Leadership Blog
The Audio Option That Makes For Better Webinars
What are the options when it comes to selecting the way your voice will be heard when you give a webinar? What is the most powerful audio option if your objective is to maximize interactivity and engagement? I am an avid user of the Connect feature called...
The “Being Smart” Strategy To Avoid Real Learning In A Leadership Lab
I have been teaching in many leadership programs and I have seen first-hand what it means for the participants to take the "cognitive shortcut" when it comes to bring a group on the edge of its own learning. For instructors and participants alike, how much...
The “Buzz” Of Great Webinars: The Interview
One way to ensure you run a high-engagement webinar is creating a "buzz" about your own session. You can do this by sharing in advance some of its content with your audience - as a "teaser". This is also an opportunity to showcase the "difference" of your...
The Case For Case-in-point: Leadership Experiential Learning Really Works!
When people ask me why use Case-in-Point, I often answer: because it works (and because I don't believe it's possible to become a leader only by seeing a slide show!) The bottom line is that we use this leadership experiential learning methodology created...
The Contract: A Good Read From Our Developing Followership Workshop
A word from the lead, the followers that we use in our developing followership workshop. It was written by William Ayot: "...And in the end we follow them not because we are paid, not because we might see some advantage, not because of the things they have...
The Discomfort Zone Of Leadership
Organizations and individuals like to stay in their comfort zones. But when you raise a difficult issue or surface a deep value conflict, you generate significant heat. When calling attention to tough questions or drawing people’s sense of responsibility...
The Dynamic Group Messes Up Well. Learning From Mistakes For Teams
Accepting responsibility is critical for adult learning. It is only when we acknowledge that changing our behavior will improve a situation that we take steps to alter it. So after you accept responsibility for a situation, the first questions to ask...
The “Groan Zones” As Team Builders: Can You Get Comfortable?
A letter I sent to my students some time ago touches on the important issue of frustration during group work. How can we learn to be more comfortable in the "groan zone"—that time in group work where the conversation seems all over the place? "…As we...
The Importance Of Robust Dialogue In Corporate Retreat Facilitation
From "Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done" by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan "In the typical corporate retreat facilitation of a business meeting, for example-the dialogue is constrained and politicized. Some people want to shade and soften what...
The Killer App Of Organizational Change: Peer Leadership Programs
Most leadership programs develop the skills and let the individual select the challenge of issues that will be addressed after the sessions. We ask: how do you design a leadership program so that its cohorts develop collectively a powerful aliveness and...
The Killer App Of Peer Leadership Development Programs: Learning Dialogue
In my leadership development classes, a learning dialogue is inspired and honors three principles expressed by the following three quotes: • “Learning is acquired by experiences in the environment.” Maria Montessori • “Reflection is the critical mean by...
The Power Of Storytelling
How teaching with stories can enhance the joy of learning Humans are storytelling creatures. We are hardwired to seek out stories to help us absorb information and connect it with our experiences. A 2010 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of...
The Secret Of Creating Resilient Learners: Are Super-learners Ok With Conflict?
Answer these Yes/No questions: Is all learning re-learning? Is all learning rooted in conflict between the old and the new? Is learning about redefining our place in the world? When people answer “yes” to these questions they often have an idea of which...
The Secret Recipe Of My Leadership Innovation Workshop
What specifically does an experiential instructor do to make the principle of relevance, conviviality, emergence, and social skills come true in the class? The specific practices that we use to facilitate learning involve an orchestrated interaction of...
The Silence Of The Staff. Kiss Of Death Of Group Dynamics Roles Or Not?
Silence is often a very normal, natural, useful part of any group session. It gives members and their way to perform in their group dynamics roles time to think, reflect on things, formulate or process ideas, take a breath, or just relax a little between...
The Simplest System Thinking Practice That Can Rock Your World
Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. . . . Managers do not solve...
The Surprising Roadblocks To Managing Group Dynamics
Let’s say you have a great group. Maybe you didn’t get to handpick all of the members, but each has something valuable to bring to the table. Everyone understands the objectives, directives and expectations. They’re comfortable with the time limits, seem...
Think You’re Cut Out For Developing Teamwork Skills? Take This Quiz
The only think I know about teams is that there are no rules, and that there are too many variables involved (especially context, team goals and membership) to rely on a set of laws. Most people develop teamwork from some key ideas based on either personal...
Three Ways To Develop Leadership In The Moment With Learning Dialogue
A Learning dialogue is inspired and honors three principles expressed in the following three quotes: “Learning is acquired by experiences in the environment.”(Maria Montessori) “Reflection is the critical thinking by means which people discover each other...
Tips For Nurturing And Creating Resilient Learners In Your Team
Imagine you’ve been working long hours for several weeks on a critical deliverable. When you get home after a tough day, your significant other complains that you work too much, calling into question your ability to be in a relationship. Which are your...
Tortuous Way: Slowly Tapping Into The Power Of Breakthrough Dialogue
The meeting was stalled with 40 people standing in clusters around the edges of the room. They were stuck, frustrated, and looking for me help them out. For a day we had moved through the safer activities of the meeting, working in small groups, gathering...
