Below are some of the flip chart notes, from the section on the Team Performance Model.

Overview of this section – 7 Steps to Team Performance

• Explore the creation and sustainment of High Performance teams.
• Co-Create Solution Focused questions and methods for advancement of each step.
• Leave with a working model and application to your work and team lives.

Lessons Learned from this section – 7 Steps to Team Performance

• Knowledge of how to put this model into existing teams to improve effectiveness of people on the team.
• A series of question and tactics that can be used to move a stuck-team into motion and success.
• Examples and ways to implement this system into your organization, teams and individual contributors.

To learn more about this program and others like it…Click Here

Click on any of the photos to enlarge

michael cardus is create-learning

When planning content for Team Building, Innovation and Leadership programs I use a Chalk-Board. Above is an image from a wall in my office. It is covered in Chalk-Board Paint. I have found that drawing, charting, modeling, listing my ideas in writing on this big wall where I can see everything and how it fits helps me to plan better and more creatively. 

What you see is the outline for a 5 month Emerging Leadership Program that I am creating and facilitating for about 30 students enrolled in a Local College. This challenge was unique, the Deans I am meeting with wanted “Something different than the typical Leadership program. Many of our students have already learned about Goal-Setting, Time-Management, Planning etc…We need to make this stand out”  Also they wanted a Hybrid model, meaning an on-line and face-to-face component, because many of the students are commuters. This is NO problem because the Exponent Leadership Process is a hybrid model. BUT the challenge was Something Different from the typical Leadership Program.

What are your ideas, what would you offer that was Different from Typical Leadership Development Programs?

Here is what I got so far (As you can see in the image, it is still a work in progress);

Is Leadership about me? Or we?

• Overview: The focus of leadership is impacting others, the need to focus on you is also important. How do successful leaders balance this challenge? They determine and know what they are great at, what they are developing, and what they are just bad at. All of this comes from YOUR ‘Current-Actual-Capacity’.
• Once you know your Current-Actual-Capacity then you can start developing plans and knowing with decisiveness how you can make the greatest impact on others while still flourishing yourself.

What’s my temper got to do with it?

• Overview: Your temperament an enormous impact on your ability to lead. Determining what behaviors are acceptable and how to best use, change, adjust your temperament will increase your success as a leader.
• You will take an on-line DiSC Behavior profile which will illustrate your preferred behaviors under stress and how others perceive you as a leader. We will use this information to develop normative-leadership-behaviors and determine when and how to best use and adjust your behaviors to increase your success.

Steps to Solutions

• Overview: Knowing the problem DOES NOT equal the solution. Solutions equal Solutions
• Leaders are responsible for making decision and using their judgment; Solution Finding. If they cannot find the solution, competent leaders know how to work with a team to find to solution steps to handle complexity and interacting systems.
• You will learn the 8-step solution finding model and together we will solve real problems and determine some action steps towards the solutions.

Organizational and Personal Complexity

• Overview: Your ability to handle the complexity of your work will make or break you as a leader. This workshop you will; 1. Determine your current ability to handle complexity; 2. Learn how to measure others ability to handle complexity; 3. Develop action-steps to increase your ability to handle complexity; 4. Work with others to discover solutions to complex problems.

The Best in Others Comes From the Best in You

• Overview: For people to follow you, you must show competence, learning agility, respect for self and others, and add value to their work. Leadership consists of ups and downs, you will have to make decisions that other people don’t like. How can this group and you as a leader stay healthy and focused on doing your best, while facing challenges?  

There is home-work, discussion time, and on-line content, blah blah blah… I really just wanted to show you my Chalk-Board wall and see how you think things through.

Now Your Turn;

How do you think through new, creative things? Do you still go analog for stuff or are you all digital? I tried mind-maps and they frustrate me.

What should I add/remove/change from the ideas I have above?

michael cardus is create-learning

One area of focus was decision making and how this group can support you in making choices and learning from the choices made. I decided to use an activity I call

‘Choosing Choice to Choose Connection’

• Overview: Teams of 3-6 are supplied with 4 ropes tied in loops, 1 rope connects all the ropes like a key ring. The teams have to choose which rope connects them all together.
• Outcomes: The ability to practice making decisions that have no clear answer, all that can be done is choose which one looks like the best answer. This becomes complicated when in work teams. Practice in creation of a decision making systems for agreement as well as listening + speaking for collaboration is necessary.

While processing the activity with the teams I asked;

I am going to ask you a weird question, Pretend that we all go on break and during this break your team does what it normally does on break…But unknown to the members of your team everyone else was shown which rope is the correct rope to choose. BUT your team did not know this because you all were on a break. In what ways, besides just telling you which rope was the correct choice, could the people and teams support, guide, serve your team in making the right choice?

Each team them had ~8-10 minutes to create lists and discuss the question.

