Famous Cards for Everyone

LEARNING ACTIVITY (allow about 20 minutes)

Purpose:
To help the participants focus on their vision, their mission, and their key measures. It's also an opportunity to practice drawing.

Materials:
At least one sample baseball card for everyone in the group (you could use cards from another sport but I'm partial to baseball cards).

Blank index cards for each person as well. More than one is recommended in case they need to do-over an early attempt.

Process:

Review the sample baseball card. Identify what makes it so useful. What does it report? Note the picture - what does it say about the person on the card?
Write your vision and/or mission at the top of the back of your card. Do your best to keep it to ten words or less. If you don't currently have a mission, now's the time to write one!
Think about what is important about what you do for a living and how those things are measured. Identify 3 to 5 key measures that you are held accountable for.
Write a place on the back of the card to record your key measures for several periods of time. For baseball cards it's seasons (years) and that may be true for you as well. Or, it could be months or fiscal periods. You decide.
If you know you know your key measures results, record those on your card. If you don't know them, how could you find them out? Do that.
The fun part! Draw your picture on the front of the card. You might want to practice on scrap paper first. Do your best to express something about WHO you are, professionally, in your picture. It could be a serious drawing, a characature, or even a very elementary stick figure. Do your very best.

As always, be creative!

Debrief:

What did you learn?

What does your picture say about you?

What do your key measures say about you?

Could you have picked different key measures?

If your key measures were completely up to you, would they be the same as they are now?

-- doug smith

doug smith training: developing creativity

You are welcome to use this learning activity in any context that you like. When you do, please cite it as:

Famous Cards for Everyone, Learning Activity by Doug Smith of Doug Smith Training.
(c) 2015 douglas brent smith

Comments

Too Much Advice?

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Communication Flexibility

Have you considered flexibility in communication? I thought about this yesterday when my first impulse as a response to something that someone said to me was to share my own experience, my own advice, my own perspective. But I didn't do that. It would have been easy, but it would have been wrong from an emotional standpoint. The other person hadn't asked for my advice. If she did, I was ready. The advice, the point of view, was all ready to go. But she didn't so I simply listened. Quiet can communicate so much. Staying flexible in the moment, knowing the options and then selecting the most compassionate, caring, useful response greatly improves communication. Conversations can be dances where we don't step on each other's feet. Conversations can be fluid, flexible, light, and still substantive. Flexible. Even when I am absolutely sure that I know the answer... There is always more than one answer. -- doug smith

Tried That?

Ever work on a problem so long that you've got a half of a dozen solutions buzzing around like bees near a flower? What if those bees are really wasps? What if the value of your solutions is less than the lessons of the problem? Yikes! We can't solve a problem until we let go of the solutions that don't work. To get started, let go. -- doug smith

What luck?

Some days you feel lucky. Some days you don't. I can still hear Albert King singing "if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all..." As a kid I thought, that's too bad, that really is the blues, but that's how it is... Or is it? The thing about luck is that it doesn't seem to consult you. When we rely on luck, good or bad, we relinquish all control. Why do that? On average, luck just doesn't care, so don't let it determine your destiny. To quote the great voice teacher Dorinda Dercar, "Luck is for people who think the answer is outside themselves..." You're better than that. Your answer is inside you. -- doug smith

Four Useful Words

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You can tell much about someone by what they plan to do. You might learn all you need to know about someone by their plan, their strategy, their approach to communicating (or not communicating). Agenda is revealing. Agenda reveals character. Read the signals. No amount of accommodation will change a person's character. Maybe start with the agenda, and if you can't get that to an acceptable plan, read the signals. -- doug smith

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How many you's are in you? You'll go thru many iterations on the way to the next you. New habits, new skills, new dreams, new goals. Like it or not, we live in constant change. We might as well take ownership of as much of that change as we can. Re-invent yourself when the old skin no longer suits you. It may be time for a new you. -- doug smith

Interaction

You can send an email and maybe it will get read. Or maybe a text message will get read faster. You could even leave a sticky note on someone's desk in an attempt to reach them... Face it. There is no equivalent substitute for human interaction. If it's really important, talk about it. -- doug smith

doug smith training

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