Pictures from Mexico

Angie at Playa Santa Maria

The best of my photos from 10 days in Cabo San Lucas are now posted on my photo site at hues.smugmug.com.

Click here to go straight to the Cabo photos.

You'll find surf, sand, sunsets, some skin, pelicans, turtles, a mission, ceviche, margaritas, turkey legs, christmass goodies, and a hummingbird in a pear tree.

Enjoy!

The Facilitation Diamond

If you're at all interested in teamwork, thinking, creativity, decision-making, or facilitation - you should read "Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making" and keep it on your shelf for reference.

The book is full of good stuff, but my favorite tool in the book is the Facilitation Diamond.

Everytime I schedule a group facilitation, I have a pre-meeting with the session sponsor.

In the pre-meeting, I draw the Facilitation Diamond on the white board to show how the session will progress.

At this point, I open my toolbox and we decide which tools will work best.

I use seven (or so) sections to the session:

1. Opening: Go over the agenda. Share the diamond flow. Perhaps a quick exercise.
2. Diverging Activity 1: Present traditional or evolutionary ideas.
3. Diverging Activity 2: Stimulate non-tradition, revolutionary ideas.
4. Transition: A break or a brain-cleansing exercise.
5. Converging Activity 1: To narrow the multitude of ideas to some actionable ones.
6. Converging Activity 2: To chose the best one (or 3 - 5 ideas).
7. Closing: Decide on next actions

I have large posters of the image above that I label with the tools that we'll be using. I hang these as the session agenda. 

It allows everyone to see a map of the energy flow for the day.

Here's a pdf that outlines the method in more detail.

Slow? No kidding...

Given the standards that people set each day, it's pretty hard to do something so stupid as to impress me. However, one of my neighbors has managed to do so.

As I drive home from work today, in heavy commuting traffic, the sun sets.

I pull into our housing complex and turn a blind corner, where I see a sign next to the road.

It reads "SLOW - Children at play".

When I turn the corner, her children are literally playing in the road, spilling out of their garage.

There are (at least) three things wrong with this situation:

1. This woman cannot find a better place for her kids to play than in a road or garage? In a complex with a green space 100 feet away? In units that have fenced-in back yards? In a neighborhood with 2 nice parks within a block?
2. They can't finish playing by 5 o'clock when all the commuting traffic is arriving?
3. She keeps them playing in the dark, hoping her little yellow sign will suffice?

I can only assume she has really good life insurance policies on her two girls and doesn't like them all that much.

*image from daily ha-ha

Let's Stop Meeting Like This - Information vs. Action

I've been keeping a list of activities that strengthen me and activities that weaken me. At the top of the list of things that weaken me is the word "meetings".

I did a quick thesaurus check for 'meeting' and found:

conference, assembly, summit, seminar, consultation, get-together, gathering, convention, and board (bored) meeting

Damn... none of those sound very sexy, do they?

Here's a little 'rule of thumb' I invented for testing meeting agendas. 

Ask how many of the items on the meeting agenda are actionable, and how many are informational.

In order to keep me engaged in a meeting, the ratio should be 80% actionable and 20% informational. Otherwise, just send me an email with the information... okay?

Of course, that's not the case. I've audited a fair number of meetings, and the informational items always (yes, always) make up more than 60%. 

Sorry, but that's some sleep inducing shit...

So, here are two suggestions:

1. Go for the 80/20 mix. 80% of the items on your agenda must be actionable.
2. Don't use the word 'meeting'. Personally, I'm starting to use the phrase 'jam session'.
   Other ideas are 'festival', 'carnival', or 'workout'. If you're in a more adventurous culture than mine you might try 'orgy'. Yeah, I'd attend an 'idea orgy'...

'yawn' image by Jean-Pierre Knapen

Facilitator's Toolbox Updates

I've updated the The Facilitator's Toolbox.

Changes include:

• The addition of the Conscious Competence Model
• More links to my writings about these tools
• And external links for many of the tools that I haven't written about yet.

Play... Reflect... Learn!

image from http://www.theopenworld.net/news/

Book Review: "Don't Shoot The Dog" and the Ten Laws of Shaping

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been interested in behavioral training since my visit to Sea World's "Trainer for a Day".

While relaxing in Cabo San Lucas, I finished reading pioneering dolphin trainer Karen Pryor's "Don't Shoot The Dog": a must-read for anyone who teaches, trains, or learns (and yeah, that pretty much covers everyone).

Title: "Don't Shoot The Dog"
Author: Karen Pryor, 
Genre: Behavior, Psychology, Training, Animals

Summary: to quote the book's subtitle, "The New Art of Teaching and Training"

Favorite Quote:  Instead of a quote, here are her ten laws of shaping behavior:

1. Raise criteria in increments small enough that the subject always has a realistic chance for reinforcement.
2. Train one aspect of any particular behavior at a time. Don't try to shape for two criteria simultaneously.
3. During shaping, put the current level of response onto a variable schedule of reinforcement before adding or raising the criteria.
4. When introducing a new criterion, or aspect of the behavioral skill, temporarily relax the old ones.
5. Stay ahead of your subject: Plan your shaping program completely so that if the the subject makes sudden progress, you are aware of what to reinforce next.
6. Don't change trainers in midstream: you can have several trainers per trainee, but stick to one shaper per behavior.
7. If one shaping procedure is not eliciting progress, find another; there are as many ways to get behavior as there are trainers to think them up.
8. Don't interrupt a training session gratuitously. That constitutes a punishment.
9. If behavior deteriorates, "go back to kindergarten": quickly review the whole shaping process with a series of easily earned reinforcers.
10. End each session on a high note, if possible, but in any case quit while you're ahead.

Strengths: Entertaining and clear with excellent examples.

Weaknesses: No photos?

Conclusion: As I said earlier - a must read for teachers, trainers, and learners.
Follow all these steps and you might get this result (a dolphin even I can ride!).

Post-it Flags: 37 flags

* Each time I find an interesting quote, model, image, or idea in a book, I mark it with a Post-it flag. The more flags, the more value I found in the book.

What's Your Motive?

I received my latest edition of "Core Motive" magazine yesterday.

It's the magazine of the International Color Code Association.

The Color Code is an assessment tool that deals with your core motive.

There are four types:

• Red = Power
• Yellow = Fun
• Blue = Intimacy
• White = Peace

You can take a free assessment at http://www.colorcode.com/

It isn't a tool I use a lot, but I find it useful.

My engineer brain demands statistical validation of a tool before I rely on it (that's why DiSC is my most common tool).

At the same time, Dr. Rick Williams of CMOE shared a great metaphor when he picked up a book and held it in front of me, "Let's say that from the front is your Disc Profile. From the side is your Meyers Briggs Profile. From the bottom is your Color Code. From the side is your Wilson Social Styles. All together, you get a three dimensional portrait of a human being. Without one, the portrait is incomplete."

No one who knows me would be surprised to find out that my core motive is "Fun".

One of the reasons that I love Thailand is that a favorite word of theirs is "Sanuk", which means fun. When asked to do something, a Thai will often ask, "Is it sanuk?". That's always been my #1 question.

If it isn't fun, I won't do it.

Take the Color Code assessment and see what your motive is.