Blog posts
Today is my birthday and I want to thank all my friends on social networks who have made this day even more special to me. So, I want to give them something in return. This idea is dedicated to all of you. You can do it When your employees have to think about your company’s values. A carousel or merry-go-round is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders. The “seats” are traditionally in the form of rows of wooden horses or other animals mounted on posts, many of which are moved up and down by gear work to simulate galloping, to the accompaniment of looped circus music. The earliest known depiction of a carousel is in a Byzantine bas-relief dating to around 500 A.D., which depicts riders in baskets suspended from a central pole. Your employees will have to make a carousel from a candle, a wire and paper. The instruction is shown on the picture below, but the main task is to choose seats for the riders. Just imagine that your company is represented by carousel. What would be the presentations for seats? Horses are not allowed! What seats will you choose? If you divide employees into the groups, each group will make its own carousel (the presentation of your company) and will explain its work in the end.
Now coaching questions for you:
1. Imagine that your life is a carousel and seats are stages of your life. How many seats will you have?
2. What will the presentation of each part of your life look like?
3. Now think about your life as a carousel and what changes will you make?
Thank you for sharing your ideas!
Do it When your employees have to think about themselves. From time to time it is necessary that we all make this exercise. You are going to get retired. Be relaxed, it will not happen this year, but in 3 years. So, you will have a lot of time to make some changes. Imagine that during that ceremony 3 persons will talk about you. The first one will be your boss. Write down what will be his/her 5 sentences about you. The second person will be your colleague, someone that is at the same level of hierarchy in the company with you. Write down what will be his/her 5 sentences about you. The third person will be your subordinate. If you have no one that is at lower level of hierarchy than you, imagine that you have someone that is just 3 months in your company. Write down what will be his/her 5 sentences about you. When all employees finish with this task, ask them to grade their satisfaction on the scale from 1 to 10 when the 10 is maximum. Ask them to write down one action for each from those 3 people that will move their level of satisfaction for one grade. Tell them to make a plan for implementing those actions.
Now coaching questions for you:
1. In which areas of your life would you find useful to implement a similar game?
2. Who would be a more appropriate person to talk about you instead of your boss, your colleague and your subordinate?
3. Why is her/his opinion of you important to you?
Thank you for sharing your ideas!
Lets hear another story for sales force. The kids filed back into class Monday morning. They were very excited. Their weekend assignment was to sell something, then give a talk on productive salesmanship.
Little Mary led off: “I sold girl scout cookies and I made $30,” she said proudly, “my sales approach was to appeal to the customer’s civil spirit and I credit that approach for my obvious success.”
“Very good,” said the teacher.
Little Sally was next: “I sold magazines,” she said, “I made $45 and I explained to everyone that magazines would keep them abreast of current events.”
“Very good, Sally,” said the teacher.
Eventually, it was Little Johnny’s turn. The teacher held her breath. Little Johnny walked to the front of the classroom and dumped a box full of cash on the teacher’s desk “$2,467,” he said.
“$2,467,” cried the teacher, “what in the world were you selling?”
“Tooth brushes,” said Little Johnny. “Tooth brushes,” echoed the teacher, “how could you possibly sell enough tooth brushes to make that much money?”
“I found the busiest corner in town,” said Little Johnny. “I set up a Chip and Dip stand. I gave everybody who walked by a sample. They all said the same thing… ‘Hey, this tastes like s**t!’
Then I would say, “It is s**t. Wanna buy a toothbrush?”
Now coaching questions for you:
1. What makes you think that sales people are born?
2. What sales skills that could be learned?
3. Write down your personal improvement in last year in each skill!
4. In which skill you made the biggest improvement?
5. How do you explain that improvement?
6. Knowing that answer, how could you make such improvement in other skills?
7. What will motivate you to succeed in that effort?
Thank you for sharing your ideas!
Do it When you have to discuss with employees why to do their best now. An old carpenter was getting ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. The employer contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He restored to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career. When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front door key to the carpenter. “This is your house,” he said, “my gift to you.” What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well. So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way; reacting rather than acting, willing to build less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently. Think about this while going through your everyday life. Don’t regret not giving your best later. Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past. Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today. Make good ones, and do your best at all times!
Now, questions for you:
1. How can you show your clients that you deliver service to them like you would deliver it to yourself?
2. What company slogan is appropriate to show mentioned dedication to work?
3. If this story has no positive results what are the other ideas that will be appropriate?
Do it at the beginning of the training When you want to start with something new and introduce them at the same time. In the envelops you will give them instructions what to do. For instance you could give them puzzles which are mixed in different envelops. So each person will have to check his parts of puzzle with other participants. During that conversation they will meet and introduce each other. On every training you meet people. Some you never think about again. Some, you wonder what happened to them. There are some that you wonder if they ever think about you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do.
