doug smith training

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 app...

Leaders must face what can feel like an endless series of paradoxes. Struggling to hold onto truths that tend to clash yet remain both valid is excellent training for the need to make careful strategic, compassionate, courageous decisions. Purpose: Explore the impact on perception of paradox and its implications for achieving success. Materials: Large prints, posters, or slides of paints by M.C. Escher (and other painters with a flair for painting paradoxical situations.) Process Discuss the meaning of paradox. Ask: What are some examples of paradox in your world? In movies? In art? In leadership? Show two or more works of paradoxical art. Allow several minutes of silent reflection. Break into groups of four who must silently depict the motions of a day in the mental world of the painters presented, taking care to bring out a sense of paradox. Stress the silence. (Allow several minutes. If a group struggles, silently signal them to quietly provide musical / percussion b...

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. Th...

Materials: Each participant's smart phone. Process: Share with us the last ten pictures in your phone and tell us what they say about you. Each person on the team shares. Variations: Use a lower number of pictures if the team is larger than ten people. ASK: What pictures should be in there but are not? What does this say about the team? What have you learned?