Learning Activity: Spoons

Purpose:
To provide a fast-paced review of a topic (such as Leadership or Project Management).

Materials:
One deck of cards for each small group (about one deck for up to six people)
Plastic spoons (one for every person in each small group, minus one spoon)

A deck of cards for each small group (about one deck of cards for each four or five people.)
One plastic spoon for each person in each group, minus one spoon. (For each group there is one less spoon than the number of people.)
Place the spoons in the center.
Deal six cards to each person
The person to the left of the dealer begins by drawing a card from the center. They either keep that card or discard it to the person on the left, or discard another card from their deckto the person on their left.
The object is to gather six cards in the same suite.
When you have six cards all in the same suite, grab a spoon.
Once a spoon has been grabbed, any one else can grab a spoon until there are no more spoons. This will leave one person without a spoon.
That person must now answer a question on the topic (Leadership, Project Management, Communication...) from a deck of question cards. If they answer the question correctly, they can continue to play. If they answer incorrectly, they retire from the game and one spoon is also retired (so that there is always one less spoon than the number of people playing.

Sample Leadership Questions:

Which is more powerful, transactional motivation (things that cost money) or internal motivation (things that make you feel good about yourself?)
Is leadership mostly about authority or is it about influence?
True or False: your personality type is who you are and how you must always be
Four core leadership strengths include clarity, courage, creativity, and ____________
In effective meetings, every agenda item must have a goal, and every agenda goal needs a ___________
To prioritize a workload, it helps to align your work with which of these: your mission, or, your boss's personality.

Comments

How's Your Reputation

How important do you think it is to sustain a positive leadership reputation? It matters to your team. It matters to any future team that you might be leading. Your reputation tells a story about how you operate, how you facilitate and how you achieve your results. Leading positive change builds credibility. Making a difference right now builds credibility. Keeping your promises and showing care for others establishes the kind of character that people want to work with and maybe even follow. What positive change are you currently working on? -- doug smith

Where to Start?

It's harder to solve a problem alone when you are at the center of the problem. Get another perspective. Stay open to your own part of the problem. Sometimes, deep into the search, we discover that we could be the cause. Start with reflection. It could provide direction. -- doug smith

Creatively Human

In a world where anything can be duplicated, create what cannot be duplicated. -- doug smith

Dig deeper

Obvious solutions are great, except that they seldom work. The chances are that the solution that first occurs to you has already been tried. Sticky, mysterious, subtle problems evade the obvious. They hide. They mask. They simmer. Mysterious problems seldom surrender to obvious solutions. Dig deeper. -- doug smith

More signal than noise

Criticism produces more noise than signal. The recipient will hear mostly noise. Find another way to share the relevant information and it will sound more like advice than insult. Here's one other way -- ask the person you want to give advice to what their advice is for improving performance. Listen. Find the tone. Catch the brilliance. Support the useful observations. When we coach positively with enthusiasm our advice lives longer. What do you think? -- doug smith

Extremes

Do you know what it is like to work for an unreasonable boss? When no matter what you do is ever good enough it can become demotivating, even crippling. We do need to challenge our teams, but not to esteem crushing extremes. Unreasonable expectations cause disappointment. High performance? Yes. Perfect performance? Not attainable. -- doug smith

Share the Load

Are you in charge? Is the team your responsibility? Every team needs more than one leader. The highest leverage strategy a leader can employ is to develop more leaders. Build that mighty team one person at a time. Share the load. -- doug smith

Relationships and the Mission

Team relationships get complicated. Sorting them out is one more tough leadership task. Recruiting the right people for your team is the first step, followed by keeping the communication on your team clear, open, honest, and respectful. A team of superstars who cannot get along will not make for a successful team. Interpersonal dynamics matter considerably. Team relationships make more sense when the mission matters. The best reason for a team to get along with each other is so that they can achieve their mission. Start there. Focus there. -- doug smith

Solve It and Move On

If you work long enough you'll notice something that will give you a strong perspective. Every year there is a new problem that is capable of completely destroying you. Solve it and move on. No reason to surrender now. -- doug smith

Tough Choice

As a customer, you'd know what you want. That's worth keeping in mind. Sometimes things might seem good for business but be bad for customers. If money is the only bottom line we find ourselves at the bottom quickly. It takes courage to say no to something that is bad for your customer but profitable for your business. People with that kind of courage are people worth doing business with. -- doug smith

doug smith training

Search This Blog