Now, questions for you:
1. What else could you find in the envelops?
2. How could you meet other people in different way?
3. Who are the people that you remember?
Thank you for your work!
Do it during training of non verbal communication When you want to give them something special. We all know that today from an employee is expected to smile. But it is not easy! We all know to smile but our eyes are telling the truth. If you are not happy, you can’t smile from the heart. As the Chinese proverb says: “If you don’t know how to smile, don’t play the game of selling”. So, obviously we have to learn how to smile.
Ask all participants to put hands firmly on their mouths. Now, they have to face each other and each of them to show to his/her partner that he/she is happy. Obviously the only way is to show it by his/her eyes. Now, when they get the idea, just continue with a practice. Next time they will have a new learned behavior. Now, when you see a customer without a smile, give him one of yours.
Now, questions you have to think about:
1. What makes you smile?
2. How do you feel when you smile?
3. What is the connection between your smile and your feelings?
4. Have you ever tried to change your emotions by smiling?
5. How could you benefit from that skill?
Thank you for your ideas
Do it at the beginning of the training when you want from participants to set their goals for the training session. As you know it is mandatory for participants to define the training goals at the very beginning of the training. They can write those goals on the paper as usual. Then you will surprise them with the following instruction. Ask them to put that message in a balloon and then to blow the balloon. Now, keep those balloons aside until the end of the training. During the final part of the training ask each of them to use a needle and to pin the balloon. The balloon will explode and the message will drop out.
Now each person will just have to read the goal and answer what he/she has learned about that goal. Remember as Yogi Berra said: “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up some place else.” But, if you know where you are going, let’s make something spectacular at the end of your journey.
Now, questions you have to think about:
1. What does your team need at this moment?
2. What tool could you use for another group instead of balloons?
Thank you for your ideas
Do it When you want them to introduce each other. At the beginning of the session ask participants to introduce themselves and as a part of the introduction they should share something they like or respect about the person on their right. After that, ask all of them what they have learnt about their counterpart. “It doesn’t matter where you are, you are nowhere compared to where you can go.” -Bob Proctor
Now, coaching questions for you:
1. What do you respect about the person that was with you during session today?
2. In which way would you like to be like that person?
3. How this change is affecting your business?
4. What are advantages of this change?
5. What are the bad things in this change?
6. What else is even more important to you right now?
7. How important to you is to make necessary changes?
8. Who else will benefit from this change?
9. Make a list of all actions that you have to make so you will be prepared for the change?
10. Now, think about actions that other industries will make. Which of them are applicable in your company?
11. Now, when you have a list of action steps that you will make, how are you going to commit yourself to doing them?
Thank you for your ideas
Do it When you want to make a better relationship. This idea is closely connected to your private life. Since every businessman has a strong urge to balance his private and business life, this idea would affect your business life.The idea is to turn off your cell phone once in a week. Let’s say it would be Sunday. Make an agreement with your partner to turn off cell phones for whole Sunday. Can you survive it? If you can succeed in it, I would like to congratulate you. This little idea could affect your business life and improve your relationship with your partner. And when you improve your relationship…, anything is possible. 🙂 Remember, what your Bikram Choudhury said: “Never too old, never too bad, never too late, never too sick to start from scratch once again.”
Now, coaching questions for you:
1. Just imagine your perfect relationship with your partner. What does it look like?
2. How do you describe this relationship in one sentence?
3. What would be the time frame for this goal?
4. Why is this goal important to you?
5. Who would you be when you reach that goal?
6. Why is that so important to you?
7. How close are you to your goal?
8. What steps do you need to do according to your time frame?
9. What else do you think your partner expects from you to do to benefit from it?
10. How are you going to commit yourself to stick to your plan?
Thank you for your ideas
Do it When you want to make a stronger connection in a team. Everyone in a group has to make a profile of someone else without making so obvious who that person is. In fact the point is to tell the truth about that person, but to make it so hard to recognize. Sentences could be: “She is a cat lover. She prefers to wear a white shirt. He always makes jokes. He has a degree in economics. She is very charismatic. He is a book lover. “Another criterion is that other people can’t say: “Yeah, we all like going to the parties!” So the profile really has to be unique to that person. In the end discuss what new you have learned about people in your team. The better we know each other, the sooner we grow as a team. Remember what Clara Ortega said: “To the outside world we all grow old. But not to our brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.”
Now, coaching questions for you:
1. Imagine that your boss has to make a recommendation of your work. What unique skill is likely to be mentioned?
2. Why is that skill so important for your work?
3. How would you scale your level of possessing that skill on a scale from 1 to 10?
4. Who would you be if you upgraded your skill even on a higher level?
5. How would your new level of skill influence your job?
6. Now by having that new level on your mind tell us what the action plan for that achievement has been?
7. What would you add to that plan?
8. Where are you going to place your action plan?
Thank you for your ideas and good luck!