Two Types Of Change Agents And Team Builders You Need In Your Workplace
A change agent is someone whose job it is to help facilitate change in the workplace. It might be a job given to an individual, or it might be assigned to an entire team striving toward the same goal. There are a lot of different kinds of change agents...
Understanding Resistance In Experiential Leadership Learning
“Feeling learning is one of the most important modes of learning as a way of being because the pace, pressure, and complexity of permanent white water can leave us distracted, anxious, and breathless…. Feeling learning probably is one of the most important...
Wait Or Do Nothing? Leadership Unlearning With Dr. Seuss
"...a most useless place. The Waiting Place……for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or the waiting around for a Yes or No or...
Webinars For Webinars Haters? The Art Of Online Hosting
As a facilitator, trainer and adjunct professor working primarily face-to-face, I’ve noticed that the one-way nature of most webinars and web conferences misses opportunities to engage audiences and draw on the wisdom of groups—not to mention the knowledge...
What Do You Believe About Leadership? Leadership Exercises Series
What do you believe about leadership? Leadership exercises series Here are great questions to start a conversation about leadership in your team. Ask: Do you believe that everyone can be a leader? Do you believe that leaders deliver business...
What Do You Do When You Don’t Know What To Do? A Leadership Simulation
Some call it being lost. Others call it a chance to be resourceful. For many, it is not a good place to be.I've come to believe that is an important component of the improvisational art of leadership work. So here is a reflection (in the form of a poem)...
What Do You Pay For Not Doing “Big Picture” Systems Thinking?
Let’s say your low performer is complaining that you are not giving him enough feedback. The typical response would be to meet with him regularly. But how about taking a course on effective feedback instead? What if the problem was really feedback, but...
What Does “Doing As A Way Of Knowing” Look Like In A Group?
Have you ever felt "stuck" when you are in large groups? When I do, sometimes I don’t talk or I avoid taking the lead or talking too much and – in so doing – I neutralize myself... While my conscience might be ok with this – and even satisfied by telling...
What Does It Mean To “Learn How To Think”? By David Foster Wallace
"There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth...
What I Should Have Said (But Couldn’t In The Moment)
I was in an intensive group seminar a few weeks ago and the group was struggling to deal with its own amazing power. At one point I said something and someone pointed out that my intervention had been very ineffective. Later in the days that same person...
What If … All You Knew About Leadership Was Wrong? (1 Of 3)
ON MOTIVATION: ‐ Myth: “Leaders motivate people” “Leaders are supposed to influence followers. But what is this is not true? Influencing ‐ with or without authority ‐ is often predicated on the ability to motivate. But recent studies on motivational theory...
What If … All You Knew About Leadership Was Wrong? (2 Of 3)
ON BUILDING CONSENSUS AND BEING AUTHENTIC – Myth: “Leaders don’t play politics” “Understanding the political relationships in your organization is key to seeing how your organization works as a system. And this activity, what we call thinking politically,...
What If … All You Knew About Leadership Was Wrong? (3 Of 3)
ON FEELING SAFE– Myths: “A good leader make you feel safe” “Leaders are nice to followers” “For decades, I've been interested in this — because it sounds like a paradox: "Our leadership isn't exercising any leadership." Why do so many people feel that way...
What Is Leadership Anyway? A Workshop With Different Questions
I find the concept of leadership full of paradoxes and ambiguities. The notion itself seems very personal to me and deeply ingrained in everyone's individual experience. Now, a complicated idea - difficult to understand or define - is very hard to teach to...
What Kind Of Learning Creates “Leadership In The Moment”?
Adults often learn for specific reasons, and the ultimate reason is often to better deal with reality. But learning for adults usually involves a degree of re-learning. As such the process might be difficult as it forces a re-organization of ideas...
What Question Can Change Your Life In 2015?
I love poetry and I want to take this opportunity to wish a great 2015 to all my friends with the verses of David Whyte, a poet that has brought his talent into the field of organizational and leadership development. I read his verses often in my work with...
What Skills Makes A Great Webinar Facilitator?
What skills do we need to be great webinar facilitators? Obviously there is a need for basic to intermediate knowledge of a webinar platform. Then, we need the ability to do basic troubleshooting when things don’t work well. While this part is mostly...
Wwsd? What Would Socrates Do? Collaborative Versus Individual Intelligence
Socrates taught us about dialogue 2,000 years ago.. In an organizational context, a productive conversation is one where all views are sought out, the reasoning behind these views is made explicit so it can be examined, people truly listen to what others...
What’s The Soundtrack Of Collaborative Intelligence?
This article made me think: Are small groups able to work better and more productively if music is played? I am clearly biased on this subject: I love music and use music generously in my sessions. As an avid listener who appreciates every music genre...
What’s Your Favorite Definition Of Resilience?
These days everyone talk about resilience. I wonder which of these definitions resonates the most with you as a leader... “Successful adaptation despite risk and adversity. Resilience requires exposure to significant risks, overcoming risks or adversity,...
