When I speak to clients about a problem situation there is a very common pattern in the language that many of them use when they describe the problem as they perceive it. Terms like problem space, field of influence, territories, operational area, overlapping interests and lines of sight tell me straight away that the speaker envisions the problem spatially. Thus the whole problem definition and problem solving processes become firmly rooted in ideas about movement in problem-space. This is perfectly good as a basis for designing solutions to problems that are static and fixed – the landscape stays still enough for long enough for the solution to be mapped out and navigated. The problem is that most organisations, particularly in modern business environments, are highly dynamic and can’t be relied on to stand still and wait for formal learning to be organised and implemented.

This is where an early attempt at ‘reframing’ the way that the problem is perceived by those concerned will often pay dividends. In doing this, we have a number of options available, but perhaps the most frequently used, and potentially successful, is to attempt to have those concerned think of the problem in temporal terms i.e. as a dynamic, time-dependent issue. Using this frame we define the past, present and future of the problem in terms of how it has emerged and how it might potentially unfold in time to come. The idea is to work to develop a narrative (or series of narratives) that describe the evolution and possible futures of the problem.

Now this might sound complicated, but inside every human being is a storyteller waiting to get out, and the role of the facilitator in these situations is to assist those concerned in allowing their stories to emerge. Over the years I’ve developed several tools to support this process e.g. RSVP’s toolbox product “Voyage Mapping”, which can add a focus for the reframing exercise. Presenting the problem solving initiative through the use of a professional tool is often reassuring to those involved as it overcomes much of the resistance that might be attached to an enjoyable approach to dealing with serious issues. Additionally there may be significant value in assembling in one place the interested parties to compare and contrast the timelines they develop around the problem, and a tangible focus for this group based activity has obvious advantages.

However, simply having people developing their own narratives around the problem can have a significant effect on their perceptions around its solidity and solubility. The problem defined as a spatial landscape has hard edges and clear boundaries, the same problem defined as a narrative sequence is fluid and dynamic. The spatial frame suffers from a sense of fixedness and inertia that can never attach to the unceasing flow of time. So getting people to talk about the problem as a narrative will immediately make the achievement of a satisfactory solution more likely. A word of warning here: be careful that what you’re achieving is a true narrative, it’s very easy to design a process that results in a series of time-defined landscapes (this is how it looked at this time, a year later it looked like this….etc).

I’m always keen to explore and share tools and techniques around this type of reframing exercise, so if you are interested in a discussion around how, when and why you might try to move towards a temporal approach to organisational problem-solving, please get in touch via our website.

The positive side of this segmentation is that it has stimulated much more innovation in specialist areas of education delivery, and it’s also made conversations about learning solutions easier to frame. However, on the negative side, it has generated a pervasive sense of competing bandwagons and “the next must-have methodology” often driven by a desire to future-proof an investment against rapid obsolescence. Blended learning, in it’s many manifestations, has offered some relief from single sourcing, but, too often, procurement decisions still seem to be driven by the needs of contractual simplicity rather than the needs of target learners.

The landscape that has resulted from this legacy of learning decisions means that I often speak to clients who are unable to make a large investment in new learning materials and processes. This may be because they have little new budget, and/or because there is a strong pressure on them to extract more value out of previous major investments in learning.

“We’d like to use System X because we spent a packet of cash on it and

we’ve not really seen the results we were promised.”

Now I don’t like “System X’s”: one-size-fits-all solutions to the complex and diverse learning needs that exist within every organisation. RSVP/MLD doesn’t advocate this kind of approach and we’ve spent years developing small-scale, versatile tools that can be integrated into custom approaches that are very responsive to the needs of defined target learners. But nor do I like telling clients that they have made poor decisions in the past and that there’s little to be done other than to move on and trust that the next decision is a better one.

