International Association of Facilitators
1999 Annual Meeting
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
January 14-17,1 999
THREAD #3 Teambuilding & Communication
Rudy Pucel
Principal
Acorn Learning
P.O. Box 244, Louisville, CO 80027
Phone: 303-664-0187
Fax: 303-926-0311
AcornRP@indra.com
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us."
Oliver Wendell Holmes
"A process through which a learner constructs knowledge, skill, and value from direct experiences."
Adapted from the Association for Experiential Education's definition of Experiential Education
The Experiential Approach is commonly referred to as Adventure Training, Action Learning, Experienced Based Training and Development, Experienced Based Training, Corporate Adventure Training and Experiential Learning.
Experiential learning is learning by doing and reflecting.
Life is experiential. We experiment.
We know life through our feelings, our five senses and
That sixth sense, emotions.
Learning and living experientially involves taking emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual risks,
maybe realizing
a shift from who you are today to who you can be tomorrow,
taking care of yourself,
and service to your community and the people in it.
Experiential Learning involves the whole person, the whole team,
the whole department, the whole organization.
Experiential learning involves the body in a change process --
mind, body, emotions & spirit.
The following experiential learning principles are based on my experience in facilitating learners through experiential activities and through conversations with professional colleagues. The principles are centered around three main foci: the experiential learning experience, the learner and the facilitator.
Experiential learning occurs when carefully chosen experiences are supported by reflection, critical analyses and synthesis.
Experiences are structured to require the learner to take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for the results.
Throughout the experiential learning process, the learner is actively engaged in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative and constructing meaning. The learner participates rather than spectates.
Experiential learning is based on the belief that growth, learning, and development effectively occur when learners are placed outside their comfort zone and into states of dissonance. In these states, learners are challenged by necessary adaptations required to reach equilibrium. These adaptations usually require some change in a learner's values, attitudes and/or behaviors.
Learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially, soulfully, and/or physically. This involvement produces a perception that the learning task is authentic.
The results of the learning are personal and form the basis for future experience and learning for the learner and the community in which they are member.
Relationships are developed and nurtured: learner to self, learner to others, and learner to the world at large.
The learner may experience success, failure, adventure, risk-taking, natural consequences, mistakes and uncertainty, since the outcomes of the experience cannot be totally predicted.
Opportunities are nurtured for learners to explore and examine their own values.
The facilitator's primary roles include setting suitable experiences, posing problems, setting boundaries, supporting learners, insuring physical and emotional safety and facilitating the learning process.
The facilitator recognizes and encourages spontaneous opportunities for learning.
Facilitators strive to be aware of their biases, judgments, and pre-conceptions and how they influence the learner.
It is an active rather than a passive process, requiring the learner to be self-motivated and responsible for learning and the facilitator to be responsible to, and not for the learner.
There are many variations of this cycle. The following experiential learning cycle consists of four phases and is presented to serve as a guide as to the sequence of events in an experiential learning program.
The facilitator partners with the client to identify client needs, objectives and desired outcomes, target population characteristics, and overall context for the experiential learning event in relation to other training and development activities in the organization.
This information is used to design the experiential learning event consisting of experiential activities and applicable theoretical information.
Learners participate in an experiential event that may be challenging either alone or as an individual member of a group. The facilitator's role is to frame the experience, set the environment to keep participants safe emotionally and physically, andfacilitate the learning process.
The reflection phase offers learners the opportunity to reflect on their experience and identify insights as individuals and as members by looking at:
What happened? The observable data; a chronological look at what happened from beginning to end.
Why did it happen? Discovering how individual behavior and group dynamics influenced each other leading to the observable outcome.
What did we feel? An expression and understanding of feelings experienced during the activity.
What did we learn individually and as a group?
Several methods for reflection can help individuals and the group explore their experience including: dialogue, journaling, drawing, acting, movement, etc.
The facilitator's role is to guide this learning process using relevant questions and offering observations.
In the Application Phase, individuals and the group apply their insights to the workplace dynamics identifying useful changes in behavior on both the individual and group level.
