blame yourself, not your job, for lack of creativity in your work.

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Tom Heck & Association for Experiential Education International Conference

2009-08-21T11:24:00.003-04:00

A great mention from Tom Heck of the International Association of TeamWork Facilitators about the Association for Experiential Education International Conference, 2009 in Montreal. Here is a small clip;

"...imagine a team skills workshop that involves engaging, hands-on learning exercises that create openings for dynamic and productive conversations that build on the collective wisdom of the participants - - all guided by a skilled facilitator who helps the group learn how to apply what they've experienced.
Which one of these workshops would you prefer to attend?
I'm going to guess your answer is workshop # 2 where you'll learn through EXPERIENCE.
All of the great teamwork facilitators understand the value of experiential education."

Thanks Tom!

Brighton Schools Team Development Day

2009-08-20T14:40:00.003-04:00

Create-Learning had the joy of facilitating Brighton Central Schools administrative team. The program took place at Canadaigua NY, Inn on the Lake, Just outside of Rochester NY.

The program lasted 3 hours with a focus on Team Building and enhanced communications between the administrators from all the schools.

Using Gutterball to improve efficiency and student retention.

The people involved in Infinite Loops to discuss their interconnectedness

Processing Infinite loops using the wavy line de-brief.
Here two of the school admins discuss the ups and downs of an activity.

Having Fun in the Lycra Tube!

A nice group shot to end our day.

Here is a testimonial from one of the people in the program,

"Outstanding job! I've been involved with many similar programs, But you debriefing was right on target for our group - The activities can be easy to roll out - the discussions you led made the difference!"

*
*

New Student Orientation

2009-08-16T10:17:00.003-04:00

Create-Learning has been traveling and busy! We returned from Albany Medical College, in Albany NY, after leading their Medical Student orientation program.

It was really hot, sunny, and the students were absolutely amazing!

The program consisted of 145 students all being led in large group team building activities for 3 hours.

Mike, Steve a microphone and some talented students.

Lining up for SWITCH:CHANGE:ROTATE

The students were placed in color teams to increase the networking and communications amongst the students.

The final round of SWITCH:CHANGE:ROTATE we ask the students to close their eyes and develop a plan to accomplish the task successfully.

Having fun taking part in Cross-Over

Corona-of-Convergence
A new Create-Learning Record - 145 people 13 Coronas' and 5 minutes for completion!

A large group shot of the people attempting with their surgical mastery to coordinate and complete Corona-of-Convergence.

Thank you Albany Medical College for a great day!

High Ropes Course Western NY Images - Buffalo NY & Rochester NY TeamBuilding

2009-07-31T12:44:00.003-04:00

High Ropes Course-Challenge Course

View more presentations from Michael Cardus.

Images of school and corporate groups on various high ropes courses (high challenge courses) in the Buffalo NY and Rochester NY area.

Contact Us

To Facilitate your Corporate, School, Youth and Community Group

High Ropes Course Experience in Western New York.

Multi-National Leadership Development Program - Team Building for Organizational Leaders

2009-07-29T09:08:00.006-04:00

Multi-National Leadership Development Program

This program was developed for a small group of global leaders within a manufacturing organization.

The program was created to complement their week long leadership development program.

The Leadership program was developed with a focus on inter and intra personal leadership and team development skills, with a focus on Global Communication and Collaboration.

For the global leaders to be their most effective and productive for themselves and the organization a focus on Leadership relation building, as well as the ability to analyze peoples’ skill and decisions made while in action are necessary.

This training will be in complement to other leadership development components that the participants will experience.
All facilitation, language and initiatives will be customized to envelope and strengthen the existing Organizations Leadership Training Curriculum.

Objectives

The objectives include;

- Enhanced Leadership Capabilities; with an emphasis on collaborative skills with other Global Leaders

- Participants to gain skills in self-reflection of behaviors and choices as well as how these behaviors and choices affect teams.
- New techniques and skills for team motivation and increased team effectiveness

- Fun!

Below is the Leadership Development Program Overview;

Gutterball
Each team member is supplied with a piece of 1-1.5 foot long piece of PVC piping and a small ball. The group is challenged with rolling the ball in the piping around the entire circle in the fastest time possible.

This will serve as an opening activity for the group.
Gutterball offers insights into the needs that different team members have for information and detail, how people like to work in either structured or unstructured approach to problem solving and change.
As well as how quickly and slowly people are willing to move ahead with a plan based on how much they know and understand about the solution.

Rope ‘Cuffs
This is will be a 2 round activity.
Round 1 - participants will be placed with a partner both partners will be interconnected with ropes. The object is to get free from your partner without taking the ropes off of your wrists.
Round 2 - Once everyone has mastered the separation from a partner we will connect the entire group using the rope ‘cuffs. The challenge is now a team challenge of not only getting free also getting your entire team to be successful and to complete the task under a time constraint.