So lately there have been a number of occasions that I’ve been in the position of recycling learning investments: finding new ways of using tools, materials and approaches that otherwise would be consigned to a (actual or metaphorical) cupboard in somebody’s office. In a lot of ways this is an interesting challenge, because we’re not just talking about the materials themselves, but a population whose learning has been impacted by the materials. Let me give you a couple of examples:

I had a conversation with a major utility company who had put a significant proportion of their employees through a work-related profiling tool. The initiative had been successful and the vocabulary of that tool could be heard being widely used across the company. People knew their profile and there was considerable evidence of this affecting behaviours and career choices in positive ways. However, new strategy needed employees to think outside of the comfortable boxes that they had defined and adopted using the language of the profile, and this was proving very difficult to do due to the lack of any progressive way of building on the existing learning. The profile had become a barrier to development in that people were challenging what they were being asked to do differently, a frequently experienced response was:

“I can see what you need but I can’t do that because my profile says that I’m

best at doing what I already do”

The senior manager to whom I spoke reflected on perceived mistakes in how the adoption and interpretation of the profile had been managed, and the difficulties that she anticipated in moving beyond it. My response was to ‘reframe’ the situation to suggest that this wasn’t about challenging the wisdom of the profile as it’s widespread adoption was indicative of a major success. The new strategy needed to be implemented in a way that acknowledged and exploited this success i.e. much more of a bottom-up approach utilising the self awareness that the profile had developed, rather than a pre-profile, top-down approach. The learning environment that would support implementation was about extending the personal learning of employees to encompass the collective learning of organisation – not “what replaces the profile?” but “what works with it to renewed effect?”

The second example is very different, a business school that had made a major investment in creating an on-campus outdoor facility, but was recognising that a younger generation of business leaders were finding it hard to translate the learning that they undoubtedly took from the team-focused, challenge-course experience, to their workplace experience in globally located virtual teams. The business school were struggling to sell the dynamic and meaningful opportunity offered by the outdoor facility as a component on all but their most junior programmes.

In this case the solution wasn’t about changing the facility, or even changing the way they were using it. The solution was to create some new activities that added mobile devices to the experience: building an effective requirement to use the devices as core components in the solution of the problems posed by the challenge-course. The additional requirements for research, remote communication, information management and leadership translated as familiar features into the unfamiliar and pressured environment offered by the facility. The result is a massive extension to the range of learning outcomes that can effectively be tackled using the outdoor facility, and elevating it from an investment in individual and team development, to one which can equally well be applied to develop 21st Century business skills.

So if you are faced with a learning challenge that seems to indicate “moving-on” from previous investment in learning, try thinking about your challenge as “building-on” instead. I’ve enjoyed my recent challenges of helping people to think in this way, so please get in touch if a conversation about recycling learning would be helpful.

We also plan a number of new product launches in 2012 both in the ‘physical world’ with RSVP Design and in the ‘App world’ via our sister organisation Mobile Learning Design. If there is a tool, activity or mobile device application you’d like to see developed for a training need, then please email your suggestions to graham@rsvpdesign.co.uk and we’ll consider it as part of our product development planning process.

It was great to see that without any input from RSVP Design, two of our activities were mentioned: Challenging Assumptions was described as a ‘go-to’ activity by a training consultant from Australia and a number of people in the USA cited Colorblind (even if they didn’t spell it correctly!) as their favourite (or favorite) ever tool.

It is great to know that these products are now being used and recommended around the world and it made me think of my favourites from our portfolio, apart from the obvious pair mentioned above.

I guess there would be three more that I’ve used more than any others and that still give me a buzz every time I see people learning from  them.

1. The first has to be Images of Organisations. These cleverly designed and produced cartoon images of the feelings people experience in a range of organisational situations are so versatile and open discussion on everything from teamworking and leadership to change management and training itself.

2. My second choice would be Webmaster – a challenging exercise that brings large groups together in a problem-solving and process improvement activity that represents a wide range of organisational challenges. It offers masses of opportunities to learn about teamwork, planning, supervisory leadership – and appeals to all those learners who like a real ‘hands-on job’ to get stuck into!

3. My third choice would be a less well-known product: the T-trade toolbox that combines two great inter-group activities – the tough negotiation exercise that is T-Trade itself and the fantastic accompanying exercise, PosT-iT. Despite seeing this activity hundreds of times, I never cease to be amazed at the patterns of human behaviour it illustrates and the potential for conflict, competition and collaboration that it raises….

If my favourite activities have triggered your interest, read more about them through the following links.

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/colourblind%C2%AE-p-13.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/challenging-assumptions%C2%99-p-27.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/images-of-organisations%C2%99-p-70.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/webmaster%C2%AE-p-26.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/ttrade%C2%99-p-12.html

Please let us know your favourites and how and where you use them!