Are The Heroes Gone? An Old Leadership Theory In My Leadership Lab
I have used this painting in my leadership labs to describe an old leadership theory. The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, or The Battle at Pons Milvius, is a fresco in the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. It is located in the Sala...
Why Do I Love Better Webinars So Much? (Hint: Leadership…)
I love it! When I host a webinar and people are knee-deep in interesting conversation with each other, I feel happy and realize the potential that this technology has to facilitate the work of bringing people together to learn and to be in relationship,...
Why Is It So Hard To Be Wrong? The Power Of Breakthrough Leadership
We all know that we make mistakes. And we often repeat the mantra "to err is human." Why, then, do we go about life never thinking that we might be wrong? Well, I tested this concept in one of my classes, and asked my students if they could think about...
Why Is It So Hard To Change? How Do We Succeed In Developing Teamwork?
Why is change so hard? Why reading a book, taking a class or our “new year resolutions” have no power to make us better at – say - dealing with conflict or at supervising? Why despite our effort, we don’t get very far? What gets in the way in these...
Workshop Facilitation Best Practices: What’s Wrong With Lecturing?
Nothing. It can be a great, simple way to teach but unfortunately the most abused method. Lecturing is a leading cause of death of organizational learning during training programs. So - given our focus on workshop facilitation best practices - I had an...
Workshop Facilitation Best Practices: The #1 For Learners Engagement
When I'm asked this question, I answer with a quote that I like a lot by Jacques Barzun, French-American historian and scholar: "It is not the subject but the imagination of the teacher that has to be alive before the interest can be felt." I like to use...
Workshop Facilitation Best Practices: The Learning Impact Maps
Among the workshop facilitation best practices, this one really sticks out! Have you ever tried to guess the final impact of your classes in an organization? It's a daunting exercise, especially when your classes deal indirectly with a challenge that your...
World Cafe’ Turns 20: What Leadership Development Got To Do With It?
When I prepared to teach leadership, I faced a pedagogical bind: I needed to determine which learning tasks will get across the material effectively to other adults—who are not necessarily less “leaderful” than me—and what content to select. I knew what I didn’t want...
Leading Organizational Change: An interview about this Course Contents
https://soundcloud.com/apactionccom/leading-organizational-change
The fallacy of “lessons learned” | SmartBrief
Ah, the “lessons learned” meeting: that corporate ritual convened in the name of learning from experience -- normally at the end of a long project -- in order to list the issues encountered and avoid them in the future. Or so we hope.I can’t stand these meetings...
Organizational Learning: How Conflict Tolerance and Vulnerability Boost Results
When the C-suite talks about organizational learning, what do they really mean? There are two learning typologies, each with challenges and requirements: Source: Organizational Learning: How Conflict Tolerance and Vulnerability Boost Results
Instructions to fill your own Change Model Canvas
Download the instructions to fill the Change Model Canvas by clicking this link
Power and powerlessness in organizations | SmartBrief
How can we keep our sense of power to drive change even in the face of adversity? Source: Power and powerlessness in organizations | SmartBrief
Leadership Activities For Social System: Force Or Maneuvers On The Margin?
Influencing social change is a lot like landing an airplane. Imagine you are a pilot. You need to land an aircraft by either construing a process of approach and maneuvering on the margin, or instead by flying straight down to the landing strip. How would you do it? I...
How Leaders And Educators Invite “Teachable Moments”
Leaders and educators needs to stay open to the unfolding life of the group in the "here and now" and take a reflective stance. This is a door to enter below-the-surface context for ourselves and for our teams. This is a call to an immersive and experiential...
Keeping The Faith Amid Difficulties: Letter To A Client
What follows is a letter I recently sent to a Project Manager I was working with after an long engagement. Its contents were changed to protect the identity of my client. Dear Ray: It was great to work with you in the past months. And now that we are almost finished...
Just Say No To Slides: 18 Leadership Activities To Use In Your Classes Instead
The following list will help trainers, presenters and managers tasked with the work of teaching skills, transmitting information and changing behaviors that there are other ways beyond slides to make your point more effectively. Did you know that you have a 45% better...
Is Unlearning Important? What Leadership Activities Make It Happen?
Have you ever tried to drive on the left side of the road if you are born in a country in which one drives on the right? Or have you broken out in a sweat trying to learn a foreign language or the latest version of a software system you have been using...
Is This Really “The Problem”? Another Key Leadership Unlearning
If we are looking for organizational or personal growth it's hard to argue against the fact that at least some of the answers are out there in a knowledge we do not have. Though it is true that we can learn a lot from out there, we will surely end up not having found...
Is It Work Or Is It Training? Peer Coaching With Action Learning
Work-based learning” with Action Learning I would like to share my excitement for the effectiveness of a new approach to learning from experience called Action Learning. I recently completed my certification as an Action Learning coach and have already...