The concept of working through a problem that seems to have no obvious solution is a valuable work skill. Creative, outside the box thinking is required. Retracing the steps between the initial formation of the puzzle, and finally solving the puzzle, provides a roadmap for future investigations and solutions to other problems.
Rope ‘Cuffs explores the leadership team communication process to direct reports and those that are being led.
Additionally a focus will be placed in the shared leadership amongst the group.

Key Punch
The team is challenged with solving a problem they are physically removed from. They must touch a sequence of numbers and letters in the fastest time possible. Keypunch is used effectively in exploring quality problems from a leadership perspective; it is uniquely suited to this content since the participants are physically removed from the “problem” during the activity.

The participants will be asked to diagram and chart the defects in the analysis of the sequential touches. The participants will use data gained from the Key Punch to chart their progress and then problem solve the causes for a slow cycle time and defects per round.

The Great Nail Puzzle
Small teams are must balance 13 nails on the head of a single nail sticking out of a block of wood.
We will present this activity as a think tank process. The group will be divided into teams of 3. Each sub group will be provided with one nail puzzle. The sub groups will have 5 minutes to experiment and come up with a plan for successful completion of this project.

We will pull all groups together and discuss our small groups’ ideas for completion. Then the group must agree on a plan and complete the challenge as one team.

Lycra Tube
Following lunch the participants will engage in a high energy activity.
The Lycra tube is a piece of Lycra fabric sewn into a large circle.
The participants will be led through initiatives using this tube that vary from trust and empathy to just FUN!

Circles of Influence
The leaders will be separated into 3 Global locations.
Each small leadership team must acquire resources and capital for their global region.
The leaders can choose to fight and steal internal resources and not dialog about an effective negotiation strategy or they can realize that they are one Organization and develop the most effective strategy for Success.

Negotiation is an issue that needs a good activity for practice. This activity was designed to drop leaders immediately into a situation with many possible solutions and approaches. The perceived inequities and the time pressure create a rich arena for experience and discussion

Trapufacturing
The group is challenged to replicate a workplace environment. Although instead of making high quality products to be delivered to customers they are using mousetraps that must be arranged according to strict customer guidelines.
The team will be given tools (spoons, plates, mousetraps) and have time to delegate their responsibilities amongst team members for success.

In processing the leadership team will explore how they created team goals, as well as what accountability structure was utilized to deal effectively with successes and failures.

The Path to Enlightenment
The group is shown a large grid and handed the “Path to Enlightenment” Riddle.
The team must decipher the code and cross the entire team through the grid following the “Path to Enlightenment” Riddle.

With the Path to Enlightenment a focus on leadership language and communication to those we lead is focused. The riddle serves as the guidelines that are set forth by leadership. Often these guidelines are confusing to many people, especially those who are of different cultures and location (Globally and Physically) than the leader.

Exploration of;
Global leadership Communication
Internal leadership communication
Comprehension of messages sent
Interpretation of messages received

Puzzle Connection
(2 teams that act as one) the group is shown a puzzle they must complete switching jobs and locations.
Practice problem solving and communication skills; increase the understanding of the need for constant communication between existing teams.
We will end with this powerful and challenging activity. This will be a culmination of the day and have the participants focus on collaboration and decision making as leaders.

GoodBye Sudden Survey
This activity involves all participants collecting and sharing useful information about what they have learned, how they planned to apply it, and how the workshop can be improved.

The group will be split into 4 teams; each team will have a question pertaining to the Leadership Development day. The entire group will have a limited time to gather information from all the participants, analyze the data, and present the data to the other groups.

Contact Us

to facilitate your team leadership program

Management by Measurement is STUPID and IN-effective

2009-07-24T14:57:00.005-04:00

A great blog post by The Lean Thinker below are some clipped lines.
I highly recommend you read the entire post;

“We’re trying to shift from collecting data for judgment
to data for improvement.”

Metrics are a “Check” in Plan-Do-Check-Act.
The purpose is not to determine if people are “doing their jobs” but to assess if the plan
is working as predicted....

Management-by-measurement, on the other hand, is an
abdication of leadership. It becomes an adversarial rather than collaborative
exercise and becomes a contest of politics and blame-shifting. This is why, I
think, Deming finds the merit system and individual performance bonuses so
destructive....to read rest of the post click here

What do you do? Me, I facilitate awesomeness!

2009-07-22T08:24:00.008-04:00

Facilitating Awesomeness!

Contact Us

To Facilitate TeamBuilding - Leadership - Innovation - Awesomeness

With Your Team

Are we unaware of choice and it's role in experience

2009-07-21T21:45:00.010-04:00

Trainers and Facilitators,

Is our belief in experience sufficient to create learning from experiential activities, or does our ignorance of experience lead to bad faith?