Best wishes,

Ann

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15693508

Is our ability to empathise with others and develop strong social and inter-personal skills genetically pre-disposed? If it is, what implications does this have for those of us involved in the design and delivery of training and learning in the skills associated with relationship building and ‘soft skills’?

This research leans towards an argument that some people may have more natural, inborn empathy, and attract higher levels of trust, than others because of the presence of a specific gene.

I guess we all know individuals who transmit warmth, empathy, care and concern and seem to be naturally good listeners. We probably also know others who find making emotional connections difficult and struggle with developing and maintaining close personal relationships. So, if this research suggests that there is a genetic link, is it possible to develop and enhance these important inter-personal skills in those who don’t seem to have this inherent ability?

And is this linked to Emotional Intelligence? Are we likely to find that there is a genetic connection there, too?

The principles behind NLP suggest that the observation and understanding of excellence in communication allows for replication: ie. if we study great communicators and model our behavioural and thinking patterns on them, we too can demonstrate the ‘magic’. Does the same apply here? If we pay close attention to what the ‘natural empathisers’ do, can we all learn to relate to others in the same way?

Many of RSVP Design’s practical learning resources and experiential activities are designed to highlight and reinforce skills of listening, effective communication, awareness of the needs of self and others and contributions to the development and maintenance of effective teams.

I’ve always used the activities such as Colourblind ( http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/colourblind%C2%AE-p-13.html ) to help people to observe and investigate effective behaviours, identifying what people say and do that achieves the results they want and strengthens trust, confidence and inter-personal bonds in the process. I’ve also worked on an assumption that with practice and support, everyone can develop these important skills.

This article brings us back to the age old debate about ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’. If it is true that some people have more inherent ‘empathy’ than others, perhaps it is even more important that we provide more structured support and rehearsal opportunity for those for whom ‘soft skills’ don’t come naturally!

What do you think?

Ann

To celebrate this anniversary (Colourblind’s 21st birthday in 2012) I’ve been working on the development of a tool that extends the methodology and learning potential that have made the original exercise such a success. As you might guess, this is a ‘legacy project’, after all I’m working with the jewel in RSVP’s product crown, and that brings with it a whole series of pressures that, I have to admit, are pretty unfamiliar. Building on success requires an approach that is very different from the remedial, problem-responsive mindset which we need to adopt in our engagement with corporate clients. So how do you go about building on the obvious success of a learning tool or initiative?

My thinking over the past couple of months has been around a series of balance points that I think will lead to a successful follow-up:

An obvious affiliation and link to the character of the original

+

A retention of features that made the original a success

+

A protection of the values that underpin the original design

VS

The novelty and innovation of a new process or tool

+

New features and applications that extend the offering

+

A recognition that the success of the original has altered the product value landscape.

Trying to hit the ‘sweet-spot’ that lies at the heart of these balance equations has led to a rejection of many easy-fix solutions e.g.

“the same exercise with a harder solution”

“the same exercise but bigger and/or more complex”

“the same exercise but with the engagement of more faculties and senses”

In any other product-development field these may be perfectly legitimate responses to the need for a follow-up to a successful original. However, in the realm of learning design, a successful product is, by definition, one that changes its consumers, so the follow-up product cannot be designed to meet the same set of learning needs. What is required is a learning tool that acknowledges and accommodates the learning that has already taken place through its predecessor.

This means that we must begin with an understanding of what learning was provoked by the first tool.

But when we have a tool that has been adopted and adapted by thousands of educators to achieve a bewildering array of learning outcomes this is never going to be an easy task!

The approach that I’ve taken is to engage in some pretty deep dialogue with colleagues who I know use Colourblind in ways that I don’t. Ann Alder, for instance, is an expert in facilitation and trainer training, and she frequently uses Colourblind as a way of illustrating patterns of conversation within a working group. This isn’t something that I would tackle so it’s been good to discuss with Ann the learning she achieves and how this could be developed through a new extension activity.  Multiply this conversation many times, with experts in very different areas of human development, and you can see how I have created a checklist of what kind of learning experience the new tool needs to deliver.

