Business meetings or group events can be exhausting especially if they span several days and contain mostly sessions where presentations are made and do not have any or many interactive sessions. It can be challenging to keep meeting participants engaged and energized during such meetings and it is not uncommon to spot people struggling to keep their eyes open during long afternoon sessions. The first session after lunch can be especially tough and don’t forget the impact of jet-lag on participants from other time-zones.
The list which you can download above shows some activities that can be done with meeting participants to help them feel re-energized during a meeting. These short exercises are best done between agenda items and can take anything from 2 to 7 minutes to complete so they are not a major disruption to your planned agenda.
You would typically need an open space where participants can gather for these exercises. This space could be in the front between the projection screen and the first tables/chairs or it could be in the back of the room behind the last tables and chairs. It is a good idea to mention that you need this space when you arrange the set-up of the room.
As the leader of the meeting or the facilitator you should always have a few of these quick energizer exercises on a sheet of paper or in the back of your mind to use on the spot. When you notice that the energy and responsiveness of the group is dropping you should be able to quickly conduct an energizing exercise to revive the energy and the alertness of the group attending your event or business meeting.
Understanding Your Starting Point: A Blueprint for Balanced Living
Before embarking on a journey of self-improvement, it’s essential to assess your current position. This template will guide you through a self-evaluation, helping you identify strengths, weaknesses, and life areas that require greater attention. By understanding your starting point, you can set realistic goals and create a personalized plan for achieving a more balanced and fulfilling life.
A Holistic Approach to Self-Assessment
Many coaches utilize tools like this template to help clients gain a broader perspective on their lives. By examining various aspects of life, such as career, relationships, health, and finances, coaching clients can identify areas of strength and areas that need improvement. This holistic approach provides a clearer picture of overall well-being and facilitates more effective goal-setting.
Consider using this template as a yearly check-in to track progress and ensure a balanced lifestyle.
Addressing Burnout Through Self-Assessment
If you’re experiencing signs of burnout, this tool can be a valuable aid. By examining your life from a holistic perspective, you can identify areas where your actions and schedule choices may not align with your values. This self-awareness can help you make necessary lifestyle adjustments to restore balance and turn things around.
Imagine your life looked like a pizza
The starting point is to imagine your life has segments or aspects that matter to you. Imagine there is a segment called Financial Health which is important to you because you like to have nice new clothes and a nice car. So you would have to make sure you pay attention to being able to earn money so that you are able to buy those things that matter to you. Another segment may be friends – and it would be important to spend time with your friends or you may find they are less engaged with you. This is how one starts to identify what each of those “pizza slices” of your life may be.
Visualizing Your Life Balance
After completing the self-assessment below, color-code each segment to visualize your life balance. A high score in one area might contrast sharply with a low score in another. This visual representation provides a clear picture of where your focus lies and where you might need to make adjustments.
This template can be the basis for evaluating your “life set-up” and then you can work with your coach to discuss how balanced this is for you given your priorities in life. If you want to increase the outcomes in a specific area, simply start setting some goals in that area and then plan to follow through with actions to help achieve them.
Partnering with a Coach for Personalized Guidance
While self-assessment is valuable, working with a coach can provide deeper insights and personalized guidance. A coach can help you interpret your results, set meaningful goals, and create a tailored action plan. Additionally, having a coach to hold you accountable can increase your motivation and ensure you stay on track.
Achieving a Balanced Life: The Power of Prioritization
By regularly assessing your life balance and identifying areas that require attention, you can take proactive steps to enhance your overall well-being. Remember, life balance is not about perfection; it’s about consciously prioritizing the areas that matter most to you. By aligning your actions with your values, you can create a more fulfilling and harmonious life.
Inbox exercises are often used when there is an evaluation of leadership/management style and skills or training in time management, judgment or decision-making. I believe the value of this resource lies in revealing the thought processes of an exercise participant. It reveals HOW the person going through the exercise reasons and reacts to typical tasks that they could face as a manager or supervisor.