Teambuilding activities are full of Bad Faith - when acting in bad faith a person is both aware, and in a sense, unaware, that they are free

How does this paradox of awareness and unawareness of participant challenge of choice affect the persons view of engagement in the program?
*
image from-lrargerich

Creativity Can Increase Profits by 500%

2009-07-20T20:10:00.003-04:00

Excellent video that shows with some creativity, initiative, and permission to be successful creative organizations are more successful and profitable!

came across video on Crowley Webb Blog

Your Brain needs Sleep for Increased Production and Innovation

2009-07-16T09:48:00.003-04:00

Brain Rule #7: Sleep

View more documents from Mark Pearson.

I have finished reading Brain Rules -

The brain is an amazing thing. Most of us have no idea what’s
really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details
every business leader, parent, and teacher should know.
How do we learn? What
exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why
is it so easy to forget—and so important to repeat new knowledge?
Brain Rules
is about what we know for sure, and what we might do about it.

Company Picnic & Retreat Team Building Program

2009-07-15T17:19:00.016-04:00

Company Picnic and Retreat Team Building Program

Create-Learning-Team Building can facilitate a customized team development program for your company Picnic and retreat that will give the existing team members greater communication and team skills as well as highlight how each team member has talents that the other team members can learn from and gain greater effectiveness as an organization.

Agenda for Corporate Team Building Picnic and Retreat Program Time

Snow Ball Fight!
Overview: Each participant is asked to write the answers to a series of questions on a piece of paper. The participant then balls up the paper and the team takes part in a snow ball fight. Participants are then asked to retrieve a paper that is not their own and, find the owner of the paper by asking questions of others.

Outcomes: Participants get to know others, renew a sense of fun. This activity is a powerful and personal introduction of team members. It allows for movement as well thought being involved in an introductory activity.

Hand Bridge
Overview: While the participants are standing in a large circle from Snow Ball Fight! They will be challenged with the task of creating a hand bridge gesture by themselves (individuals). Once they have mastered the individual task they are challenged to practice the hand gesture with a partner. Following the partner hand gesture - the entire organization is challenged to complete the hand gesture - for an entire Team Success! Each round is timed for process improvement and benchmarking.

Outcomes: By having the participants begin as individuals and end as an organization the communication and processes for success used must adapt and change. Additionally team members can learn about others ability to change and the speed at which their comfort levels deal and adapt to communication shifts.

Switch:Change:Rotate
Overview: The participants are split into groups of 4 to 5 participants per small team. The small teams move around a given area working together to follow instructions.

Outcomes: FUN!!! As well as small group interactions, listening, group coordination, and dealing effectively with change.

Cross-Over
Overview: The participants will be placed into new groups of 10-12 players per group. Players on each small group are challenged to move across a circle, touching the ground inside the center ring before taking their place in a new ring on the other side of the circle, as quickly as possible.

Outcomes: Reflection on communication types and individuals response to various communication types within the small team. Consideration of ethics and integrity within small teams if no one is watching do we still need to follow the rules? and its implications on the larger Organization.

Project Rollerball
Overview: The Organization will be split into 6 functional team units. To grow and keep the business the teams must design and execute effectively as a team the solution to a complex challenge. The aim of the project is to deliver customer satisfaction and an excellent product in a profitable and sustainable way by being able to communicate and operate with flexibility across different functions and areas.

Outcomes:
· Customer focus is what it is all about
· Interdependence upon one another is a fact of life
· Each element is one part of a whole process
· Sharing information and resources is crucial
· Cross-functional collaboration can work and must work to allow success
· Adapting to change helps us survive
· Teamwork and customer focus means success and profit

Contact Us

To Facilitate your

Companies Picnic and Retreat

Facilitating Coaching Communication - Trust Trap Sequence

2009-07-09T10:45:00.005-04:00

Find more videos like this on The Challenge

This is the end of Trust-Trap-Sequence.
A program Create-Learning led with an education staff in Buffalo NY.
This video the woman has her eyes shut and must follow the directions of her coach, the person talking her through the process.
In this initiative we highlight the ability to communicate a complicated task to a person who has different knowledge and experience from you.
And yes those are LOADED mouse traps!

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Creativity and the needs for standardization

2009-07-03T10:23:00.002-04:00

clipped from theleanthinker.com

“standardizing” is simply setting down what we believe is our best shot at
what should work. Once reality sets in, there are nearly always things nobody
thought of – opportunities to learn. Capturing those moments is impossible if
there is no consistent baseline in the first place.
And, just for the sake of argument, let’s say that the process, as designed,
works pretty well. The question must then be asked: “Are we able to provide our
customers exactly what they need, exactly when they needed it, on demand,
one-by-one, perfect quality, in a perfectly safe environment?” If the answer to
that question even includes a hesitation, then it there is work to be done.
Respect your people. Simplify the things that should be simple. Let them
focus their creativity on something that matters, not on how to get through the
way without screwing up.

