Experiential Training in Action

This week, I went out for a new kind of training called: Experiential Training. The training aims to provide the team building concepts by doing and practicing non-traditional games. The training differs in that you do not only listen to lessons from a trainer, but you do and practice as well. The games reflects real life scenarios, experimenting your reaction and dealing in different situations.

Most of the games ideas centered around the team work and how to deal with your teammates. However, the games targets go further than that. It doesn't talk about the "team work" as a blind term. In contrast, you will get some useful meanings and concepts which you usually face during your real life.

The first game is some how not a simple one. The team got a large heavy wooden stick. At each end of the stick there are some wires tied. Each member of the team is required to pick a single wire and pushing it in his direction. As a result, if all the team members push consistently, the stick will be stand vertically on the air. The team is required to move together from a base point to another one, keeping the stick in this vertical state without touching the ground.

The game have a very smart goal. If there is no communication between the team members, each one will try to push the wire to his direction regardless of his teammates in the other end. The game tried to illustrate the point of how to do your best but in the same time to consider that there is someone in the other direction is doing his best as well and your effort alone will not make - the stick stay vertical - and hence make your team go successful.

In the next round, the game was refactored so that all the members were blinded except one person - who is conceptually considered the team lead. The team leader is responsible to guide the team members to keep pushing the wire or even stop pushing at all so that the team can keep the balance and complete the game. With this small modifications, the game give another new lesson. The key point now is that each person in the team can't see if his effort in pushing the wire is helping or not! Each person in the team needs to "trust" the lead.

You will find some members don't obey the guidance of the lead and keep pushing thinking that they are helping the situation! Your effort some times can lead to a disaster if you don't know the whole image. You need to trust the guide so that the team can go to the right direction.

There is another game which take my own attention. The game requires from all the members in the team to enter a large room. The room has some columns. A wire is tied in a random way across these columns. All the team members are blinded before entering this room. It's required from each member to find the end of the wire. The one who find the end of the fire will win the game. At any time during the game, you can ask the trainer for a help.

The game started and each one started to find the end of the wire. However, the game trick is that the wire has no end!

The one who concluded the trick early will ask for a help and the trainer will take him a side and telling him the trick - that the wire has no end - and he will be a winner in this game.

After almost five minutes, I concluded that there is something wrong and asking for the help. Some people stay more than 30 minutes insisting to find the wire end without asking for a help. They keep trying and trying, with no luck.

When I went outside and seeing the others go here and there and searching for the fake wire end, I have got alot of lessons from this game. It experiments if you're open to ask for a help or not and how much long you will insist to find the solution depending only in your skills and inconsistent knowledge.

The game also illustrates a very practical situation in life. Sometimes you get some wrong information and you build upon it. You need to be smart enough to conclude that early. If you think that you have some wrong inputs, go and ask for a help or clarification and don't stay too long in an endless searching and trying. Your insisting and persistence in finding the solution using only your own perception will only spend alot of time and you will finally get nothing.

This training was really very effective and unique experience for me. During the training, you can get the points of weakness and improvement in your personality. The training is absolutely better than listening to a theoretical training without practicing in a real situation.

Overcoming Resistance

Do you have ever joined a new team and want to communicate effectively with your colleagues? What do you think about your teammates? Do you feel any resistance regarding your ideas or opinions?

Sometimes you may encounter miscommunication and resistance for change in several cases in your workplace. When you ask for a change or even stating your opinion, you may see this disagreement paradigm showing up. You may get angry and your reaction may cause opposite effects.

Someday I was helping some teammate in doing a project task. The task was to enhance the functionality of some module I have already made before in the project. During this task implementation, he start to ask for something. I give him solution. He didn't like it. This situation happen several times. He seems to me as if he is refusing whatever I suggest. Actually, I got nervous from his attitude. The concern was that he put himself in a defending area as if I am attacking him!

I also had similar situation in my old company. I tried to convince someone inside the team that the team was doing something in a wrong way during the last period. The resistance show up again, the resistance to change. He looks like he's saying: "You have just joined recently. You should follow what we used to do."

From a while, one of my friends joined a new company and he had the same issue with his team. He asked for a change in some development techniques applied in the company and he face this kind of resistance. "I don't want to continue. I feel not good and I can't communicate with them anymore.", my friend said.

I tried to search about this resistance issue. I found a book summary called: Overcoming Resistance. The book is talking about the reasons behind this resistance paradigms you may find in your workplace and how to deal with it.

One of the book advices is to "BEND and SNAP-BACK!". BEND! by ACKNOWLEDGING your subordinate's or team member's response to your request for a change. THEN, SNAP BACK! by restating your request. It is that SIMPLE! BEND and SNAP BACK!. The book author see that these two simple steps are so dramatically effective, it let the resistance blow up leaving your "change consistency" - as he called it - in place and unaltered.

Another note concluded from the book, is to try to be specific about the reason behind the resistance. The resistance can be because different reasons and it's not always the fear of change. It can take several shapes: Procrastination, No follow-through, Insensitivity, Chauvinism, Unprofessional behavior, Low productivity, Lack of initiative or Resistance to change. Avoiding generalities and being specific will block resisters from using some of their favorite escape routes!

I still believe we have a lot to do to enhance the team mentality here in Egypt. There is a lot more than the technicality to care about. The mentality of team work, coordination, respect, ethics and values should be considered and learned.