WOW! the responses were awesome and really tied SO WELL into creating a community of support for the students and faculty.

Now Your Turn;

• Think about the question above; How would you respond? Your team respond? Your boss respond? Your subordinate respond?
• In what ways could you alter this question to be appropriate with your team?
• If everyone BUT you knew the correct choice – How would you go about asking them questions to find the answer? How would you treat them the same or differently?

Share your usages and ideas.

michael cardus is create-learning

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• Lycra tube final sequence-focusing on creating a proper sequence of risk from trust circles to body movement to coordination and team-work.

One part of my work is facilitating Train-the-Trainer workshops. These workshops vary from corporate audiences, classroom teachers, non-profit organizations and colleges + universities. Here are some images and notes from a Train-the-Trainer Experiential Education for Physical Education Teachers at The College at Brockport, New York.

Exploring Critical Thinking & the L>E>A>R>N model. Teaching these soon to be teachers low risk interactive ways to create community and critical thinking skills within their classroom. We began with some noodle innovation.

Physical education is about motion and learning to better understand how your movements coordinate with others. Above is an example of a great partner activity that creates – shared movement, connections and negotiation skills.

HOOPDOM – is a always a favorite – a non-competitive version where the students must work together to solve a challenge. In our processing after this activity we spoke about applications to the classroom and how HOOPDOM can be used in Physical Education.

Using metaphor cards to teach reflection skills. For teachers and students the ability to reflect and connect the activities to school and lives is necessary. The teachers really enjoyed exploring and learning many, many, many variations of using metaphor cards.

With one team we used the Cycle Time Puzzle – VERY TOUGH. For Physical Education we were able to discuss how to handle challenging situations within the classroom and how to decide whether to modify or stop the activity all together.

Using I2U2ME2WE as a closing and learning activity brings the students back together in small learning teams. Additionally we were able to use this time as a reflection and connection time.

At one point I took out the “Putting It All Together” kits and one of the students said, “We have already done that!” That gave me a great opportunity to talk about how do you handle that in a classroom? The solution is variations!

A nice closing discussion of Experiential Education and it application in a Physical Education Classroom – using the lycra tube.

Thank you The College at Brockport Physical Education Department and I will see you again soon!

To enroll your class, team, yourself in a train-the-trainer workshop;

Contact Me I travel to you and can develop a program to make your team and you better.

michael cardus is create-learning

After working with the University of Rochester NY, Simon Graduate School of Business Executive MBA program, I had the absolute joy of working with the Professional MBA Program.

Much of what we covered was similar to the Executive MBA program.

Outcomes;

• Systems in place to drive positive behaviors and increase effectiveness of team members. Leading to less stress on team members and a clear + distinct process that all people know and agree upon.
• Knowledge of each team members strengths and opportunities-leading to trust of each other and the ability to properly assign tasks that will get done with the highest quality.

Below are some images from our time together;

How would any / all of the outcomes above improve your team and leadership? Contact Mike to arrange this or a similar workshop for your team.

michael cardus is create-learning

Below are some images from our time together, to see all the images click here. 

Here is what one participant had to say about the Team Building & Leadership Program;

I had attended a few retreats and participated in several team building exercises over the years. Quite frankly, I did not expect much prior to coming to Simon School weekend retreat. I am still amazed at how Mike’s fun and engaging personality, his strength based approach to working with individuals and teams, and his careful choice of exercises that have relevance to the context of the meeting turned me into a believer. We started the weekend as 5 individuals and we left the retreat a TEAM. Great job Mike.

George Nasra, M.D. Medical Director – Acute Psychiatric Services. Unity Health System, Rochester NY

Another great testimonial for a Executive MBA student;

I met Michael Cardus at a retreat kicking off the Executive MBA program at Rochester University’s Simon School of Business. In a fast-paced day and a half, he managed to get newly formed teams of students started up and equipped with the tools we will need to establish a successful group process. Very energetic, talking at a hundred miles per hour, Michael manages to combine real content with a light note and most importantly some brief but very insightful exercises to apply the newly acquired wisdom and – importantly – illustrate where things can go wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend Michael Cardus’ Create-Learning to anybody seeking to build successful teams.

- Frits Kroon. Global Category Director – Cardiopulmonary. Welch Allyn Inc.

Outcomes;

• Systems in place to drive positive behaviors and increase effectiveness of team members. Leading to less stress on team members and a clear + distinct process that all people know and agree upon.
• Knowledge of each team members strengths and opportunities-leading to trust of each other and the ability to properly assign tasks that will get done with the highest quality.
• Creation of Decision Making methods-leading to decreased costs of decisions and increased speed of decisions made.

How would any / all of the outcomes above improve your team and leadership? Contact Mike to arrange this or a similar workshop for your team.

michael cardus is create-learning