When we speak of standarizing a process people feel this is removing the creativity from the process. In reality creativity is exploration of the boudaries of the standard process and ensuring that the variables, which are human centered are controlled.

What are your thoughts? Should we keep simple things simple and allow team members to do their jobs?

Leadership Development Program

2009-06-30T08:54:00.004-04:00

Leadership Development Program

Leadership Development Program Overview:
The organization has a need for leadership development.

The leaders will benefit from the ability to effectively delegate tasks and hold others accountable for success and failures. Additionally the current leadership has an unknown fear to take risks that may move the organization to a new level.

Program Objectives:

The objectives for this project include;
· Leadership Development
· Task delegation
· Calculated risk taking
· Agreement to decision making within team
· Accountability of actions within the Leadership Team
· Implementation of leadership project(s)

Value to Organization from Leadership Development Program:

The value to organization will include;
· Improved and new programs to implement within the organization
· Faster implementation of decisions made by Leadership Team
· A model for other team member who may be interested in developing leadership skills.

Leadership Development Program Methodology:

We will facilitate the participants to effectively develop, plan and institute projects within their current programs.
Each of these projects will have an overarching reach into the organizational goals and mission as a whole.

A focus will be on the ability of the individuals within the leadership team to openly discuss their perspectives on the issues and projects that they have chosen.

A second area of focus will be on the team member’s ability and necessity to delegate project directives to their direct reports.

We will facilitate the team members on how to effectively delegate, hold accountable, and create an absorptive capacity for new ideas and change with the organization.

Allowing the team to have a greater understanding of all the individual perspectives they will be able to institute the best option for success.

We will meet regularly with members of the team over a 6 month period.

Meetings will include one-on-one (Michael and the Team member)
All program participants
Organizational Executive & Administrative Leadership will also be included when their input is necessary to the project.

Additionally we will partner participants of the team together to create an individual accountability model. Team members will have to chart and record their progress, set-backs, learned failures, delegation, and success on a weekly basis. These reports will be read by Create-Learning and the team partners that will be assigned.

At the conclusion of the project each team member must present their work and findings to the Organizations’ Executive Team. As well as turn in a documented policy and procedure manual for their project.

Contact Us -To Facilitate Leadership Development
for Your Team

Corporate Team Building - Low Ropes Course Conference Center

2009-06-26T08:45:00.008-04:00

Create-Learning led a 2-day corporate team development program for 70 team members. Below are photos from our time together. The program was held at a Corporate Conference Center that was accessible to the Buffalo NY and Rochester NY employees.

The quotes and italics are comments that the participants made about the program.

A piece of a large Corporate Personality Puzzle - I like the Buffalo and Rochester overlapping circles and the idea of collaboration amongst offices.

Much of the program focused on how individual strengths add to the team. Developing an understanding that Gen-Y, Gen-X, and baby boomer leaders are all necessary for the success of the organization

All group photo
here is a comment on the evaluation forms
"I totally enjoyed my experience with your group of trainers. Each of the exercises gave me insight on myself and how I perceive others and situations"

"It was alot of fun - even to challenge myself. I learned about my cohorts and working with different styles and gained new perspectives of each of us work and work together"

"I thought the ropes course was challenging + made me see things in a different light. I hope that this training will enable our office to interact more with Rochester and Buffalo"

The team is working together to aid in goal completion. Just because one is complete the task in not finished.

Partners sharing their experience as well as what they learned.

"Outstanding thank you"

"Exploration and understanding that we have to work as a team, be aware of who excels, who struggles and who never gave up!"

A great group and an amazing Corporate Program!

Quantum Theory & Business Ethics

2009-06-23T10:54:00.002-04:00

I am so pleased to see the Multi-verse being used for ethical models of business.
Perhaps now we can begin to explain how the 2 Slit experiment with wave vs. particle function applies to leadership?

came across a link to this from http://twitter.com/corvidae on twitter

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

Leader is to Manager as Stapler is to Staple

2009-06-23T07:30:00.002-04:00

Managers lead and innovate while staying within the boundaries set by their organization. For people to be innovators they must have a solid idea of the boundaries. A manager knows what the boundaries are and is able to innovate and improve existing processes within the system.

Leaders are thought to be outside the boundaries, this is not true. Many leaders are working within confines of organizations and systems that have clearly defined boundaries. Once a leader begins to work with a team the management becomes evident. Leaders do manage and managers do lead. The term manager has gotten a bad name, any ideas why?

