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Activity Suggestion - 4 activities

  • 1.  Activity Suggestion - 4 activities

    Posted 01-26-2008 16:11



    All these exercises appear in various of my published works, so I ask that for anyone on the list who prints and uses them to do the following:
    (c) Sage Mentors Inc., Used with permission of the author, 2008.


    HI Cassandra, here are several activities that are quite wonderful to run.

    1) Exercise: What is Important about Me?
    How to facilitate this exercise: allocate 45 min to 1-hour to  do this exercise.  Participants are given 5 minutes to work alone to draft key points for each question; then put participants in dyads (if you wish to move fairly quickly through the exercise, or triads if you want to use your whole hour on this exercise) and ask participants to share their stories for 5 min. each. Keep time for the group. Then allow 15 min. for de-brief (I will show you the debrief model at the end of the instructions).

    give participants a 1-page hand out with the following information on it:
    Title: What is Important about Me?

    a) Because they set the context of who I am, what are some of the highlights of my personal life that would be useful to share?
    b) Because they set the foundation for how I approach decision making, what are some of the highlights from my work (part-time, work-terms, summer jobs, full-time) and/or education life (sports, community involvement, or other achievements), that would be useful to share?,
    c) In reflecting on the above, who made a difference to me in the past (role models, someone you admired, a relative who took an interest, teacher, advisor)


    Setting up the exercise -
    People often are un aware of the complexity of decision making in career exploration, so what I want them to become more aware of is the role a breadth of experiences have in people's success and the role of other people in their success. The more varied, generally, the better the decisions as people gain greater clarity on what they like, what they dislike, how they  learn and manage, discovering internal resources and strengths they didn't know they had, and discovering how others have a powerful influence on successes and failures.

     In setting the stage, it is useful for you to draw upon a story of your own early life experiences that shaped your career today. For example, I love to tell the story about living in the Yukon Territory as a teen and I was the boss' daughter. One day a driver went over the cliff at the mine and died. I ended up looking after the young children for a week as all the arrangements had to be made for the inquest and funeral and then again later for the remaining family to move to another part of Canada. That experience shaped many of my life and career decisions - and I talk about it for a bit and the people who influenced me during that time, and what it means today. It is important to make it relevant to their age category otherwise they may struggle a bit in doing the exercise.

    Assign the exercise.

    De brief:

    Prep for de-brief - Draw a 4-square box/chart on the blackboard/flip chart or whatever you are using and label each box: Who; Qualities; Conditions; How

    Ask participants to tell you what they discovered by telling their story. as you surface information that fits in the above categories, capture the information.

    Who: Questions = who was it that made a difference? (aunt, coach, mother...)

    Qualities: What did they do that made a difference? (listened, asked tough questions, encouraged me...)

    What were the conditions for a trust relationship to exist? (unconditional caring; honourable relationships, honest, listened without judgment...)

    How can I continue to grow and learn through relationships now that I am embarking on a career - and moving away from family influence? (job shadowing, being a buddy in a mentoring program, participating in professional associations, being on an organizing committee....)

    Wrap up by pulling key highlights out of what was shared and discussed around how incredibly valuable the relationships are for getting through tough spots, and supporting success. Close with a quickie quiz on what it takes to be successful in a career today (my personal opinion is that this is the order):
    1) relationships,( networks, mentors, your colleagues)
    2) aligned values (knowing what is important to yourself and making sure it is close to the same for the company)
    3) competencies (capabilities, strengths, knowledge, attitudes)


    2)  Exercise What is Mentoring to Me?
    (30 minutes max): (It is very similar to the one above and I  frequently do this one in speeches as well as workshops as it generates great energy and lots of AH - HA! moments)

    Set up the exercise the same way as the previous one.
    There are no hand-outs unless you want to create one to provide structure.

    Ask the group an open ended question to gain some opinions/myths: Does anyone have some perspectives to share on how our very early life experiences shape our career choices and decisions? If you are of my vintage, it is really funny to tell young people that when I was a child, the idea of a career for women were: teacher, nurse, social worker, secretary and beautician! If you are lucky enough to have some children of immigrant families - they will have amazing stories to tell regarding career choices (my son the future Doctor...) Be sure not to get into detail or length on this - a bunch of nodding heads is fine as well, because we want them to get into the exercise.

    Ask the group to take 3 minutes (time them) to think back over the past few years and identify:
    1) Did they have someone who was a guide, a mentor, a role model, someone they looked up to?
    2) How did this person guide them?

