Learning Activity: Matching Gifts

Purpose:
Open up new possibilities in solving problems and achieving your goals. Identify opportunities to apply your gifts and the gifts of your team to problems and opportunities.

Materials:
Blank Index cards.

Preparation:
Create two decks of cards. One set of cards contains personal gifts and strengths, such as courage, creativity, clarity, compassion, centeredness, influence, charisma, passion, etc. The other set of cards contains current problems or opportunities that could be addressed using your strengths.

Process:

Each person draws a card from each of the two decks and explores whether the gift and opportunity match for them, or whether they match someone else in the room. Describe how whoever has that gift might help meet that opportunity or solve that problem by effectively using that gift.
Other participants award points: 1 point for a reasonable explanation, 2 points for a creative and effective explanation, 10 points for an explanation and commitment to apply that gift on to that problem or opportunity.
When everyone has had a turn to claim a gift and opportunity, gather in affinity groups (those who share the same or similar opportunities) and create action plans for applying your strengths to those opportunities.

Time:

15 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the group and how many cards you create.

Variations:
Another way to arrange the cards is in the form of the old quiz show Concentration - like a display board. Put numbers on one side and the information on the unseen side. Each player selects two numbers and then flips the cards to reveal what's behind. If they get two strengths or two problems instead of a problem and a strength, then their turn is over until the next time around.

-- doug smith

Comments

Go Get It

It might seem that all you need to achieve that goal is a little help. A bit of a boost. Someone to provide feedback and encouragement. You're right. If all you need is a little help to achieve your goal, then definitely go get that help. The person who could help you really does want to help you. -- doug smith

Not Perfect?

Have you ever held onto a problem just because you couldn't find the perfect solution, an elegant, efficient, bruise-free choice? That effort -- for perfection -- has slowed me down a number of times. Perfection can be such a bother, because nothing is perfect in this life and never will be. There's no perfect way to solve a problem -- but you don't need perfection to solve it. If you can find the best way, that is certainly good enough. -- doug smith

Time and Possibility

There was a time when time seemed to close in on me like a shrinking cell. I could hear the ticking like a serious soundtrack constantly reminding me that urgency had to rule or time would shrink away. But time doesn't shrink away. Time does not care what you do about it and if you hear ticking it's from a real clock, not your lost time. Time is not a ticking clock, it's a fluid sea of possibility. Find the wave and ride. Connect with your school of creatives and invent new boundaries. Swim and win. The possibilities are endless. And...so is time. -- doug smith

Good News, Bad News

The bad news is that you are the biggest thief of your time. The good news is that you can change that. We all waste time. We can all waste less. Productivity is a choice. -- doug smith

Time and Feelings

Using time productively is of course important. Managing work and activities, reducing wasted time, optimizing performance, these all matter. And you know what else matters? How you feel about it. The time is yours. Even when other people make decisions about your time, your approach to what you do is always up to you. It's not just what you do with your time that matters, it's also how you feel about what you do with your time. What's your answer? -- doug smith

A Winning Game

It would be nice to win the game. But, do you ever feel like you're in a game that keeps shifting the rules and making it easy to make progress but impossible to win? You've probably noticed lots of game elements creeping into service. Points, incentives, expiring coupons followed by new expiring coupons, leader-boards...on an on a relentless attack on service comes from playing a game designed -- you guessed it -- to maximize profit. If the customer is happy, fine, but the point is to make money. Not to put too fine a point on it but that's a lousy point. What if there could be something better? What if customer service excellence became playing a game where the customer always wins and that makes you happy? You don't have to. "give away the store" to achieve a winning game for all of the players. Just stop stacking the rules against customers and watch how much more they will want to do business with you. -- doug smith

Enthusiastic Support

You can achieve many great goals on your own. Getting help from others will increase your successes. Why would anyone help you? Maybe if they owe you a favor, but much more likely it's when your goal ignites something in them. Lights up their enthusiasm. Makes them more motivated. A poorly written goals is easily ignored. A great goal, one that is clear, gains interest and support. Write a great goal and see what it attracts. Great goals gather enthusiastic support. -- doug smith

The Goal Sequence

Every goal leads to another goal. If you've achieved your goal, the next goal gives you increased opportunity to grow. If you've missed your goal, the next goal gives you a chance to learn and correct. Nobody achieves all of their goals but every goal gives you something. Get that goal done and see what great goal comes next. -- doug smith

Win Some More

Everybody likes to win. Can we win when it's not even a competition? Sure we can. When we can will without requiring that someone else lose, the win is magnified. Celebrated. Treasured. Try saying the words "you win" and see how it changes the outcome so that you win, too. It's not surrender -- it's collaboration. -- doug smith

You've Got More

Do you know what is the best thing about potential? You've always got more. It's the same for capacity -- you can always dig deeper, extend farther, lift more. Think about some of the best things you've ever done. You're amazing, aren't you? There's more in the tank. There's great work ahead. The best you can do is better than you think it is. Won't it be fun when you discover that? -- doug smith

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