The manager and leader paradox is one that can work in conjunction with each other. As stated so eloquently in the post below from Leading Blog the leader and manager are conjoined.

clipped from http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/2009/06/leadology_leaders_versus_manag.html

The point here is not that leadership is good and management is bad.
They are simply different and serve different purposes. The fundamental purpose
of management is to keep the current system functioning. The fundamental purpose
of leadership is to produce useful change, especially nonincremental change. It
is possible to have too much or too little of either. Strong leadership with no
management risks chaos; the organization might walk right off a cliff. Strong
management with no leadership tends to entrench an organization in deadly
bureaucracy.
Management gives leadership a foundation to work from.
Leadership keeps us growing and relevant. If a leader can not manage what they
have created, then their leadership is not effective and serves no end.

- post from Leading Blog

Ballooniture - TeamBuilding activity for creative use of existing resources

2009-06-17T07:45:00.006-04:00

Ballooniture is an example of 60 minute long team building activity that Create-Learning created to compliment a 2 day off site staff development training.

The objective of the program and activity was to facilitate innovative ways to engineer, market, and sell their product.

This group developed and sold medical products to health care and nursing care facilities.

This training took place at a conference center outside of Buffalo, NY.

Prior to the group arriving we facilitated many small brainstorming as well as innovation process oriented workshops.

The purpose of this initiative was to push the groups to begin to think about creation and innovation of their ideas, introducing some chaos as well as developing the dynamics of the teams.

The challenge is once you have a great idea how do we make it happen?

The group had 80 people they were placed into 10 groups of 8 people with cross functional purposes (i.e. on each team were staff representing - engineering, manufacturing, marketing, sales, customer service, human resources, management) these are the groups that the participants work in on a daily basis.

Here is the letter they received when they walked through the door.

Ballooniture:

A new client has asked for you to make ballooniture for a large grouping of in home care facilities. They would like this ballooniture to be safe for people of all ages and abilities.

The client has given the following guidelines for building the new ballooniture;
- Practical (can actually be used)
- Able to hold a team member for a full count of 10sec - Portable
- Creative use of resources (They have a very low
budget)

The resources are limited, each team will have the following
- 72 balloons
- 15 feet of string
- Rubber bands
- Roll of Masking Tape

The scarcity of some resources mean that teams will have to share the following items;
- Packing Tape
- Scissors

Each group will present their innovative Ballooniture to the clients executives as well as explaining the many benefits of their product design.

Your group will have a total of 45 minutes for planning, design, creation and marketing of your Ballooniture to the clients executives who will be observing and deciding whether to award your group the contract.

Conclusion and Processing:

Once the 45 minutes was up two of the Create-Learning facilitators represented the clients executives.

We asked them challenging questions and kept pushing the group to explain their process and design method.

Following the presentations we gathered the group together for some processing of the innovation and team dynamics that happened

Possible Processing questions;

How did your group approach the problem?

Did you develop a particular method of collecting, organizing, gathering and interpreting the innovation process?

Did a leader emerge in the process? What impact did this leadership, or lack thereof, have on the groups performance?

Did individuals find ways to support the team beyond taking responsibility for their own roles? How is this similar to or different from supporting one another at work?

How can team building be effective?

2009-06-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

Within a team building program participants are encouraged to do things that scare them, to push their comfort zone to create and connect new brain based synapses and discover new ways of approaching and solving problems.

To empower yourself and teams to see people and feel experiences in a way that at one point seemed impossible.

Managers and leaders are encouraged to create procedures and policies that encourage people to follow proven “trails” to create a measurable outcome, maybe a sale, or a product.

Mangers spend time working to make people be at their most effective.

How often do mangers, individuals, and teams push themselves out of their discipline?

How often are individuals and teams given the opportunity to safely practice pushing that comfort zone, to walk a different “trail”?

Once a manager, individual, and team pushes past a comfort zone and prescribed roles they then have the ability to view a procedure or policy through a different lens.

This change of lens empowers the team and manager to create policies and procedures that can raise the effectiveness of those on the team. The manager when pushed past a comfort zone may now see that the procedures and policies themselves are an evolving and dynamic process, full of synergistic solutions.

This change of lens has the ability to illustrate that there is an abundance of ideas and creative solutions to be seized upon, and all it takes is changing you perspective pushing past the prescribed roles and comforts of the daily routine.

Within a team building program participants are encouraged to do things that scare them, to push that comfort zone to create and connect new brain based synapses and discover new ways of approaching and solving problems.

To empower yourself and teams to see people and feel experiences in a way that at one point seemed impossible.

An example of something that is scary to participants does NOT have to be dangling off a rope 60 feet in the air on a ropes course.This has little to no applicable references to the work environment.

