When you are working and following the path to complete your task and an obstacle to your progress happens, how you navigate around that obstacle is what you are paid for.

You are not paid to follow a rote path, A machine can do that

At a coffee shop to meet a coaching client, arrived early to drink some coffee read some emails and prepare.

Order coffee & sesame bagel toasted with butter, sit to eat. Open my iPad and cannot get on the internet.

I’ve been to this coffee shop many time before and never had a problem. I try again nothing…

Walk up to the cashier (at this place they always act like they just woke up and your question is weird, and I kind of like that) and ask, “Is there some sort of trick to the wifi I cannot connect?”

She stares at me, vacantly…I ask again, “The internet I cannot connect, usually I have no problem, this morning it’s not working.”

Her, “Yeah we’re having problems with that.”

Me, “So, anything you can do?”

Her avoiding eye contact, “No”

Me, “Is there anyone here who can?”

Her, “We have been having problems and most people just wait and sometimes it fixes itself.”

Me, “Alright then, it will fix itself you say, thank you.” I walk away…

You might be thinking Mike it’s a coffee shop and you don’t need the internet. Yes, and this apathetic behavior is endemic of your work also.

Right now someone that you manage or your manager is telling someone “Yeah we’re having problems with that.”  NOT offering a solution, an alternative, an attempted solution.

You are paid to make decisions and solve problems

When you are working and following the path to complete your task and an obstacle to your progress happens, how you navigate around that obstacle is what you are paid for.

You are not paid to follow a rote path, A machine can do that

What do you think?

When does your accountability to solve problems stop and your managers begins? What about your work requires you to make decisions and solve problems, how do you measure that?

michael cardus is create-learning

image by LaPrimaDonna

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

7 Steps to High Performance Teams

Within every organization people are asked to work with others in a team.  Teams are often placed together with little or no system for effectiveness and is why most teams just do not work.  Within this workshop we will explore the creation and sustainment of high-performance teams.  Each attendee will leave with a working model of how to apply this model into existing teams to improve effectiveness, and examples or ways to implement this system into their organization.

Contact Mike if you would like him to talk with your team.

Images of our time together.

Here is some of the feedback;

• “Great presentation. I enjoyed the material.”
• “Thank you for the information. I gained from the class and will be using this model to understand what is happening with our teams.”
• “You did a great job last night. I have been to a handful of these events, and I have never seen the group so engaged and participative. I appreciate your hard work and preparation.”

michael cardus is create-learning

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To register

High Performance Team Development: Quality Tools for Quality Teams

I presented a similar workshop last year. This one is going to be similar yet different. Some major differences are going to be more time spent on Clarification of Role Responsibilities (who does what when; who is accountable to whom; authority of assigning and taking away existing work and project tasks.)

Who should attend and why?

If are a Project Sponsor / Champion, Team Leader, Team member of a Quality Team and want to enhance your skill sets in Team Development, Facilitative Leadership, Project Management and people skills then this is where you should be. The material and learning simulations in this workshop are designed to make you a better leader and team member, plus we will have fun!   

This will be accomplished through;

• Interactive delivery of content.
• Experiential application and practice of the content
• Followed by processing and steps for integration into your team and organization.

The material is able to be used and understood by people, who have a working knowledge of Quality Teams (6 Sigma, Lean, Process Improvement, etc…) Whether you lead teams or are a team member the material covered and techniques shared will be useful for you to harness the hard skills, interpersonal skills and political skills (Soft Skills) needed to complete successful Quality Projects.

Outcomes:

You will walk away from this workshop with;

• How to develop high performance Quality teams; With a prescriptive model that can be applied and utilized. 
• Facilitative leadership of teams.
• Effective Prevention and intervention methods of maladaptive team member behaviors.
• Steps to create “buy in” for the Quality projects from people who are outside the team.
• A community of professionals that will share resources, best practices, and serve as solution finders to Quality Teams within their organizations.

If that is enough for you – Register Now

If you need more information look below.

High Performance Team Development: Quality Tools for Quality Teams – Agenda

• it is lofty and subject to change depending upon who is in the room and time constraints.

Roles and Responsibilities of Quality Teams

• Pitfalls common to all teams
• High Performance Teams Model and its application
• Define Roles & Responsibilities of; Project Sponsor / Champion; Team Leader; Team members; stakeholders
• * Task Initiated Role Responsibilities (TIRR) – are cross-functional relationships in which A is authorized to initiate B’s doing something but where it is B’s manager and not A who is held accountable for whether or not B does it and for B’s output. TIRR define who can do what to whom. These are generally lateral or horizontal relationships. (Jaques 1998)

Team Leader

• Facilitative leadership
• Exploration of content vs. method and ways of providing evaluations and feedback on both
• Establishment of team ground rules
• Agendas for agreement
• Decision Making Methods
• Dealing with project de-railing behaviors of team members
• Team prevention and intervention strategies
• Pressure Paradigm activity

Managing Quality Team Projects

• Getting buy-in from people outside of project team
• Defining and showing relevance to project stakeholders
• Influence Strategies
• Communication with people outside the team who’s help is needed
• Pitfalls of emails to Quality projects and how to avoid them
• What to do when you are not getting cooperation

If that is enough for you – Register Now

• Questions? Contact Mike

michael cardus is create-learning

image by GollyGforce trying to catch up on commenting

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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