Change Course Modules

This is a good activity to run in conjunction with ‘creating a shared vision’ and is the logical next step. It was good for helping individuals identify the specific steps that are needed to create a shared vision. It was a good activity for placing some onus on each group member to realise how it is the individual parts that make up the whole. There is a little bit of preparation needed for this one, so make sure that you are able to access the additional resources outlined on the Trainers' Library website before you think about running this one.

You know the scene. Last minute call, desperate client – “I need a change management module for team leaders for next week. Can you help me out please?” You agree, look at your existing material and somehow it seems a bit flat and stale. So what do you do? You go to Trainers Library, browse and download “Beastly Barbecues”.

That’s just what I did for a session with six public sector team leaders. Here are my thoughts:

1) Clear introductions and guidance.
2) Fun and meaty case study.
3) I ran it with just one team, adjusted timings accordingly and didn’t use the feedback sheet. No problems at all.
4) Group dived straight into it and therefore, some useful added learning points about taking some time to agree a process before going straight into analysis. Useful tip for problem-solving.
5) Although there was the tendency to plunge straight into detail, the case study engendered much useful discussion and the group pulled out key principles.
6) The case study kept them absorbed and interested throughout.
7) Learning points are telling and enabled me to integrate them into a simple model for explaining and developing change management approaches.
8) The group was enthusiastic about “the reality” of it, even though the context was very different from their own working context. 9) Evaluation at the end of the day was very positive and specifically highlighted the values of the case study.
10) A good time was had by all!

This activity can be a success, but I would suggest keeping in mind that not every participant would want to take part in such a creative exercise. I offered to run this for a client and they emailed me back saying that it wasn’t suited to their learning style and therefore wouldn’t be taking part!

That said, as long as you're comfortable with the dynamic of the group you are working with then this is great activity for encouraging participants to think at a collective level about what success looks for them. Through moving from group to group it also provides an opportunity to begin to understand individual differences and priorities.

I used it as the very first activity in a one-day module of our Leadership Development program called “Communication for Change”.

What I liked about it was that it could be run with almost no preparation – just print out the briefs, give them to the teams, and away they go. The teams did all the stereotypical things while participating that gave us some great discussion in the debrief – e.g. confusion about what the other team was doing, poor communication, competitive streaks coming to the surface, time wasting through lack of information sharing, too much focus on the task and not enough on the people etc. It was a great intro to our workshop, and was extremely engaging for the participants.

Next time I would probably elaborate a bit more on the briefing to make it clearer that it is a CHANGE. For example, that the dinner party was all organised but then the restaurant changed the tables available etc. This would make a slightly smoother transition into the program topic I’m including it in.

Overall it worked really well and generated very useful discussion. I will definitely continue to include it in this program.

This exercise did not work very well as it was far too easy with the corporate team solving the problem within 10-15 minutes, therefore not having to adjust to any change. Further complications could be added in order to make the exercise more challenging, such as reduction in time or the facilitator acting as the HR team and taking a variety of approaches to directing change. The current time of 45 minutes to complete the exercise is far too long. I recognised this and reduced it to 30 minutes yet this was still too long and the learners felt that they got nothing from the exercise, other than demonstrating how clever they were!

If you want a great activity to use for topics on change management, this is the one. From understanding change, planning change and implementing change, this activity has the versatility to be used around any of these topics. When I first joined trainer’s library I used it nearly every month for about 2 years – a great activity that can really help delegates understand how individuals react differently to change.

I do feel that it is Important to have 2 facilitators so that notes can be made on the behaviours people demonstrate during the activity. A brilliant activity that I continue to go back to…

The Feeling Cards exercise is a great tool for raising self-awareness. It involves the participant picking words that they feel represents them as a person and that they think others would choose to describe them. It says in the trainer’s notes that strong facilitation skills are required for this, this is a definite. The exercise worked well in that it made people think about perception, their own and that of others. I also found that it was a useful feedback tool as in all cases the participant got stuck in picking the right words and there was always someone willing to give their opinion. Again this had to be managed through strong facilitation but proved to be an invaluable benefit of the exercise. The exercise proved to have just the right balance of fun, opportunity for self-reflection and a forum for feedback.

