I'm running an hour or so long session with a group of business owners to try and encourage them to look at their business from all areas (legislative, staff, SWOT, PESTLE etc.) and I want to design an exercise which will help them do this. I'm looking at designing it from the point of view of 'there's been a death - of a business' and getting them to look at what went wrong and how it could be prevented in the future. Looking to add humour by putting them in the role of 'forensics' and getting them to come up with evidence etc. Has anyone got any tips or has run something similar before which they are willing to share?
Many thanks,
Pam
5 Responses
6 Thinking Hats
6 Thinking Hats is always a good option where different perspectives are needed. You can’t use as is but easy to adapt to what you want.
Good idea to link it to a story like a death but hope there is a happy ending!
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_07.htm
RE: 6 Hats
Thanks Steve,
I will certainly use some of this as the basis for my exercise – and yes, it is hoped that the business is resussitated at the end!
Regards,
Pam
Training exercise
We have a role play negotiation skills exercise you can have.It’s from the opposite direction. 12 directors fighting over ther share pf resources -tunnel vision – but having to come together for a holistic approach,given the dicey position of the enterprise! Drop me a line at trainingqed@aol.com and I will send it to you
Regards
Dominic
QED Training qedworks.com
alternative method
Hi Pam
I tried to do this some time ago but found that the sheer size of the documentation I needed to provide was enormous (enough to let them actually analyse with any degree of realism)
The alternative I came up with was:-
a) a relatively short company profile; it was before the days of the internet but could be mocked up quite easily as a company website of a dozen pages).
b) an allocation of directorships to the delegates in pairs, so two working together represented the HR Director, two the Finance Director, two the Sales Director, and so on.
c) then I simply gave them a sequential set of business news bulletins (I used business sections of the Daily Telegraph) and their task was to scour the paper using the PESTLE mnemonic and identify the news items that had a potential impact on their company.
d) having identified the item, their directorship role was to carry out either a risk analysis, to identify the likelihood and impact of each, or a SWOT analysis, to see what opportunity the news item presented (depending on whether the issue was potentially an overall threat or an opportunity)
e) then they had to debate with the rest of the board and, as a whole board, decide what they would prioritise in terms of actions, based on a (rough) comparative assessment of the possible cost/benefit of each action.
It isn’t quite as sexy as being the forensic pathologist looking at why the company died, but it did provide a number of extra learning points rather than just having the benefit of the hindsight. It took longer than an hour…..but the idea could just as easily be reduced in complexity.
I hope this helps
Rus
http://www.coach-and-courses.com
RE: Training Exercise
Rus,
Thank you for your ideas – I can incorporate them with the 6 hats exercise quite easily and use some of the Negotiation Skills exercise to give me some really good subject matter!
Regards,
Pam