While you can keep track of how many pages the person completed within the time provided or how many of the actions the person chose aligned with what is considered “correct” in your company (and desired company culture) the highest value (for me) is the coaching conversations that can be had around the reasons that the actions were chosen. These conversations can really help leaders understand their impact on others and improve their self-awareness as a result.
The exercise setup
The attached inbox exercise requires you to print out items and provide them to intended participants in the exercise. The first page describes the situation which you should share with the participant(s) as part of the exercise. The next two pages are then for your eyes only and they will help you to understand the set-up and what you, as the facilitator, should do with that particular exercise page. The section that follows behind the “Worksheet” page is provided to participants once the Q and A portion of the instructions discussion is over.
Once the participant understands the scenario the worksheets are handed out to him/her to complete. This is the inbox exercise and it is usually a timed exercise. Exercises include aspects like this:
If you choose to include priory setting as one of the test elements, consider using something like the Eisenhower/Covey matrix:
You can read more about it here : Priority matrix write-up If you decide to include priority-setting as an element, this approach will give you a better foundation for debriefing discussions.
You can use this exercise with a class of participants and then I would suggest you have each participant check the work of his/her neighbor once the exercise has been timed-out. Read out the action considered best for each of the incidents and assign a score for correct answers. Of course you can use your own judgment when some participants have similar answers/responses, but just worded it differently.
I prefer to use this with a small group of people who are in a coaching program. The results of their work can then be debriefed more fully with their coaches who can explore their responses deeper by asking questions around : how did they interpret the note/incident? Why did they choose that action? Did they consider other options? If so, which ones? How/why did they decide to select that particular action? How did the limited time impact their thinking and responses?
Leaders learn through reflection and an experience such as this inbox exercise is full of opportunities to reflect on own actions, choices and mindsets. The hardest part about improving one’s mindset or way of doing things, is gaining awareness of one’s own style or impact on others. The specific examples that come out of this inbox exercise is a very tangible basis for reflection with a coach and then choosing better ways in the future.
Starting a meeting or dealing with the after-lunch session involving a group of people often requires that you use some sort of ice breaking exercise or activity to help participants get to know each other better, have some fun and in many cases move around the room a bit. Most facilitators have their own set of ice breaking activities and exercises in their mind in case they need it. If you are new at it, you may need some inspiration and this post may be for you!
There is a list of questions you can download below. Use them and then you have a few ways to use them for ice breaking activities:
Use it to start the meeting and incorporate the introductions and capture expectations at the same time. Ask each participant to share his/her name, location, role, expectations for the session/day and then answer one of the questions on the list. (There is a reason to ask them to share their answer to one of the questions AFTER they stated their expectations – so you have time to write down their expectations on a flip-chart before the next participant starts sharing)
Use it at the start of the meeting. Ask participants to get up and move around the room while introducing themselves to others they encounter along the way. Sharing their answer to the question you gave the group and asking the other person to share his/her answer to the same question. Let them mingle in this way for about 5 to 10 minutes (depending on the size of your group). Ask them to return to their seats and ask a volunteer (or a few) to share the most surprising response they heard.
If the groupissmall (12 people or less). Ask each person to provide an answer to the question you selected on a post-in note. Collect all of them. Read out the answer and have participants try to guess who responded in this way. (Rules for this exercise includes that the writer of the answer cannot participate in guessing who wrote it).
If you have more time, you can do this: Give the group a question and ask them to first consider how they would answer it and write their own answers down on a post-it note. Then you ask them to walk around in the room and when they encounter another meeting participant, to guess what the other would have answered then have the other reveal how they really did answer the question. The other then guesses the first person’s response and again the first person would reveal how he or she really did answer that question. Encourage them to briefly discuss why they guessed the answer in the way that they did. It can get to deeper discussions about assumptions we make about people – whether we already know them or not. You can time the interactions and give them a signal when to move on to a new conversation participant to engage with around guessing each other’s answers. When everyone has completed the conversations you can debrief the group with questions like: How often were you right in what you guessed the other person would say? Did you learn anything surprising from those you talked to ? (aspects of his/her personality that you had no idea about?) How accurate do you think guessing is when it comes to how other people think?