So watch the RSVP space for details of when ‘Daughter of Colourblind’ transitions from the cardboard prototypes we’re playing with now, to hit the shelves in all of it’s ‘Anniversary Edition’ glory. We have great hopes that it will win as many friends as the original did.

The basis for my recent questions around how much physical proximity we actually need to work effectively in developing interpersonal skills has been my growing understanding of the power and potential of mobile communications devices. This understanding has grown through our early design work on an iPad App that will support the Center for Creative Leadership’s excellent SBI feedback methodology (link) As ever my approach to a job like this is to ask myself how I would design the learning if I was given an ideal environment, unrestricted access, and any support I needed. Once I can define this ideal I can work towards a design that is as close as possible to the ideal by designing around the constraints and restrictions that circumstances present. So what components did I want in my learning environment that would support people in learning to structure and offer feedback across a broad range of interpersonal encounters?

In this situation I would say that learners need:

1.         to understand what feedback is, how it works, what makes it effective or ineffective, what reactions it might provoke.

2.         the reassurance of a system or method that will allow them to be confident in how they structure and present their own feedback.

3.         to build the security that will allow them, individually and collectively, to experiment with the learning content.

4.         an appropriate and suitable feedback system to allow them, and others, to monitor their skills development (feedback about feedback)

5.         to understand how to take their personal learning out of the learning environment and apply it safely and competently in their lives.

If these are the ‘must have’ components then I need to ask which ones need learners to be face to face to be truly effective? It’s the answer to this question that, for me, has been rapidly changing over the past few months.

The face to face requirement is about allowing individuals full access to not only the more obvious and deliberate facial gestures, but also the unconscious ‘micro-gestures’ that offer so much information about what another person is thinking and feeling. Combine this information stream with the verbal content and most of what we need to make sense of an interaction is available.

Until recently, attempts at facilitating group work and team development, using technology to link people in remote locations, were subject to the limitations of the hardware available. Systems originally developed for video-conferencing proved, even in their most sophisticated form, inadequate for the demands of developmental groupwork. It was just impossible to pick up the nuances of human interaction from a single, whole-group picture. The revelation that has come to me through our work with CCL is the extent to which working in a structured way, with individuals who each hold their own iPad, can take us very close to the immediacy of true face-to-face groupwork. What makes this insight all the more impressive is that it can be achieved when working with geographically remote groups.

I’m not getting carried away with the novelty of this new tool, it’s far from perfect (although the pace of technological development means that it’s moving in that direction very quickly). I’ve also come to realise that it requires two distinct skill sets to maximise it’s value in groupwork, and that these two skill sets need to be carefully integrated to create the learning environment. Firstly the introduction of mobile technology should in no way be at the expense of good learning design, we still need to be clear about what learning we want to achieve, our methodology for achieving it, and the measures that will tell us how successful we’re being. Secondly we need the understanding of the features and limitations of the technology we intend to use to support this learning, and here a huge advantage is the additional facility that allows us to change the way that the device(s) perform the role that we create for them.

As educators we are faced with the challenge of mobile learning. Our choice is to adapt our skills to rise to this challenge, or to dismiss it as an inferior way of working with people and currently not worth our consideration. The question that enters my mind at this point is what would our clients expect of us when we are faced with this choice?

Experience Corner have translated all the facilitator manuals as well as the delegate briefs for several of our learning tools, so I although I would have an interpreter with me during the events, her main role would simply be to help me understand what was being said in Polish as the groups worked with their own language version materials. The Krakow event was held on a large converted Dutch barge on the river, and I was pleased to see that Experience Corner, like RSVP Design, believes that the learning environment is important in making events memorable for participants! It was a wonderful old vessel, and I could have happily sailed along the river on what was a beautiful sunny day! The delegates were a mixture of internal training specialists and other training consultants, and were extremely enthusiastic in their participation. I used our Images of Organisations™ metaphor cards to open the session and to get pairs and triads discussing what their training challenges were, and I was delighted to see that Polish people have no problems in working with metaphor in this way. We then had a group play Colourblind® with a number of observers and again, not only were they enthusiastic, but very disciplined in their problem solving approaches, which helped them reach a successful conclusion fairly quickly. To show how RSVP Design would sequence activities we then introduced Simbols™ (using the Team Version) to show how we might build on similar behaviours using a different activity, and finished with Challenging Assumptions™ – again it was comforting to see Polish people make exactly the same assumptions in this exercise as other Nationalities we have tried it with around the world!