Invisible! A Diagnostic Leadership Case Study
It's 10:00 AM and the VP business meeting is about to start. In this meeting at some point, Alex makes a provocative comment, questioning whether everyone in the room is pulling their weight during a challenging restructuring of the firm… Alex’s comment...
Inner Or External? What Drives Group Dynamics Roles?
It’s called intrinsic motivation and it’s your best chance at setting the conditions for high-performance. Intrinsic motivation refers to a person performing an action because they enjoy it, not because they are seeking a reward. Intrinsic motivation is behavior...
Improving The Work Of Teams With The 3 Keys To Vigorous Debate
If it is true that great leaders do not take "yes" for an answer, your success as a leader may depend on your willingness to push the inquiry of a group into passionate, emotional territory. Are you able to maximize the search for answers while keeping...
I Love David Kolb! Leadership Experiential Learning In Six Statements
David Kolb is the father of experiential learning. The theory of experiential learning is built on six propositions: All learning is relearning. Leadership Learning is best facilitated by a process that draws out the students’ beliefs and ideas about the...
Webinar Facilitators: Steps To Shine In Your First Online Session
It is natural to feel nervous as you prepare to facilitate a webinar, especially if it is your first one! The surefire way to calm your nerves while ensuring your success is through organized preparation. Having a list of steps and tips will keep you...
How Do You Ensure Candid Feedback In Your Next Meeting?
The task of cultivating dialogue at work it is not always easy! Managers often struggle to have their staff talk with honesty and candor about a work issue. Nevertheless there are ways - inspired by the World Cafe' methodology - to ensure that even with...
How Do You Design For Enthusiastic Collaboration In Your Meetings?
In a meeting I had a few weeks ago someone came to me and said, “I loved this meeting! I’ve we've never experienced a meeting like this before!” I like positive acknowledgements as much as anyone, but in the mist of joy for the compliment, I start thinking...
How Can You Leverage Peer Coaching In Your Organization?
It can be seen as untapped resource in any organization and as an effective cost-reduction strategy. Peer coaching is like a special kind of friendship, providing a structure for personal development and growth. Found in many forms and used in multiple...
Great Peer Leadership Activities For It Pros: The Hot Tub (2 Of 2)
Brainstorming is an attempt to leverage the creative power of a group of people who are trying to solve a problem by encouraging them to come up with as many different ideas as possible. I've found that the real breakthroughs come when you go instead for...
Great Peer Leadership Activities For It Pros: The Speed Boat (1 Of 2)
When I work with IT professionals engaged in internal customer service, we often look at ways to define and improve the experience of system users in other departments. In trying to define the barriers to the ideal customer experience for them, I have...
Great Leadership Exercises: Dialogue And The Left-hand Column
In conversation, people tend to keep a lot of true feelings to themselves, holding back their honest opinions and beliefs. We do this for fear of offending, to avoid being too direct and to respect the social convention of courteous, calm conversation. This reserved,...
Goodbye Madiba, Hello 2014
Nelson Rolhlahla Mandela (Madiba) was the primary leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa that opposed the systematc segregation of black Africans by an all-white minority. He was the leader of a largely peaceful, but sometimes violent,...
Four Critical Deceits That Block Learning
The Communication Fallacy We tend to overestimate the impact of what we say on people because we assume that what we say: Was heard (but often people were not paying attention) ; Was understood as we would (but we have a hard time seeing the world from a...
Experiential Education As Facilitating Collaboration For Learning
It is clear that the experiential educator is not a lecturer, a presenter, or a star, but a facilitator of learning. A learning facilitator does not like to drive. Instead, he or she lets the participants drive, providing some directions at key turns and...
Emotionally Intelligent Thinking? Reasoning, Feeling And Learning Re-imagined
I read this interesting quote the other day: "There is a form of folly that is the absence of everything except our rationality." I never really subscribed to the clear-cut distinction between rational and emotional (and research shows us that emotions are actually...
Do Facts Have Power To Change Your Mind Or Activate Your Potential?
We think that most people are objective and that, when presented with the right facts and evidence, they will be open to changing their minds. Don't you agree that if people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens?...
How Do You Design A Class By Tapping Into The Class Emotional Field?
My classes are more like a sports field, a science lab, or a design studio— learning environments where instruction, coaching, experimentation, feedback, and practice overlap. These are environments where learners engage with the subject matter and each...
Pulling A Lever Or Rethinking Ourself? Presenting Or Creating Holding Environments?
Is learning an internal or an external job? What is the proof that a person has learned something? Consider the following example: Picking up a hot dish with bare hands and getting burned is bad, you’re not likely to repeat that behavior often. Using potholders to...
Default! The 4 Group Dynamics Roles Of Your Team Members Revealed
Have you ever noticed what default role you naturally and unconsciously take in group interactions? Whether you are discussing a brochure for an event at work, the political situation in the Middle East or an acquaintance who broke up with her boyfriend, are you aware...
Daring To Reflect To Multiply Your Impact As A Leader
Leadership professionals, writers and scholars refer to “leadership development” rather than “leadership training.” This begs an obvious question: why do they do that? The reason is that learning about leadership is, in point of fact, developmental....