The application of the insights from an experiential program to the workplace can be enhanced by providing the learner with models to help the learner set an internal context for newly acquired skills, values, behaviors and attitudes.
Peter Axelson of Garnet Consulting in Reading, MA, developed a model of "Group/Team Effectiveness" for building groups/teams. In this model, he states that three components must be present for a team to be effective over the long term:
Delivering a high-quality product or service, (by applying technical skills)
in an Efficient Manner, (by using group process: task and interpersonal skills focused on getting the job done and building and maintaining the team)
in a Way Which Leaves Members Feeling Satisfied with the Group's Process (relationships -- knowing enough about other team members' values, working style in a team and expectations).
Technical Skills include skills such as manufacturing, engineering, accounting, design, machine operation, etc.
Group Process can be observed on two levels: Content -- what the group is working on, and Process -- how the group goes about working on the task. Process can be looked at form two behavioral perspectives:
Task Processes -- behaviors that focus on accomplishing the task of the group. Task Processes include setting goals, establishing clear roles and responsibilities, using problem-solving and decision-making models, checking for agreement, summarizing discussion, assessing progress.
Interpersonal Processes -- behaviors that focus on interpersonal dynamics and the development of the group. They include establishing team norms, requesting and receiving feedback, managing conflict, managing differences in opinion, values, attitudes, culture, gender, supporting others.
Relationship Skills include the willingness and ability to get to know other team members to the extent that work can be completed in a satisfying way.
I believe the catalyst for building an effective team is the ability and willingness of the individual team members to understand their own and others' values, attitudes, behaviors and skills. The key to improving their own and their team's performance in terms of product and/or service, efficiency and satisfaction is their ability and willingness to change their own values, behaviors, attitudes and skills. A well-designed experiential learning event provides an opportunity for both observation and practice of task and interpersonal processes.
What follows are descriptions of two experiential exercises effective for looking at task and interpersonal processes.
Adapted from Karl Rohnke's Keypunch activity that can be found in the book, Quicksilver by Rohnke and Butler
To give individuals and their team an opportunity to examine their group's:
Task Processes: Set goals, establish clear roles and responsibilities, define problem-solving and decision making methods, assess progress towards a goals.
Interpersonal Processes: To work cooperatively with other groups, encourage participation, understand and clarify the viewpoint of others, encourage team members, managing conflict, managing differences in opinion.
Forty-five to sixty minutes including reflection time.
With a permanent, felt-tip marker, consecutively number thirty gym-spot markers or rubber discs or similar material.
Establish a 15' x 30' rectangular area with a rope. This is called the project work area.
Inside the rope randomly distribute the 30 gym spot numbers with the numbers facing up.
Thirty feet from the ends or corners of the rectangle designate a number of starting lines equal to the number of teams participating with a short length of rope. This area beyond the rope will also serve as a team's "home office."
In this activity the group must touch all 30 numbers in numerical sequence as quickly as possible. The group has 30 minutes or 5 attempts to touch all 30 numbers as quickly as possible. The group, as a whole, not each individual, is responsible to touch all 30 pads as quickly as possible.
With multiple teams, neither encourage nor discourage teams from sending representatives to other home offices. This can happen at any time.
Each team gets 5 attempts. The best time wins. 5 second penalties are assessed for:
a number is touched out of sequence -anytime there is more than 1 person inside the rectangular area
Only one team may work in the project work area at a time Planning can only happen at the home office; a team looses two attempts for planning outside of Home Office. An attempt begins when any team member step out of the Home Office. An attempt ends when everyone gets back into the Home Office. When not actually going to & from or working in the project area, teams should stay in their home office with the exception of sending up two representatives to other teams to share ideas. Each team is responsible for timing their own individual time. With multiple teams, the group keep track of their overall time also.
Each team must remain silent once out of Home Office.
Some number touchers must be blindfolded.
Everyone must touch at least one number.
Change the positions of the numbers in the project work area after a couple attempts to represent changes in the environment or the project scope.