Ice breakers can be really effective in breaking down barriers to making contact with people you have never met before at a meeting or training event. Yes, extroverts mostly don’t have any difficulties approaching and talking to strangers, but introverts often do. These kinds of exercises help everyone to get to know each other without feeling too inhibited during the initial contact moments.
Many managers mistakenly think coaching is about “telling” others what they should be doing. While some very inexperienced people may need you to tell them what to do or how to do it, most others need to learn and explore topics and new skills or behaviors with their coaches instead. The hard part for many coaches is to listen and ask the right questions. And also to refrain from taking up most of the airtime during coaching sessions talking about their own lives and their own stories or just offering advice. While children happily accept new information simply because you tell them how things are, adults prefer to explore and learn by comparing and assimilating what you are sharing with what they already know and have learned in their pasts.
Closed Questions
Coaching sessions is about asking open-ended questions which leads to learning and exploring. Asking the right questions is not an easy assignment to have as a coach. Some questions shut others down while limiting them to “yes” or “no” answers which does not allow for a rich conversation of exploration around the topic concerned. Closed questions are those that can be answered by a simple yes or no answer.
More useful questions to ask :
Open-ended questions help others expand on ideas and contribute to the conversation vs staying mostly in listening-mode. These kinds of questions can help you discover the other person’s thought processes, motivations and how they feel about a topic or an option.
Clarifying questions are helpful to ensure you understood your conversation partner correctly. When people get going on topics that they feel quite excited or passionate about they can sometimes lose sight of how familiar you are with that same topic. To ensure you (the coach) are able to follow along, you may need to pause, look back and clarify any comment made which you were unable to place within the context of the topic being discussed.
Paraphrasing. This is a useful technique to summarize what you heard so far and help move the conversation towards a decision or planning a specific path forward (action). It also helps ensure that your impressions of what was said are correct. It can be very validating for someone to hear their own words summarized correctly by another trusted person (in this case you, as the coach).
This list of questions for coaches (which you can download above) can help you to ask the right questions at your next coaching session. I recommend you read through this as you prepare for the session, but do not commit yourself to asking specific pre-determined questions regardless of how the conversation goes. The important part about asking questions at a coaching session is that you (the coach) show up with a mindset of curiosity. That opens up the exploration in the conversation and enables learning to take place which is vital for adults in their learning process.
Use the links to other content which I show below and also the resource I am sharing above as a way to prepare for and get into inquiry mode before the planned coaching session.
Looking to inject some fun and creativity into your workday? A scavenger hunt is a fantastic way to boost team morale, encourage collaboration, and foster a sense of camaraderie. Whether you’re in a bustling office or a quiet workspace, an indoor scavenger hunt can be a refreshing break from the routine, offering a unique opportunity for employees to connect and engage in a fun, competitive activity.
Crafting the Perfect Scavenger Hunt
To maximize engagement and fun, tailor the hunt to your team’s size and time constraints. Smaller teams (3-4 people) might require more time to complete challenges than larger groups (5-6 people). Consider dividing larger teams into sub-groups to foster collaboration and friendly competition. The template shown before took around 2 – 2.5 hours for 10 teams of 4 people to complete.
Design a worksheet that includes a mix of questions, physical challenges, and creative tasks. Setting a time limit adds excitement and encourages teamwork. The team that successfully completes the most challenges within the allotted timeframe emerges victorious.
Remember, the goal is to create a fun and engaging experience that brings your team closer together.
When the group is ready, you would first share the instructions with them. Be sure to include areas that they are not to visit or boundaries for the exercise. Include the maximum time they should take to work on the assignment and where everyone should meet at the end of that period – whether they were able to complete the task or not.
Training departments are usually expected to provide an annual plan showing training classes and learning interventions which will be offered over the course of the year. Managers want to see when they can plan to send employees to attend specific training courses and they also would like to see that the training plan addresses key areas where performance improvement may be needed for their departments or business units. Lastly, there is also usually the need to create a budget for the planned training. All of these focus areas are covered in the templates that can be downloaded below.