Cultivating Dialogue At Work Using A Simple Reflective Practice Script
Here is a simple model of reflective practice that sequences questions to debrief learning teams. I invite you to practice it individually or with your team to go a little deeper and more productively into distilling the learning from an experience or...
Cultivating Dialogue At Work As A Multi-party Negotiation Practice
Is “splitting the difference” a way to keep the peace when it comes to ensuring collaboration at work? I argue that this practice and its consequently sub-optimal outcome is at the heart of the bad feeling some people get when they hear words like...
Creating Holding Environments The Servant Leadership Of Good Teaching
"Good teaching cannot be equated with technique. It comes from the integrity of the teacher" - Parker Palmer If you are active in the search of your own philosophy of the teaching-learning process and wonder about the art of creating holding environments...
Secrets For Developing Teamwork Right From The Get Go
You have been assigned to an important team project in your organization. The work has significant cross-departmental implications and you are planning to attend the kick-off meeting of your new team. What do you expect from the meeting? I’ve asked this...
Conflict Training: Aiming High By Facilitating Dialogue At Work
The cardinal rule of organizational behavior is that what gets measured gets done. Applied to training, the means the criteria used to evaluate a course not only dictate how it is designed and delivered, they also shape how trainees interpret and apply the...
Can You Stay In The Question? The Leadership Lab Of Inquiry
I came across again this lovely quote of Rainer Maria Rilke from "Letters to a Young Poet". Those are words of wisdom, shared with a man - the young poet - confused about his future, having to choose between a military career or the life of the artist...I...
Can Leadership Be Taught? Which Leadership Activities Do It Better?
Carl Rogers once said, "I realize that I have lost interest in being a teacher. . . . I am only interested in being a learner, preferably learning things that matter." Leadership is something that matters to me as an educator and as a leadership...
Bottle-fillers Or Scavenger Hunt Organizers? Learning Re-imagined
We cannot teach a person how to become something but we can only provide an experience in which they could learn to become something: there are no bottles to be filled with the content of the expert! Rather, the job of a trainer becomes designing, setting...
Webinars, Online Learning, E-learning, Webcasts: Are They The Same?
The advent and explosion of e-learning has put many people in a precarious position: they need to keep up with increasing lexicon and level of complexity What’s the difference between a webinar and a webcast? Are e-learning pieces webinars? Is all online...
Creative Or Polite? Creating Resilient Learners By Turning Up The Heat
Alex Osborn, a partner in the famed advertising agency BBDO published a book in in 1948 called Your Creative Power. In a chapter on "How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas," he wrote: "Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while...
Bad Leadership Activities: The “lessons Learned” Meeting
Have you ever been in a meeting titled "Lessons Learned"? It's a corporate ritual of learning form experience, a specific time when people, at the end of a long project, finally learn something from it. I can’t stand lessons learned meetings, because I...
Are We “Simpatici” While Facilitating Collaboration?
There is a word in Italian and other romance languages that can't be translated into English: Simpatico. The dictionary defines the word as [sim-'pä-ti-'kō] adj Informal 1. pleasant or congenial 2. of similar mind or temperament; compatible. I have also...
Adaptive Leadership In Wonderland: Metaphor Of A Leadership Workshop
My parents read "Alice in Wonderland" to me when I was 5. To this day I can still remember every single character (my favorite was the Mad Hatter, il cappellaio matto). As I re-read this book to my children and recently received an email from a friend...
Adaptive Leadership Coaching: How To Avoid The “Technical Fix”
In my leadership classes I often ask people what they think leadership is about. The answer is often something like, "Leadership is about solving problems and making good decisions." If for so many people leadership is about problem solving and decision...
Adaptive Leadership Coaching For Teams Or Daring Educators “Stirring The Pot”?
It's called Case-in-Point and is an innovative, experiential framework that uses the dynamics unfolding in the room as fodder for leadership development and learning. By seeing a room of individuals as a system and surfacing the complex forces at play in...
A Shocking Leadership Development Activity For Managers: Relax!
I often ask my class how many find they are doing more work today than three years ago. Almost all hands go up. Then I ask how many consider themselves good at managing the pressure coming from this increased level of stress. Normally only few hands go up....
A Memorable Leadership Simulation That Teaches And Transforms
The need for effective leadership is increasing as our global community and organizational contexts get more complex, less certain and simply harder to manage. At the same time questions about how to train and develop people to effectively meet these...
8 Improv Techniques To Improve Your Facilitation Skills
How improvisation can enhance your creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. Improv doesn’t just happen on the stage—every conversation every one of us has in life is an improvisation. This is good news, because improvisation can...
6 Design Tips For Managing Group Dynamics Like A Pro In Your Team
How many times we have found ourselves troubled about the proper way to manage group dynamics? We wish those gifted individuals we see in organizations that have the resources and smarts to invest in facilitation services could share their knowledge and...