An example of a brain based push past set limits can be a leader truly quieting and listening to the team.
To some leaders this is the change in lens that is needed.

As leaders we tend to feel that our lens is clean and that others are the problem.
The outside is the problem, pushing and opening yourself up to listening to team members whether you are a leader or not is a frightening push into discomfort. A leader may hear from their team that it is not the outside that is the problem it is inside, the leader and the current environment that is the problem.

An effective and long term team building plan is to create an open environment for team members to speak their piece have their voices be heard and respected, while at the same time having commitment to the success of the team.This can be accomplished and it takes work, a push of the comfort zone of daily routine.

The brain and mental push past limits of comfort for leaders and managers alike is a more challenging zone to break.

Several of us push physical limits, how many managers and leaders push their intellectual limits and team limits?

What an effective team building facilitator is capable of doing is facilitating an environment to challenge these intellectual limits. When the facilitator leaves, your team is smarter and has new lens with an enhanced perspective on what the team is capable of accomplishing!

Is your team and you ready to break comfort limits and achieve greater results?

I have customized team building programs to accomplish just that - Physically and Mentally!

image ky_olsen

What Motivates Greatness?

2009-06-16T17:04:00.005-04:00

Intrinsic Motivation

A Team Building activity that lasts 30 minutes to inspire and empower teams and individual to focus and determine what motivates then to do great work.

This team building initiative uses an activity called *rope handcuffs, Also Known as Infinite loops or shackles.

A) Ask the group to get into teams of three.

The individuals spend 5-10 minutes sharing and discussing what motivates them to greatness.

Ask them to share motivation that is internal -

how they started their business?

What keeps them going when challenges arise?

What are some challenges they have overcome?

etc... Ask the groups to briefly share what they spoke about.

B) Then speak about overcoming challenges that appear impossible although with assistance and motivation from a network (the group that is here with you today) we can take our level of expertise and amplify it - with help.
Pride causes us to not ask for help when needed. We feel that we built this thing (business etc...) we can do it alone, and often time our motivation for greatness causes blind spots that we are not aware of. Although greatness comes to those who admit that they need help and learned from the mistakes and successes of others.

Spend about 10 minutes speaking about challenge, motivation, and helping others.

C) Have enough Rope Handcuffs available for one for each participant.

Ask the teams of three to connect themselves.

For a team of three you are just adding one person to one of the participants ropes.
Explain that this team building initiative takes motivation to work through what appears to be impossible problems.

This team building activity is not complete until all the groups are separate. (By adding that all groups must be successful leaves a processing time at the end of helping others reach success).

D) If you notice teams are struggling - I generally walk into the crowd with a rope on my own wrists and start illustrating the solution VERY FAST to random teams. (This concept of teaching a confusing concept fast - develops a teachable moment of how as leaders we feel we are helping, when those whom we are helping have no idea of what we are speaking about)

F) After about 15 minutes tell teams that are still attached to stay attached while you process the time together.

G) Possible processing questions;
What was the goal?

Was the goal achieved?

Why or why not?

Where did the team find motivation?

Where did individuals find motivation?

Where was the breakthrough moment?

When the fun stopped describe your thoughts?

How, as a business person, do you solve challenging problems?

Did you accept help when it was offered?

Did you offer help?

What does helping others have to do with motivation?

When can motivation block you from achieving success?

What can we learn from this?

H) Show them how to free themselves.

I) explain that motivation is a great concept - helping others to achieve and find their motivation creates cultures that are internally motivated and more profitable.

- To see a team building program write up of ropes cuffs

Contact Us

Team Work is the single biggest advantage for success

2009-06-09T08:17:00.002-04:00

Patrick Lencioni author of 5 Dysfunctions of a Team speaks about team development in an interview with Success Magazine.

I agree Teamwork is a necessary component of any organizations competitive advantage. When you have a team, a true team, the speed of implementation, completion of greatness as well as your retention of talent and dedication of the staff increases exponentially. To develop these team talents a focus on team work must be included in the metrics and evaluations of the team members success. It is easy for the leader to state "We need to work as a team" the challenge is implementing accountability for team work.

When the team work function is placed into the accountability of performance the organization will see people helping others out, increases in collaboration, even increased creative ideas and innovative processes.

clipped from http://www.successmagazine.com/get-rid-of-dysfunction/PARAMS/article/723

Teamwork gets a lot of lip service in business. Is teamwork really as
critical for success relative to other disciplines like technology or
marketing?
I honestly believe that the single biggest competitive
advantage that a company can pursue today is getting its leaders on the same
page. I’m not implying that other disciplines aren’t important—they are. But the
truth is that without effective teamwork, without a cohesive group of people
leading an organization, a company cannot begin to tap into the potential that
it has in any other areas.