I conducted a 3 day workshop where I included personality assessments on senior management level and combined this with training. First off I started with the "Feeling cards". I used this because the managers I was working with were known for the fact that they are incredibly efficient and effective, but at times too goal directed. This indicates that they often ignore or overlook the feelings/emotions of their colleagues and subordinates. I thought the feeling cards would provide them an opportunity to share their own feelings at home and at work. I believe this warmed them up a bit - and the most amazing is that it did "warm" them up to start the sessions. They really thought about the cards they chose and the difference between home and work stood out in a strong way. I have to mention that their was a participant whose home and work behaviour was the same - I think it is important to note these differences. The fact that there are a lot of cards, makes them think, whereas if there were only a few cards to choose from, it would be much easier for them. They really took some time to identify their priorities and values.

I used this on a small team away day (4 people) as part of a team build. I was worried that the learning points would not come out due to the small numbers and unsure as to how many cards to use for each pair (I found the instructions on the number of cards to use a little confusing). I ended up using 4 sets of card per pair which seemed the right amount. We did the first 3 tasks/rounds with feedback between each one on how they approached the task and it really worked well to highlight planning, team working, quality checking, attention to detail and working together in general. We did the rounds one after the other which was quite a lot and more than enough to highlight key points. They enjoyed it but had had enough after 3 rounds as it can be quite intense! I will definitely use this again - I can see it being really useful for bigger teams to explore ways of working together. Recommended, despite the time it took to make laminated cards!

I used the Filing Frenzy on a Change Management course for first line managers. It was a brilliant icebreaker as it got the participants involved from the start whilst also illustrating the key messages about change and how we react to it. It was amazing to see how something simple can still have an impact on people when you change the instructions slightly. For some people the change was minimal and they changed their approach but for some (particular those who had won the previous rounds and had got their process down to a fine heart) felt quite disappointed by the change.

I ran 'Half Full' as a stand-alone module to encourage people to think about the relative draw-backs and benefits of different perspectives on the world.

As directed, the delegates completed the questionnaire on their own and then read the handout. They then started to answer the questions on their own too. One delegate found this very difficult so we stopped writing and opened the whole thing up as a discussion.

Very quickly all delegates were involved in talking through the merits of pessimism and optimism. We identified some key learning points - not to bring up barriers when others don't act as you'd want, that optimists should think about analysing risk and pessimists can look to improve their outlook. We also had a very intense and productive debate about the value of constructive feedback and how one goes about it.

All in all, the exercise 'did what it said on the can' and I've been delighted with it.

This project management series was of unbelievable value, as it really got them working and participating. I believe that most participants are under the impression that they will attend a workshop/training and that they will only be listening. The SWOT analysis has so much detail that it is almost impossible to miss details of your strategic planning process. The managers all recognized that the three difference hotels were different is specific ways, but the ideas that came out of it were amazing. With the last hotel doldrum the participant needs to do a presentation - and among all the other learning points, one participant noticed that he need to work on his "presentation skills" and how to carry a message over to important people. Another great attribute is the financial details that are attached to the downloads. This provides the participant with a feeling of credibility and believability of the exercise they are busy with.

I have now run Hotel Doldrums twice as a 1 day team build exercise.

Marketing Team
This team is quite large (24 in total) and is spread throughout the country. Their opportunity to spend time together as a team is limited. Also, the team manager knew some elements of the team very well and others hardly at all having ‘inherited’ them following a company take over. A big part of this team build day was to get to know each other on a personal as well as a business basis.

I ran the exercise after going through some personality profiling. It was really powerful to see how people responded in their preferred behavioural style and perhaps even more so how their fellow team members recognised the behaviours!!