What kind of training should you provide?
Consider the following sources of information which could help:
Company strategies for growth and developing into new markets or expanding in existing markets – what skills would be needed?
Based on current performance – which skills need to be introduced and which skills should be improved upon?
Looking at employee career goals, which skills do you need to focus on in order to help move employees to being promotion-ready?
Which skills do managers believe would help their teams succeed better given performance targets and customer demands?
Summary of the kinds of Training Needs to Identify
Tools and Templates
Here are three tools that can help you with conducting a training needs analysis. The first tool highlights individual training needs per employee and is based on employee self assessments. The second tool is a training needs view from a manager’s perspective focusing on the top 3 highest training needs for each employee in his/her group/team/department. The last tool helps you budget for the planned training.
Self-rated individual training needs. The quality of the results you obtain from this tool depends on whether you have a good career development tool/framework in place, motivated employees who maintain and work on their own development plans on an on-going basis and whether your managers/supervisors provide quality performance feedback to employees on a regular basis.
Manager assessment of department/team. Using knowledge of employee performance in his/her department, the manager selects the top 3 courses that each employee would need to improve own performance and/or to grow further in his/her career. Be sure to share course details with the managers too – what is the duration of the course and what aspects of the topic is covered?
Training needs and budgeting. This spreadsheet helps you budget for the planned courses. Check actual spending against this estimate to track the accuracy of your original budget and accurate allocation of items charged to your training budget.
Create a training needs analysis process that you follow consistently every year. This helps managers get into a rhythm of providing you with the required information on time for you to submit budget requests for the following year/quarter.
Be clear with managers which part of the training costs would be booked to their own budgets. For example – where do employees charge their time when they are in a training class? To your budget or to their manager’s budget?
Ask yourself how much training does it make sense to provide internally vs using an external vendor. Make wise trade-offs in terms of training costs, best value for money, expertise needed to provide the training etc.
Determining the training plan for the following year should also include a good review of the training evaluations and feedback obtained from course participants during the lasts year. Are your current training classes good enough or do they need to be improved or outsourced?
When employees complete internal courses, one can be stuck with having to create a professional-looking training certificate for training participants. Not everyone has a knack for that, so here is a basic basic template (you can download it below) which can give you a good starting point for making your own training certificates. It is in *.ppt (Microsoft PowerPoint) format so you can edit the details as needed.
Receiving a training certificate is good way to recognize employees for completing required training courses and handing them out during a townhall meeting or other company event can help reinforce how much the company values the completions.
Using technology currently available to us it is more possible to avoid printing paper versions of a certificate. You can create the certificate electronically and also add digital signatures then save it as a *.pdf document or a picture. That way distribution can take place by means of sharing a hyperlink to the certificate or attaching an electronic file to an email addressed to the recipients.
Some tips:
When you customize the file or change elements, beware of creating something that is overly colorful and “busy” with competing elements – graphic and text.
When you insert digital signatures be very careful about who has access to those. It is a very sensitive graphic to have and can easily be abused if it falls into the wrong hands.
There are often people who do not show up for a training event. The difficulty then becomes how do you track who attended or the total training/learning hours that employees have spent in a month/year? The simplest answer is of course to introduce a sign-in sheet for training events. It is simply one printed sheet (or more) that is made available at the training location where training participants can sign in to indicate their attendance.
The top of the sign-in sheet contains details of the event such as the title, the date, location, name of the trainer etc.
Beyond the Basics: The Importance of Effective Training Evaluation
It’s easy to get caught up in the logistics of training – did people show up, did they enjoy the food, was the room comfortable? While these factors are important, they don’t tell us if the training actually worked. To truly measure the effectiveness of a training program, we need to dig deeper.
Focusing solely on surface-level feedback, like how attendees felt about the event or the trainer, is like judging a book by its cover. It might look good on the outside, but what really matters is what’s inside – the knowledge gained, the skills developed, and the behavior changes that occur.
To delve deeper you may want to consider questions like:
The Rethink Shelf 