Came across this from Andrew Long's I love TeamBuilding

College Student Leadership Development

2009-06-07T19:38:00.005-04:00

I have had the pleasure of working with Buffalo State Colleges' Executive Board focusing on leadership communication.

We spent 6 hours as a group facilitating a discussion about our diverse personalities using a DiSC assessment, communication tendencies of the individual members, as well as how to develop a team force and strategy to effectively serve the Buffalo State College students.

We had laughs and some great breakthroughs, more laughs, then some discussion of how to use all the individuals unique talents to add to the team for focus and effectiveness.

Here are some of my favorite photos of the day.

Participants reviewing their DiSC assessments.

Sharing what leadership behaviors they exhibit as well as how they view success

More Dyad Sharing, I love this photo because the ladies are so focused.

The above behavior traits are common to people high in Conscientious: Persons with High "C" styles adhere to rules, regulations, and structure. They like to do quality work and do it right the first time. High "C" people are careful, cautious, exacting, neat, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful.

Why does that say Apple?

This is the only group shot I got

Hoopdom

Hoopdom is a Team Building activity that Create-Learning-Team Building uses to highlight planning and roles amongst team members. The power of hands-on reinforcement of learning content makes the information stay in the minds of the participants. Additionally groups are facilitated through a series of learning components based on creative team thinking as well as improvement of existing processes.

The focus of Nailed is a challenge.

This team building activity represents a difficult challenge for your team. You have many different goals and projects that need to be accomplished; each nail is a specific goal and/or project. All of them are important, and for the team to be successful you must find a solution that uses all the nails hence achieving successes with all the projects. The interconnection between each project is critical to your success; all the projects must be balanced and self-sustaining. Your company has no funding for additional resources, so you will only be able to use the materials at hand

I LOVE the Lycra Tube!

Helium Stick
This is one of the team building activities that I led all the time when I started in this field almost 17 years ago, then abandoned for newer ideas. Recently I have been bringing it back and finding it very effective. The concept used with this college leadership group was one of micro-expressions and micro-aggressions. The pole rises up with the smallest movement of your fingers, causing those next to you to raise their fingers to compensate, causing you to raise your fingers even higher to compensate - making the pole float, when it is supposed to go to the floor!

Thank You!

Buffalo State College Executive Board

I will see you again soon (because we have booked 4 more dates)

Student Development: TeamBuilding Program Overview

2009-06-07T12:36:00.006-04:00

Below are notes from a student development program that Create-Learning-TeamBuilding recently completed for a School in Buffalo, New York.

The program was for 140 of the outgoing 8th grade students.

ACTIVITY STATION(s) OVERVIEW:

The students will be engaged in a facilitated experiential based program with a focus on Critical-Thinking & Problem Solving.
The Critical Thinking Model applied will be as follows;

Step 1 Describe - state what it is

Step 2 Analyze - break it down into its component parts

Step 3 Name the parts

Step 4 Look at the relationships between the parts

Step 5 What are the possible problems/issues with these relationships?

Step 6 Evaluate the ‘problems’

Step 7 Imagine an alternative

Step 8 Apply steps 1-7 to the alternative.
(These steps are built around Bloom’s taxonomy)

Learner Outcomes:
· Skills in critical thinking & problem solving
· Increasing pro-social skills amongst the students
· Allow for students to create new friendships
· Strengthen School student community
· Begin to foster thought about making a successful transition to the 9th grade
· Greater team work between students
· Strengthened bond between students
· Strengthened bond between faculty and students

All activity stations are subject to change on program day
Activity Station 1 -
Infinite Loop
Participants are asked to choose a partner; both participants are then intertwined together with ropes and have to separate from their partner. An additional guideline is that all the groups must be separate within the given time.
The concept of working through a problem that seems to have no obvious solution is a valuable skill. Creative, outside the box thinking is required. Retracing the steps between the initial formation of the puzzle, and finally solving the puzzle, provides a roadmap for future investigations and solutions to other problems. Finding the answer as part of a group investigation and then sharing the solution is also a living lesson of critical thinking within the classroom.

Activity Station 2 -
Turning Over a New Leaf
The participants are challenged with flipping a tarp as a group without stepping off.
Focus on problem solving, group discussions, setting goals, working together as a team, learning from mistakes.

Activity Station 3 -
Blind Polygon
The team forms a circle with arms outstretched, drops hands and sits down. Team members put blindfolds on. Facilitator places the rope in the middle of the circle. The group is instructed to form perfect square with each team member holding on to the rope. No team member can let go of the rope. When group members feel the task is completed, they can take off the blindfolds to check the results.
Focus on Algebraic Shapes also exploration of effective team communication

Activity Station 4 -
Putting it all Together
Participants are split into groups of 3-5.
Each group is asked to assemble a bunch of PVC pipes so that there are no open holes.
This activity is rich in outcomes. Reading for comprehension and following the rules, organizing your workspace and equipment, taking inventory (of items and team talents), working as a team, using all the available information, taking care of the team vs. getting the job done, starting over if necessary, empowering other team members, and celebrating a job well done are some of the possibilities.