6 Interactive Learning Tasks Easier (And Better) Than Powerpoint
Using active learning instructional strategies creates excitement and enhances learning PowerPoint presentations are a quick and easy way to organize your ideas, present visual aids, and share your message. But more often than not, no one is listening....
5 Simple Ways To Make Your Presentations More Interactive
How to capture—and keep—your audience’s attention We’ve all sat through our fair share of dry and boring presentations. In a recent study, 91 percent of business professionals admitted to daydreaming during meetings, and 31 percent even admitted to falling...
The 4 Flows For Facilitating Collaboration In Groups
What are the cornerstone principles of facilitating collaboration and unleash engagement when working with groups? The same headache always arises. It doesn't matter if you are working to lead a group in an action learning set, a strategic planning...
4 Common Misconceptions About Developing Teamwork
Can teamwork be developed? The question was answered by Katzenback in a memorable way in his book "the Wisdom of Teams": "The good news is that there is a discipline to develop teamwork that, if rigorously followed, can transform reluctance into team performance....
3 Team Builders That Can Help Developing Teamwork With Experts
Accessing the knowledge of experts is critical in order to make informed decisions, communicate an organization's messages, or effectively train or developing teamwork. But extracting specialist knowledge with the purpose of sharing it with non-experts is often a...
3 Simple Methods For Reflection-on-action
How debriefing can help your team tackle tough problems Let’s say you’re working with a team on an important project. You have a few meetings, and you put together a plan. But not long after the tasks are assigned and everyone gets started, things start to fall apart....
3 Questions To Ask When Making Observations
How making observations and giving feedback can strengthen a group’s performance If you want to help your team improve group dynamics and work more effectively, then observing how your group interacts is an important part of your role as a leader. Many of the...
20 Things To Ensure The Failure Of Your Leadership Workshop
I have finally discovered them! I have worked them out! I thought I knew intuitively… but now that I have seen this class and this trainer, I am sure I know what are the twenty things that instructors do to ensure the failure of their leadership workshops. Yes,...
Effectiveness rules for teams: improving teamwork skills and thrive
Conventional scholarly models on teamwork tightly link causes and effects. As a result we often approach solving teamwork problems by looking for a recipe, where we can use certain ingredients and key elements to bake a better cake will do the trick. But...
10 Experiential Learning Activities Online for Better Webinars
People tend to assume that the online experience is somehow less real or less valuable than a bricks-and-mortar classroom or other face-to-face engagement.To combat that mental model and create better webinars, the art of online hosting places special...
4 Ways to get to Know your Audience
Using an audience-centered approach to speaking will make you a better leader and educator. The most important thing you can do when you’re preparing to deliver a speech or teach a class is to get to know your audience. The more you know about their...
Learn the art of avoiding action for the sake of action | SmartBrief
We often get into action to satisfy our need for closure, not because we have the right action to pursue. Source: Learn the art of avoiding action for the sake of action | SmartBrief
The Art Of Online Hosting: How To Avoid Logging On, Dialing In And … Dozing Off In Your Webinars
I used to hate webinars: just plainly boring affairs where we log on, dial in and ...doze off. You probably know about this kind of webinars. You may have attended a few yourself. Perhaps you found them boring and un-engaging, with no chance to interact or...
The Art Of Asking Great Questions For Leaders
"Asking great questions is not easy. This is because it is not just a matter of learning some 'talking by numbers' techniques. Techniques are important. But they work best when underpinned by deeply held values and are reinforced by hours of...
The Answer To How Is Who: The Inner Work Of Leadership
Asking questions gives such a powerful leverage in some organizations, and yet the ability to ask critical questions and to listen might not be considered critical organizational capabilities. Why is that? Organizations assume that employees do not need to...
The Answer To How Is Who: Breakthrough Dialogue Through Great Questions
Asking questions has such a powerful leverage in organizations and yet, the ability to synthesize available data and transform this information into critical questions or the ability to listen are not considered critical capabilities. We think we know so...
The Amazing Power Of The Breakthrough Leadership Lab
Not so long ago, a Forbes article was written listing the qualities that make a great leader. For example, honesty, communication, and a sense of humor of some great leadership skills. But how do you use these skills to your advantage when you're in a...
The 5 Questions That Fix Boring Meetings And Improve The Work Of Teams
The boring meeting has become a common evil of office life. Even with designated facilitators, meetings can still go terribly wrong and when we are not the meeting leader it can be hard to know what to do. However even in the most difficult situations we...
Tell Me A Story: Leadership Unlearning For Your Team With The “Case Method”
Case studies are stories used as a teaching tool to show the application of a theory or concept to real situations. The "case method" is a way of teaching that uses those stories— or cases— to encourage learners to exercise judgment and to deal with the...
Teaching With Case-in-point* Is About “Showing Up” In Class
*Case-in-Point is an immersive and experiential methodology to teach leadership. The idea is simple: people learn about leadership by experiencing it hands‐on in real time, rather than hearing someone talk about it. Learning leadership experientially...
