of problems and Opportunities.

When is it a problem, and when is it an opportunity?

This is something that everyone asks at some point in their lives. It's amazing how problems can be turned into a multi-million (billion?) dollar industry. If you don't believe me, check out the number of self help books, number of advisory bodies, consulting bodies, auditing firms and assessments. All these bodies share a common trait: They exist to help turn problems into opportunity.
For these people, problems and opportunities are opposite sides of the coin. My problem, your opportunity, or, more often than not, your problem, my opportunity. What this translates to is that we live in a parasitic environment as someone's detriment is someone else's existence.
Why must it be so? Can we detach from ourselves and look at the other side of the coin? Can we not look at our own problems and benefit from it? Then, instead of benefiting from someone else's misfortune, we benefit from our own. It'll bring a multi million dollar industry to a halt, no doubt; it'll also put people like me out of business; but in any case the world will be a better place because of it.
What do you think?

Playing Games

One of the things we do at workshops is to run games and simulate situations. Why do we do that?
Many a time where we work, we establish routines that we follow without thinking and just as a roller running back an forth on a surface begins to follow a groove, we begin to follow these routines, unable to change and no longer seeing the benefits and drawbacks of doing such.
The roller that has grooved itself so deep that it cannot change directions anymore, and the only way we can see if its still ok is to take it out of its groove and test it outside. Similarly, people don't like to be told that they are wrong, so we take them out of their office environment and test them in a similar fashion and see how they respond.
People get defensive if we start putting them through the very same routines they do in the office, so we find a game that is similar in nature and we run them with these people. Because it is a game, people respond to it positively, if not for the learning, for the "fun" factor. Also becasue we select games with a specific learning factor in mind, we can then look out for specific behaviors in response to the game (i.e. leading, learning, sacrifice etc). As we highlight these behaviors, we engage the participants by asking them why these things were done, and as they answer we help create the understanding by guiding them to the learning objective that we began with.
People with empathy are really good at guiding participants towards the answers. Lesser mortals like you and me require a conscious effort at applying empathy. But knowing the learning objective helps very much as it provides us with a set of behaviors to look out for, and of course, a pencil and a piece of paper definitely helps!

Inspire

Today I had a wonderful experience. I met a group of 70 new executives undergoing their Trainee Executive Program. As a speaker at their management module, I had to brief them on the direction of the company and provide them some information on the current corporate transformation program.
the invite came in the midst of having to prepare for so many other things, despite not having the time to really put my mind into it, I put together a few slides. I had 4 hours of lecture to give. What would I have to say?
I tried to imagine being in their shoes, energetic young chaps with better things to do with their lives probably held against their wills, forced to endure 4 hours of lecture. It immediately reminded me of my orientation days, where we had to sit through a 2 hour lecture, delivered in monotone, about a topic that in no way seemed to be relevant to me. I remembered in the middle of the monotone, the speaker's voice dipped a little, almost as if he had reached the end of the lecture, and, almost immediately the whole group of us clapped spontaneously, much to the displeasure of our coordinators. Needless to say it led to an ad hoc lecture the next day.
I promised my self that I would not put these young execs through that kind of hell. My department does things differently, so different it shall be.
I didn't have the time to find a suitable game to throw into this session, but instead I thought I'd break the monotony with discussion sessions. Thinking back, I do believe that I did not quite hit on the right questions, and the debriefs were not impactful enough, but I believe I did break the monotony.
But I must say the sessions worked. And the success wasn't because of my presentation, but largely due to the vigorous spirit of participation showed by the execs.
What could I have done differently? I could have done less on managing change, perhaps that was a little irrelevant and perhaps I should have run the blindfold game as I had done earlier in the year. Looking at the spirit of the participants, yes, it was something I'm pretty sure they would have enjoyed.
You only have one chance to change the world, I had said in that session; and yes, that was an opportunity gone by, but I definitely would look towards another game the next time I get this chance.
To the PEP32 gang, I take my hat off to you for the honesty and vigor in participation. The future of TNB is strong in your hands.

PQM BreakAway

Last Friday the 7th November 2008, we organized a games facilitation workshop to give everyone the opportunity to learn the finer points of games facilitation and debrief. Coinciding with the program was our departmental breakaway to build better teamwork and rapport.
We were shoe horned into groups of people we interacted less with, while I silently protested against having to work with people I'm less familiar with, I admired the spirit shown by everyone to get it on.
Unfortunately for me, the weekend coincided with my dental appointment which had taken a month to happen. I had planned to spend the night there and give the saturday session a miss so I can catch that session. As I started to work up the excitement, I noticed a blinking reminder on my outlook - I had totally forgotten another appointment that Friday afternoon.
Much to the disappointment of my groupmates, I had to take my name off the list of participants and become a nonparticipating member. Bah!
I moseyed along room to room, watching everyone practice their performances with a tinge of regret that I did not manage my appointments better.
Come Friday, I went for the games workshop for the morning session and what a session it was. The spirit, the participation was admirable - everyone gave their all just to be part of the group to learn and try out their hand at games participation.
Come lunchtime, I reluctantly made the 100 km drive to my appointment. But playing in my mind was all the laughter, the joy, people laughing about the silly things they did in trying to come up with a decent presentation. As I sat in the waiting area, waiting for my prescription, I thought about how left out I was not able to be part of the joy. I imagined the exclusion I would feel as I hear everyone talk about the breakaway come Monday morning; and, although I was part of the morning games workshop, I wouldn't have the slightest clue as to was would transpire the evening performances.
Unable to bear that thought, once I got my prescription dispensed, I got in my car and made the 100 km journey to the breakaway.
Was the journey worth it?
I saw people put creativity into play with masking tape and black t shirts to form prison outfits; the stoic and serious prancing playfully, grown men in gorilla suits climbing chairs and trees, women in kain pelikat, and, most amazing of all, three tudungs in red, yellow and green. Throw in blind men doing the twist, young ladies doing the macarena and karaoke on the pc, and you get the drift.
The next morning's race I had to miss, and as I sat on the dentists chair, mouth agape, with the masked dentist manipulating various utensils in my mouth and watching my disfigured reflection on the light fittings on the ceiling, I cannot help but admire the spirit everyone put in to have a good time.
And I guess there are people today who feel I've let them down by not being there; and I cannot but agree that I could have been part of that one night where everyone got together, put aside our personal beliefs, worked together to prove that we can work together and have a lot of fun doing it.