Activity Station 5 -
Pipeline
Students must transport various objects (marbles, tennis balls, squeaky toys, bowling balls, etc…) through pieces of plastic pipe that they hold.
Exploration of planning and goal setting, additionally looking at what the thinking and group objectives within the planning of this initiative can accomplish when applied to scholastic problem solving. The students will explore various ways to use existing resources and perhaps develop their own systems for highly successful transport of the objects.

Activity Station 6 -
Tying the Knot
This is one of those, “It seems so easy” activities.
Each student is given a length of rope, then we connect all the students holding ends of each-others rope. The group must tie an overhand knot in the center rope.
Focus on Critical thinking of steps 1-7 will be weaved into the activity.
Once the participants begin to listen to others ideas and can think outside themselves, success will arrive. The challenge for many teams in doing this is that the team members shout and no one listens.

Activity Station 7 -
Hole Tarp
Each participant is asked to hold the edge of a tarp with 5 holes cut into it. The entire team must now maneuver a tennis ball 360 degrees around each separate hole without the ball falling through or off the tarp.
Focus on communication of team members. For success team members must use names and all work together. Developing a thinking strategy while identifying which parts of initiative are blocking success.

Activity Station 8 -
Bandanna, Cup, Marble
Participants are first split into groups of 3. The group of 3 will transport a cup upside down with a marble on top, while keeping the cup tightly stretched on a bandanna. Communication, small group discussion as well as instituting critical thinking mindset will lead to success.
Round 2 the group of 3 becomes 6, and the challenge is larger.
Round 3 the entire group is asked to complete a larger set of bandanna, cup, marble tasks.

8th Grade Community Puzzle - the participants will be split into groups of 10-11 participants. Each group will have a bag of large white jig saw puzzle pieces and many boxes of crayons. Each participant will be asked to use their piece of the puzzle to symbolize, what they learned about themselves today and how they can use what was learned in the future.
Following time for the participants to work alone, the faculty member will be asked to facilitate the participants in sharing their pieces. There is no requirement for the participants to share, all that the faculty member does is lets those who want to share, talk about their piece.
Following a sharing of your piece of the puzzle the small group is asked to assemble their puzzle.
Once all the small groups have assembled their puzzle, all groups are asked to bring their puzzle to the center of the gym. All groups are now asked to put their puzzles together, making a large shared 8th Grade School Community Puzzle. Participants are then asked to walk around and view the puzzle pieces.

Contact Us -
To Facilitate your School Student Development and

Team Building Program.

TeamBuilding Develops Dedication

2009-06-02T18:23:00.002-04:00

Great post from my friends at TeamBonding;

The point that rings loud is that organizations that are investing in their employees are building a powerful force.

Are you investing in talent management and your team?

clipped from teambonding.com

Just the other day I was reading a meeting publication which included team building in the “hot trends” for 2009-10 and rightfully so. We have all been through an experience of a lifetime we are now coming out of it and as one of my colleagues Trent Schumann said in a new Linked in group for team building providers, “Interestingly enough, the companies that were already focusing on employee engagement are doing even more of it. They are using this as an opportunity to increase loyalty and raid their competitors’ disillusioned high performers. As soon as the turnaround happens, they’ll have a dedicated and tuned team ready to take advantage of it, while their competitors will be scrambling to hire and build new teams.”

Student Leadership-Buffalo Team Building Events in New York

2009-05-29T22:38:00.005-04:00

Find more videos like this on The Challenge

The Lycra tube in this video is currently one of my favorite team building initiatives to lead.
This video is a short glimpse into the programming the was facilitated for Buffalo State Colleges' Executive student board.
The goal of the Lycra Tube was to
a) wake them up after lunch
b) establish empathy and trust
c) for team members to be present and accountable for other team members as well as themselves

team building NY. Buffalo State College Students going through a leadership and trust development program.

-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.

When is the last time your team enjoyed learning?

2009-05-23T11:35:00.006-04:00

This photo of a Team at the end of a training day makes me smile.

When is the last time your team had fun and learned together?

What value does sharing best practices for increased effectiveness have?

How much information, knowledge and leadership are you retaining as team members leave and new members join?

How can your team increase resource utilization by over 150%?

Do you want to retain talented staff members?

CONTACT US

Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Western New York's

Most Effective TeamBuilding, Leadership Development &

Innovation Learning Organization