Teaching Leadership While Discounting It? Leadership Learning Re-imagined
As a faculty member, I often observe other facilitators teaching leadership classes. When I do, I become acutely aware of my almost allergic aversion to the excessive care-taking of participants in those classes. I find it particularly annoying when I see...
So Many Leadership Labs, So Little Change: Five Possible Explanations…
"My belief is that the way we create conversations that overcome the fragmented nature of our communities is what creates an alternative future.This can be a difficult stance to take for we have a deeply held belief that the way to make a difference in the...
Sliding On The Curve: 3 Ways Of Creating Resilient Learners And Training Programs
Have you noticed? In organizations nobody is against learning or training per se. No one denies their benefits. Everyone - at least with words - keep learning and training investments in great esteem. May be even a bit too much. So much so that "training"...
Shall We Feast On Our Life On 2013?
I love poetry and want to take this opportunity to wish a great 2013 to all my friends who read this blog. I want to do it with the verses of Derek Walcott, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, the first Caribbean writer to receive the...
Seek Persistent Disequilibrium
"Neither constancy nor relentless change will support a creation. A good creation, like good jazz, must balance the stable formula with frequent out-of-kilter notes. Equilibrium is death. Yet unless a system stabilizes to an equilibrium point, it is no...
Is Leadership About Running The Four Bases Of “Not Knowing”?
Here is one of the most valuable abilities for leaders in our times: becoming more comfortable in a place of ”not knowing”, in a situation of ambiguity, when facing events beyond our control. What is our "default" in those situation? We fight, resist, and...
Ron Johnson And The Work Of Leadership
He was like a knight in shining armor. Missouri Highway Patrol Ron Johnson stepped up last Thursday to take charge of in Ferguson, Missouri and I (with the rest of the nation) had great hopes that he was the man for the job. At a press conference the next...
Relationship Skills Acid Test: Talking Politics And Still Stay Friends?
My mother-in-law was adamant: in good company, you do not discuss politics or religion. I had been living in the US for only a few years and those words seemed most curious to me, almost as curious as the word "controversial." (I distinctly remember asking my friend...
Putting On The System Glasses (3 of 3): Systems Thinking For Defusing Conflict
3 of a series of 3 on Systems Thinking You are the leader of this team. In your last staff meeting, in the last 10 minutes the following conflict erupts: Maria: When I was your age, I never . . . Jack: What is this crap about when you were my age? You...
Putting On The System Glasses (2 of 3): Questions Of Systems Thinking Masters For Groups
Second of a series of 3 pieces on Systems Thinking As we become more effective in seeing systems and learning to think in new ways about human behavior—attending not only to the individual but also to the larger systemic and interactive dynamics between...
Putting On The System Glasses (1 of 3): Developing Teamwork By “Seeing Systems”
1 in a series of 3 on Systems Thinking I am in a meeting. I have decided I want to attend not only to the individual but also to the larger systemic and interactive dynamics among people. So what happens when we put on a pair of “systems” glasses? Now we...
Put Down The Spoons And Start Facilitating Learning!
It is clear that the experiential educator is not a lecturer, a presenter, or a star, but a facilitator of learning. A learning facilitator does not like to drive. Instead, he or she lets the participants drive, providing some directions at key turns and...
Power Of The Past. Leadership Skills Workshop Across The Atlantic
INTEGRAL LEADERSHIP REVIEW - Particles magazine - Published with permission I grew up and was educated in Rome, Italy. Here are a few flashbacks about my life as a learner in the Italian school system: Elementary School, 1972: Maestra Arena would...
Peer Leadership Is Bringing People Together With “the Third Story”
Have you ever been in a situation where you argued vociferously for your point of view, and seemingly hit a brick wall as you tried to convince the other person of your opinion? If you are stuck at a standstill – at work, in personal relationships and in social...
Out With The Old: Leadership Unlearning Begins The Transformation
Cognitive behavioral therapy, psychotherapy and hypnosis all have a common goal. Each therapy seeks to unearth and uproot beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that are counterproductive to the client's ability to live a healthy life or achieve stated goals. In the same...
Orchestrating Leadership At Work: What’s The Recipe?
I have already talked about the perennial search of the hero as a leader. There is an entire leadership development industry that caters to this idea. HR calls it the Competency Model: learn these skills, add some vision, a pinch of emotional intelligence; develop...
Orchestrating Leadership At Work: Tricks Of Language And Ideologies
The word "leadership" is often used in a variety of contexts with different meanings. Adding insult to injury, many of these meanings describe very different things, like skills, specific actions, values or people. That is, often when we use the word leadership when...
Orchestrating Leadership At Work Is Like Learning Spanish With Keats!
In a letter written in 1817 to his brother the romantic poet John Keats referring to Shakespeare talked about a special ability he called "negative capability". According to Keats Shakespeare had this ability to suspend his values, assumptions, beliefs and...
Orchestrating Leadership At Work: First Or Second Order Change?
What is Change? Change is commonly described as moving from point A to point B, a change from one position to another. However, life is never still; we imagine it is because we can’t perceive the movement and conflate the limits of our perception with the limits of...