Not surprisingly there was an abundance of creativity going around, when the analytical people tried to intervene there were some ‘clashes’ although always controlled, usually ending up in peels of laughter. It did, however, demonstrate the need to listen to all team members and give everyone the chance to contribute. A good learning for the stronger personalities in the group. Time management was an issue and gave the team manager an insight as to why and how deadlines sometimes slip. She left the session with a strategy for managing this within the team more effectively in the future.p

The meetings with the Bank Manager weren’t particularly successful. I’m not sure whether this was the way I positioned this aspect of the training or not. The overall feedback was that the meetings contributed very little and took away valuable time.

A number of leaders emerged. Some based on personalities and others on expertise again demonstrating the advantages of having a good mix within the team.

The need for a 3 month plan did give focus to think about the future. The team are often required to be reactive, rapid change being a trait in our industry. Having to plan in a structured way for the future was a useful learning and demonstrated how much control you get when you are able to do this.

The final presentations were very light on financial information which was recognised as something of a problem given that they were for the bank manager!! Known your audience eh? There was much emphasis on how they would ‘pretty-up’ the respective hotels, what fun things they could offer and how they would improve the experience to encourage the return of guests. Not so much thought around what would happen if people didn’t return!! Glass half full perhaps?

The most valuable things taken from the exercise were:

Recognising and be able to utilise the strengths within the team.
The importance of planning Thinking inside the box as well as outside it!
Raising awareness of financial implications around the roles of the team members.
Working as a team.

Strategic Sales Team
I ran the exercise again 4 weeks later with a smaller team of strategic sales people. This team have huge transformation in front of them due to changes in our business so it was good to give them a subject they were totally unfamiliar with.

The team had slightly less time which proved a challenge and a learning point for me here is that a smaller team doesn’t necessarily mean less time.

There was definitely a more financial focused approach and less creativity. As with the previous group the presentations ran over time neither groups having practised. They would argue they didn’t have time….I would argue they should have made time!!! Creativity was limited in this session and it highlighted the need to involve other areas and expertise within the business for the new challenges ahead.

This team had a brand new manager who was eager to demonstrate his style. He joined in the exercise which proved really valuable and his team could see he would not ask them to do anything he wouldn’t or couldn’t do himself.

We did not include the bank manager role this time and in all honesty I don’t think the exercise lost anything as a result.

Again the need for a 3 month plan was very powerful and I would say that this was the most valuable aspect for both sessions.

All in all, this is an excellent exercise with an incredible amount of learning from it. It has been a huge success and I will/would use it again and again.

This project management series was of unbelievable value, as it really got them working and participating. I believe that most participants are under the impression that they will attend a workshop/training and that they will only be listening. The SWOT analysis has so much detail that it is almost impossible to miss details of your strategic planning process. The managers all recognized that the three difference hotels were different is specific ways, but the ideas that came out of it were amazing. With the last hotel doldrum the participant needs to do a presentation - and among all the other learning points, one participant noticed that he need to work on his "presentation skills" and how to carry a message over to important people. Another great attribute is the financial details that are attached to the downloads. This provides the participant with a feeling of credibility and believability of the exercise they are busy with.

I have now run Hotel Doldrums twice as a 1 day team build exercise.

Marketing Team
This team is quite large (24 in total) and is spread throughout the country. Their opportunity to spend time together as a team is limited. Also, the team manager knew some elements of the team very well and others hardly at all having ‘inherited’ them following a company take over. A big part of this team build day was to get to know each other on a personal as well as a business basis.

I ran the exercise after going through some personality profiling. It was really powerful to see how people responded in their preferred behavioural style and perhaps even more so how their fellow team members recognised the behaviours!!

Not surprisingly there was an abundance of creativity going around, when the analytical people tried to intervene there were some ‘clashes’ although always controlled, usually ending up in peels of laughter. It did, however, demonstrate the need to listen to all team members and give everyone the chance to contribute. A good learning for the stronger personalities in the group. Time management was an issue and gave the team manager an insight as to why and how deadlines sometimes slip. She left the session with a strategy for managing this within the team more effectively in the future.p

The meetings with the Bank Manager weren’t particularly successful. I’m not sure whether this was the way I positioned this aspect of the training or not. The overall feedback was that the meetings contributed very little and took away valuable time.