To give individuals and their teams an opportunity to examine the specific task process of "creative group problem-solving," and the role assumptions can play as blocks to the problem-solving process. This exercise also addresses the issues of who's in control of our time, competition versus cooperation, limited resources, responding to change and feedback.
20 minutes
Start out with one loop of rope for each participant. Vary the sizes from large enough for one person to stand inside with both feet too large enough for 10 people to stand inside with both feet.
The facilitator states the following guidelines:
"This is a problem solving exercise." (This encourages people to think that there is a solution.)"
"Get a loop of rope and put in a space on the ground where you can see and hear everyone else."
"Put two feet in it." (Don't say, "Stand in the circle.")
"Wait for further instructions."
After everyone has gotten a piece of rope and put their two feet in it, give the following instructions:
When I say "Switch," if possible, everyone needs to move to a different loop and put their two feet in it.
I will not say "Switch" until everyones' feet are entirely in the rope.
I will be changing your environment as the activity progresses. Allow the changes to occur.
In this exercise, the facilitator tells the rules and enforces them.
If the group asks what is the objective of the exercise. Say, "I will be taking loops away to see how small a loop your team can fit into."
Each time you say "Switch" remove a loop of rope. As an option, when there are two loops left, take them out and replace them with a new smaller loop. This increases the creative problem solving opportunities for the group. Although the task seems insurmountable, there is a solution.
Continue saying "Switch" until there is one loop left. The team will usually discover the solution that allows everyone to have both of their feet inside the one remaining loop.
Repeat the guidelines. Ask, what assumptions did you make based on the guidelines given? Some of the most common assumptions include:
It was a competition.
Everyone needed to be in their own loop.
Loops could not move.
Loops could not be untied and then tied back together to form a bigger loop.
A person's whole body needed to be in the loop and not just their two feet.
The group had no control of time and therefore did not stop to analyze the situation and brainstorm solutions.
Sometimes when things go amiss, we tend to get more intense and do more of the same instead of stopping and looking at what we are doing in a new way. Who was in control of time? Facilitator -- no; group -- yes, if they took control. Manage time instead of being managed by time.
When did competition become cooperation? If people say it wasn't competition, then ask if it wasn't a competition, then why were people running from loop to loop when "Switch" was announced. What allowed the group to change from cooperation to competition?
How did the norms change? For example, in the USA people generally like to have 18" of personal space. There was less space than that between people at the end. How did the norm change?
To change norms, individuals or the group must be aware of them and be proactive to change them to meet their objectives.
Can people be proactive in behavior or always reactive?
Does your environment change at work? What is required to respond to those changes?
Did you view resources (the loops) as plentiful or diminishing?
When did the resource issue get critical? What did you do?
In the beginning when loops were being taken away how many people thought the resources (the loops) would get as scarce as they did? Was your perception that there would be enough resources? What was that perception based on? When did you realize that the resources were going to get scarce? When the big loop was removed or before?
Sometimes we base our behavior on our perceptions, visual or otherwise, and not on reality.
The second guideline was this, "I will not say switch until everyone's feet are entirely in the rope." When someone's heels or toes were on the rope, the facilitator did not yell switch. That information had to come from the group. The group was responsible for monitoring their own situation and establishing a feedback loop among themselves. What are some examples of situations at work where feedback loops are needed to monitor the individual, team and organization progress? How successful have the establishment of those feedback loops been?
Rudy, principal of Acorn Learning, offers his clients 14 years of experience in Organization Development, Facilitation, Instructional Design, Team and Leadership Development and Coaching. Rudy specializes in partnering with clients to create a learning environment that combines a theoretical and experiential based approach to defining and meeting the client's relevant objectives and outcomes. Through this approach he helps organizations address a variety of challenges in interpersonal work relationships, conflict mediation, performance improvement, team building, leadership development, new product launches, strategic planning and transition management. Rudy also designs and facilitates instructional programs for training professionals internationally seeking expertise in organization development, group facilitation techniques and instructional design.