The Power Of Breakthrough Dialogue: Cultivating Communication At Work
"It is hard to keep an open mind during an heated argument isn't it? People get identified with certain ideas and assert them fervently. They responses to those with it really consider evidence against their own views. Why Are People Closed-minded? Once a belief has...
Online Experiential Activities To Create Winning First Impressions In Webinars
We all know how important are the first few minutes of a class with a new instructor; we know from research that the few seconds it takes for people to form an opinion about someone else is a critical baseline for how they will be evaluated. How does this research...
Three Online Experiential Activities For Better Webinars
I've been pondering this question: "You say I should drop the Powerpoint in my webinars, but what replaces it?" anxiety rises when their beloved MS Powerpoint tool is threatened. For some, my suggestion is almost like bad-mouthing their mother: people react with true...
No Touchy Feely Stuff! The Myth Of Rationality And My Leadership Lab
Dualism, the idea that thinking and feeling are separated, can be traced from Plato to Descartes, and from Kant to the Logical Positivists. For Plato, emotions were defects, irrational urges that needed controlling, and for Kant, emotions were regarded as...
No More Ties! Learning Re-imagined To Activate Your Potential
"For some people the knowledge one person already has before a learning experience is like a collection of old ties, with each tie being an element of the held knowledge. When new knowledge becomes available (in a training session) the knowledge acquisition process is...
Failure To Connect Online? Magnify Your Webinars Learning Effectiveness
The way most webinars are conducted today - presenter talking, slide show showing and "Do you have any questions?" at the end - limits their effectiveness as learning experiences. Worse, people today have already re-adjusted and lowered their expectations of online...
My Fault? The Leadership Activities Of Mapping Contribution
Most difficult conversations focus significant attention on who’s to blame for a particular mess in which we find ourselves. To stop the inefficient process of attributing blame solely to others, we need a way that will help us see that our own fingerprints are often...
Looking In The Wrong Place For Answers? One Key Leadership Unlearning
What plan of action should we take? What leadership book should we read? What are the five steps we need to follow? What are the right answers? It is important to note that questions like these have two underlying and unstated assumptions: Assumption...
Learning The Art Of Online Hosting: Keeping A Conversation Going
When we teach about the art of online hosting in webinars a common question people ask is: "How do I keep the conversation going in an environment where I can't even see my trainees?" The question is well grounded because webinar technology clearly...
What Is Learning Re-imagined Without Powerpoint?
Recently, I had a conversation with someone new to my work and it struck me that she didn't fully grasp the value that innovative training (without Powerpoint) can bring to her organization. Understanding training's value helps you make the best decisions about when...
Learning Re-imagined: Why Are Adults Different From Kids?
Since my son Dylan was born I have been constantly amazed by the magic of his learning. Is learning for children (pedagogy) really that different from learning for adults (andragogy)? Here are a few facts I have collected that might help clarify the...
Learning Reimagined: What If We Reinterpreted Learning As Emotional Work?
People often show up for a leadership course with expectations about HOW the knowledge will be conveyed (often through a lecture, consistently with previous experiences) and WHAT the structure of that knowledge will be (somehow external and objective)....
Learning As Asking New Questions Of Our Experience
We learn by asking new questions of our experience. But if that is indeed how we learn, we are bound to miss the things about which we do not ask. A different way of learning is to set ourselves up to experience situations with a greater openness than we...
Leading While Female: Why An All-women’s Leadership Experiential Learning Program?
An interview with Jill Hufnagel, Ph.D., LPC. Jill Hufnagel is the Associate Director of the Batten Leadership Institute at Hollins University and a consultant with Cambridge Leadership Associates. A licensed professional counselor, Jill is also a former...
Leadership Unlearning: Three Stories To Talk About It
A fundamental principle of my teaching - in workshop and courses alike - is that people, communities, organizations, and institutions have the possibility of fulfillment and greatness. In fact, my entire work is committed to that possibility. As such, my...
Leadership Is A Conversation! Dialogue As A Journey Of Change
As a corporate retreat facilitator I am often asked why I think that dialogue can help, and how I feel it differs from discussion. I believe that dialogue is a journey of change and a key vehicle for learning that goes far beyond its “feel good” results. I...
Leadership Games Of Art: Learning About Leading From 3 Great Paintings
I have always loved art and great paintings in particular, their powerful rendering of a single, frozen moment of life has always fascinated me. It is a powerful and fascinating language. Sometime ago I stumbled on this great quote from the Mexican painter...
Leadership Activities: The Mistery Of “The Image In The Mirror”
Once upon a time there was…me, but it was not all right. It happened that I would meet somebody at a bar and started a casual conversation, and for a while the conversation was nice and fluid, but then it would always get to the point when the other party...
Leadership Activities For When Your Students Fly Off The Handles
I see emotions in class as important data, as expressions of deeply held beliefs and the work of leadership as getting in touch with this inner dimension in order to gain greater awareness. I can only do leadership activities and do this work with emotions in class if...