A number of leaders emerged. Some based on personalities and others on expertise again demonstrating the advantages of having a good mix within the team.

The need for a 3 month plan did give focus to think about the future. The team are often required to be reactive, rapid change being a trait in our industry. Having to plan in a structured way for the future was a useful learning and demonstrated how much control you get when you are able to do this.

The final presentations were very light on financial information which was recognised as something of a problem given that they were for the bank manager!! Known your audience eh? There was much emphasis on how they would ‘pretty-up’ the respective hotels, what fun things they could offer and how they would improve the experience to encourage the return of guests. Not so much thought around what would happen if people didn’t return!! Glass half full perhaps?

The most valuable things taken from the exercise were:

Recognising and be able to utilise the strengths within the team.
The importance of planning Thinking inside the box as well as outside it!
Raising awareness of financial implications around the roles of the team members.
Working as a team.

Strategic Sales Team
I ran the exercise again 4 weeks later with a smaller team of strategic sales people. This team have huge transformation in front of them due to changes in our business so it was good to give them a subject they were totally unfamiliar with.

The team had slightly less time which proved a challenge and a learning point for me here is that a smaller team doesn’t necessarily mean less time.

There was definitely a more financial focused approach and less creativity. As with the previous group the presentations ran over time neither groups having practised. They would argue they didn’t have time….I would argue they should have made time!!! Creativity was limited in this session and it highlighted the need to involve other areas and expertise within the business for the new challenges ahead.

This team had a brand new manager who was eager to demonstrate his style. He joined in the exercise which proved really valuable and his team could see he would not ask them to do anything he wouldn’t or couldn’t do himself.

We did not include the bank manager role this time and in all honesty I don’t think the exercise lost anything as a result.

Again the need for a 3 month plan was very powerful and I would say that this was the most valuable aspect for both sessions.

All in all, this is an excellent exercise with an incredible amount of learning from it. It has been a huge success and I will/would use it again and again.

This project management series was of unbelievable value, as it really got them working and participating. I believe that most participants are under the impression that they will attend a workshop/training and that they will only be listening. The SWOT analysis has so much detail that it is almost impossible to miss details of your strategic planning process. The managers all recognized that the three difference hotels were different is specific ways, but the ideas that came out of it were amazing. With the last hotel doldrum the participant needs to do a presentation - and among all the other learning points, one participant noticed that he need to work on his "presentation skills" and how to carry a message over to important people. Another great attribute is the financial details that are attached to the downloads. This provides the participant with a feeling of credibility and believability of the exercise they are busy with.

I have now run Hotel Doldrums twice as a 1 day team build exercise.

Marketing Team
This team is quite large (24 in total) and is spread throughout the country. Their opportunity to spend time together as a team is limited. Also, the team manager knew some elements of the team very well and others hardly at all having ‘inherited’ them following a company take over. A big part of this team build day was to get to know each other on a personal as well as a business basis.

I ran the exercise after going through some personality profiling. It was really powerful to see how people responded in their preferred behavioural style and perhaps even more so how their fellow team members recognised the behaviours!!

Not surprisingly there was an abundance of creativity going around, when the analytical people tried to intervene there were some ‘clashes’ although always controlled, usually ending up in peels of laughter. It did, however, demonstrate the need to listen to all team members and give everyone the chance to contribute. A good learning for the stronger personalities in the group. Time management was an issue and gave the team manager an insight as to why and how deadlines sometimes slip. She left the session with a strategy for managing this within the team more effectively in the future.p

The meetings with the Bank Manager weren’t particularly successful. I’m not sure whether this was the way I positioned this aspect of the training or not. The overall feedback was that the meetings contributed very little and took away valuable time.