    Work with a partner and share your story.

    De-brief the same way as in Exercise 1.

    3) Exercise: What is Important to Me? (Core values)
    (a number of years ago I was working in the field of plant shut-downs and transitions for people who ultimately had to move and change careers. Since values are at the foundation of all major life decisions I went looking for a good tool to use - coming up with nothing that got to the depth  people in transition really need, I created a tool called the Valuescards.  The tool helps people with managing that change, transformation and to make well founded decisions. It is a full deck of cards with personal values on one side and the corresponding organizational values on the other side. I use these cards in workshops and individual career development. And some people have found out about them and are using them in OD and Leadership development. Some of the most rewarding work that can be done with people, is helping them discover their values - if you want to email me privately, I will send you a 1-page PDF values exploration chart (it is about 1/4 the content of the Valuescards deck), that can be used in a short workshop really easily. I use the chart version for  workshops as a career exploration tool with mentors and proteges. It takes about an hour.  It is almost always rated as one of the most valuable exercises.

    How to facilitate a values exercise in 20 minutes:

    Do a short explanation of how values are at the foundation of all major life decisions - you can start by asking students how they chose their education program or how they chose the school they are attending. Draw the connection to core values for them as most people won't go there themselves very easily. (look for things like, connection to a community; they know someone who was there - trust; high focus on achievement; high focus on creativity; focus on International etc.)

    a) Assign the group to think on their own for a few minutes (give about 3-5 minutes) - What is REALLY important to me? (I tell a cute little story about how even my little 6 -year old knows what is important to me when one day when he as asking me to sign him up for Choir. He had never been in choir before and I wanted to explain how important it was once he was committed that he stay engaged. Just as I was about to explain it, he interrupted me "I know mom,  you are all about learning" (out of the mouth of babes!)

    b) Ask them to do a brain dump on a sheet of paper, all the ideas that popped into their heads - what is really important to me?
    Now run through the list and identify those ideas that are completely out of your influence and control  - like I have to have a boss who is really nice! - cross them off.

    c) ask them to work in pairs or triads to share what they identified as important

    d) ask them to identify the types of work, jobs, or career that would support their values.Or ask them how these values influenced their career choice.

    De-brief -
    On a scale of 1-10 ask people to call out - how important their values were in choosing their career/job choice/ choice of employer etc.

    Ask if anyone has ever worked at a job/employer/for a boss  where they would say, there just was a "really bad fit"? Poor fit is almost always related to values misalignment



    4) Exercise for Networking/Career exploration/Mentoring: Conversation Cascade

    This is really fun to do with large and small groups and uses a Conversation Cascade to identify what you have in common with someone you would never talk to under regular circumstances.

    Set up your exercise relative to the focus of your workshop - ie Mentoring: we typically gravitate to people who seem most like ourselves - these people make great friends. Great friends often think the same. Brilliant mentors are almost completely our opposite - the strength of a mentoring relationship is a combination of similar core values, and very different thinking styles.

    How do we find a Mentor if we typically gravitate to people like ourselves? We need to practice approaching and meeting people we assume are very different from ourselves. This exercise addresses this nicely.

    a) Have everyone in the room stand in a big circle. Split the group as close as possible into half. (or figure out a way to split the group in half)
    b) ask everyone on one side of the room look over the people on the other side - and choose someone they think is really different from themselves and wouldn't normally go over to meet them
    c) now tell half the group to go choose their partner on the other side of the room and they are to engage in a conversation

    D) they are to follow the formula:

            - what is your name
            - what is the origin or meaning of your name
            - tell me about your family
            - tell me about your education
            - tell me about your interests
            - tell me about your successes
            - tell me about your difficulties right now
            - tell me about your dreams right now

    e) de-brief by asking about the surprises - (like similar values, found some people could help the other with their difficulties; could refer them to someone else about their interests etc.)

    wrap-up with the importance of building relationships with many different people - this is a great way to meet new people when you attend events.


    I hope you like these!
    Have a ton of fun!!
    Catherine

    ...................................................................................
    Catherine Mossop  FCMC

    Sage Mentors Inc.
    succession planning & knowledge transfer through a suite of mentoring support services

    38 Wellington Street East, Suite 200  Toronto, ON  M5E 1C7   Canada
    http://www.sagementors.com    Tel: 416.863.4870    Toll Free: 1.888.SAGE.INC (888-724-3462)
    Fax: 416-863-0787

    visit our sister organization at http://www.mossop.com

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