#3 Use experiential activities to diagnose root causes

Client Enquiry: 

Breakdowns in communication seem to have taken place during the time an employee was part of a team.  It is difficult to definitely judge whether this was due to cultural differences or not but your Cultural Connections might be a good place to start? I have not delivered activities like this before so I am extremely nervous about offering to do so, unless I feel very confident I can deliver it well.

 

RSVP Design Response

I am not sure whether a tool like Cultural Connections would be the answer in this case, or indeed whether I could recommend any particular activity.

Cultural Connections uses the Learning Loops methodology to test what a group or an individual knows about different cultures and customs. Whilst this may be useful to use where the intention is to highlight how little the group or individual may know about other global customs and cultures, it will be vital to know where to go to next in the sequence of learning for this group. My approach would be to ensure that the root causes of the breakdown in communications are identified before trying to create a learning programme to build new skills or change behaviours.Id do some direct evidence gathering and diagnostics rather than just rely on second hand or indirect descriptions provided.

 

Tip #3

There is no reason why experiential activities cannot be used as diagnostic tools. Use an image based tool like Images of Organisations with specific questions to focus conversations with individual and small groups on what team performance issues are observed and what might be causing them. Using metaphor and imagery is a useful way of building rich dialogues. Use an image based tool like expresspack with more open questions to get people to provide a wide range of personal responses, and then use this to further explore areas of concern.

Build your library of simple experiential tools and use them with colleagues, clients and on a personal basis to explore issues and build your confidence and skills in using them outside of the training room.