A number of leaders emerged. Some based on personalities and others on expertise again demonstrating the advantages of having a good mix within the team.

The need for a 3 month plan did give focus to think about the future. The team are often required to be reactive, rapid change being a trait in our industry. Having to plan in a structured way for the future was a useful learning and demonstrated how much control you get when you are able to do this.

The final presentations were very light on financial information which was recognised as something of a problem given that they were for the bank manager!! Known your audience eh? There was much emphasis on how they would ‘pretty-up’ the respective hotels, what fun things they could offer and how they would improve the experience to encourage the return of guests. Not so much thought around what would happen if people didn’t return!! Glass half full perhaps?

The most valuable things taken from the exercise were:

Recognising and be able to utilise the strengths within the team.
The importance of planning Thinking inside the box as well as outside it!
Raising awareness of financial implications around the roles of the team members.
Working as a team.

Strategic Sales Team
I ran the exercise again 4 weeks later with a smaller team of strategic sales people. This team have huge transformation in front of them due to changes in our business so it was good to give them a subject they were totally unfamiliar with.

The team had slightly less time which proved a challenge and a learning point for me here is that a smaller team doesn’t necessarily mean less time.

There was definitely a more financial focused approach and less creativity. As with the previous group the presentations ran over time neither groups having practised. They would argue they didn’t have time….I would argue they should have made time!!! Creativity was limited in this session and it highlighted the need to involve other areas and expertise within the business for the new challenges ahead.

This team had a brand new manager who was eager to demonstrate his style. He joined in the exercise which proved really valuable and his team could see he would not ask them to do anything he wouldn’t or couldn’t do himself.

We did not include the bank manager role this time and in all honesty I don’t think the exercise lost anything as a result.

Again the need for a 3 month plan was very powerful and I would say that this was the most valuable aspect for both sessions.

All in all, this is an excellent exercise with an incredible amount of learning from it. It has been a huge success and I will/would use it again and again.

I recently used the Palnning for Change activity. It worked excellently. The participants found it an interesting and beneficial excercise.

A good starter exercise. Have used it mainly within organisations and have found that mostly people from the same organisation have similar views (so there wasn’t much debate to be had). However, the organisations I was working with have very high retention rates and most of the learners have been working for the organisations for a long time. Which might explain the similarities in views.

I did find I didn’t need 25 minutes for the discussion, thought that is most probably because of the homogeneity of the group.

I could see this activity working better in organisations where perhaps there is some disharmony among management, or in very mixed sector/industry groups.

Looking at the differences/similarities between leadership and management, and exploring their relationship. A very pertinent exercise to run in present times because it also touches on the challenges of good leadership in times of change (eg economic), and the need for strong, transformational leadership being increasingly important.

I desperately wanted to run this exercise with one all-female team, and one all-male team, as recommended in the trainer's notes, to explore gender differences in perceptions of leadership, but wasn't able to do this as I had only 3 females in a group of 14. However, I was still able to debrief the group about research which has been done highlighting these differences. A useful talking point but could be tricky for anyone who felt uncomfortable with this level of diversity training.

The exercise fitted in well with a theme we have in our organisation of "Everyone is a Leader" and the handout on recognised differences between leaders and managers was useful given out after the exercise; the trainer can then pick out just a few of the points students made during the de-brief and link their comments to the research.

I displayed the following quotation during this exercise: “Leadership is a 'people' activity, distinct from administrative paper shuffling or problem-solving activities” (Richard L. Daft and Dorothy Marcic) and then revisited this quote at the end of the debrief and with reference to their handout to ask them for their views on it.

Again, could be done comfortably within 60 minutes, especially if you're doing it with a team of existing leaders (mine were first-line supervisors).

Having the managers decide for themselves which cards (behaviors) belongs to managers and which belongs to leaders is great. Because they are involved and basically deciding it for themselves, the results have an impact. Two days later they were still referring to managements aspects which they thought were that of a leader and remembered it. We could easily incorporate this into the personality assessments as they now knew what is that they had to work on or embrace.