The following day (well, very early in the morning!) we took the train to Warsaw where I presented to a larger group (some 45 people) in probably my most unusual training venue ever – the deep end of an old swimming pool (thankfully undergoing a conversion to an arts venue!). I was interested to see if our dinner discussion the night before about Polish stereotypical group behaviour suggested by my hosts as being  ‘a lot of heated discussion, but when agreement is reached there will be a uniform acceptance of the new direction – perhaps to the detriment of thinking about alternative strategies’. During this larger session I decided to use Webmaster® to see if these behavioural stereotypes would play out. Whether by coincidence or as a reflection of these stereotypes I did indeed witness a lot of heated discussion after the initial problem-solving portion of Webmaster® (creating the first construction). I observed lots of discussion with many overlapping conversations, and several people taking a lead as to how they though they could best achieve the team performance increase required (i.e. complete the whole construction in under 2 minutes, from an original build time of 25 minutes). None of the available exercise time was used for further practice or rehearsal purposes – it was all used for ‘discussion’. Eventually as the time limit began to expire (somehow!) the group agreed on a strategy and every one of the 30 strong group delivered on that strategy and managed to achieve the objective! There was a lot of discussion following this activity (most of which I was unable to understand!), and I get the sense that Webmaster® could become a popular activity in Poland!

Although this was a very short trip I saw enough to know that I want to go back and experience more Polish cooking, Polish beer, Polish socialising and Polish customers, and I look forward to a successful partnership between Experience Corner and RSVP Design.

Graham Cook

At this year’s IAF Conference in Istanbul, I was fortunate enough to take part in a great facilitated session that drew on techniques and methods that are consistent with those we use at RSVP Design.

The first session was called ‘Consensual Circle’ and involved using images to help a group to move towards consensus – a point at which everyone in the group contributed to a decision that every member agree with – or at least was prepared to live with!

The process involved everyone working in one group. At the beginning of the session, each person was asked to draw a picture representing their individual interpretation of ‘Facilitation’. Each picture was then presented and explained.

When everyone had presented their images, each person was ask to choose the one that they liked best. They could, if they wished, choose their own but most people did not.

A simple tally was then taken and the image that received the most votes was selected.

This image was then re-presented to the group and every member was asked to score the image on a scale of 1-5, depending upon how satisfied they were with it as a representation of the theme. A simple show of fingers was used, in which the numbers meant:

5 – I am extremely satisfied: this image represents everything I want it to represent

4 – Generally very satisfied – there may be some minor changes I would make

3 – I can live with this, although it is not what I would have chosen myself

2 – Dissatisfied – I have many concerns  about this

1 – Extremely dissatisfied – I would fight hard to resist this image being chosen

When the ‘scores’ had been given, the facilitator went to the person who had given the lowest score and asked that individual to explain his/her concerns. This was done with everyone listening and with no response.

The facilitator then asked, “So you have given this image a score of 2. What would have to change in the image to move you to a 3?”

This was explored and the participant described changes that would make the image more acceptable. These changes were then offered to the group with the question,

“Would anyone have a problem if we made these changes to the image?”

If the answer was, “yes, “ the attention moved to the person with the concern and the same question was asked again, “So, is there any way you could suggest a change that you could agree to and that would also be satisfying to everyone else?”

The change was made to the image and the scoring process was repeated.

The aim of this process is to reach a solution which everyone scores at 3 or above. In our group this happened within an hour: the facilitator explained that in his experience of working in organisations the consensus was usually achieved even faster than that.

Of course, working with a graphic facilitator or live artist would be the ideal solution but as I worked on the process I recognized the simplicity and power of the process and also how it might be a perfect application of  RSVP Design’s Images of Organisation or Dialoogle cards.

Using these images as the start point removes any concerns individuals may have about their ability to draw and offers a range of possibilities to stimulate thought. It is also a perfect chance to begin to explain the thinking….eg.

“This picture isn’t exactly right, but with these changes it would be perfect….”

For more information, ask Ann!

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/images-of-organisations%C2%99-p-70.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/dialoogle-2008-pocket-set-p-55.html