I used the Leadership Identikit activity as the opening exercise in a Team Leader Development Programme. It set the scene for the course perfectly because it enabled participants to focus on attitudes and behaviours needed to be an effective team leader really early on in the session. I ran it with five participants (one group of three and a pair) and it still provoked lots of lively discussion even though these are relatively small numbers. We could have gone on discussing the management/leadership attributes for at least another 30 minutes after the exercise concluded because it really did get people thinking – many were surprised just how different each other’s perceptions were. Thank you Trainers’ Library for another gem!

The trainers brief was clear and easy to follow, and the discussion questions helped to encourage delegates to share their thoughts. When the delegates were doing the actual exercise the cards provoked some interesting debates, which we were able to discuss when reviewing the exercise.

I recently used the Leadership Identikit module as part of a Leadership Skills course run in-house for a travel company. The identikit provides a number of statements referring to either leadership or management and delegates need to read out each statement and then together, decide which title it should go under. Regardless of where the delegates end up putting the statements, this exercise leads to a fantastic discussion in which a multitude of views are shared and mulled over.

As the facilitator, it is important to keep the group on track and within the parameters of the exercise, otherwise there is the potential for the discussion to end up in all sorts of places! I found that occasionally I had to prompt, but that in the main there were enough delegates with differing points of view to have a good discussion around each statement and to ultimately decide where it belongs. The handout that shows the evidence on leadership studies helps to sort out the answers and provide everyone with some “real” analysis of the difference between the two.

All in all, this exercise helps everyone to discuss the issues, understand the research and comprehend that in today’s societies there needs to be a mixture of both styles. In order to explain this, I talk about the Industrial Revolution, the history of piecemeal work, the move into towns and factories and the need for an overseer (manager) and the culture of today’s society and the need for something above and beyond. I would agree with the length of time this exercise takes but that’s also with my padding out.

I used The Wedding Planner exercise at the end of the session to summarise what we had learnt regarding time management, prioritisation and organisation. I split them into two groups of three and gave them half an hour to work out what they were going to do. They seemed to struggle a bit at first and get in a bit of debate how they should organise it. They suggested afterwards that they would have liked some scissors to chop the tasks up and move things round (why didn’t they ask!) After half an hour we discussed what they had come up with and both groups had done it slightly differently. They both understood though that they could delegate tasks and lump similar things together to get things done quicker. In particular they saved time by not travelling so much. Again we linked this back to their role and they thought about how they could organise their own time better.

I used the Wedding Planner as a group exercise in an Assessment Centre. I was looking for an exercise that would require the candidates to show their planning, organising, decision-making and communication skills (amongst other competencies); this exercise is ideal because it covers all those bases. It was run as per the brief and I followed it up with some additional reflective questions. I was able to get exactly what I needed for the purposes of selection and I would recommend it as an exercise in this context too. Thanks Trainers’ Library – it meant I didn’t have to come up with a whole new exercise from scratch!

We completed the Wedding Planner in a Time Management session recently, it was a fun and fantastic way to show how to priorotise. All of the delegates were female and really played up to the role, however I am sure that men would be just as receptive due to the nature of the brief.

I've used 'The Wedding Planner' and it went really well in a time management session for Team leaders. They enjoyed the opportunity to work through a scenario that wasn't work related, yet could still highlight the pitfalls that they themselves make during their working day.

I ran this exercise as part of a performance management course. It's a good exercise to use after the lunch break as it gives the learners a practical situation outside their comfort zone (unless you work in hospitality) to be able to apply the theory and discussions from the morning session surrounding the performance management cycle. It's also a good way to identify any further issues that may need revisiting or require further clarity before the end of the day.

This activity has been used as part of a Change Management course to clarify their learning. The activity makes them think about the problems at the Hungry Chick and what changes they would make. As there are employees involved it makes them think about how their decision would be made and how they would communicate any changes to their employee’s. I ran this with three different groups but they all came up with similar solutions to the issues.