Knot Exchange For our Tip this week I’m including the instructions for a great problem-solving activity created by Sam Sikes and written up in his book, Raptor. (One of my personal favs!) Enjoy! Knot Exchange Source: Sam Sikes, DoingWorks, www.doingworks.com Type of Initiative: Problem Solving Purpose: Create a large tangle of rope in the middle […]
Category Archives: Tips for Trainers
Body Part Debrief This activity is my absolute favorite! I use it with literally 99% of the groups I facilitate. I have used it with participants as young as three years old and I think my oldest participant was 96! I believe this activity resonates so well is because the metaphor is so easy. Most […]
Advice From a Pencil Pencil spoke I’ve shared this tip in the past, it’s one I love. I’m not sure of the original author of this story. I found it on the internet years ago and have used the illustration in some of the groups I have facilitated over the years. I’ve expanded a few […]
Leadership and Fly Fishing I am a fly fisher–and I love it. It’s one of the only things I do that allows me to focus on one thing at a time. My mind rarely wanders to the 2,001 things on my ‘to do’ list as there is always something happening or something to do. It […]
How Empowerment Encourages Leadership ACM Crew Sheri, Tanya, Michelle & Amy For the past four or five years I have been involved with the Academy of Country Music (ACM) and their annual awards show and music festival. It’s a super fun event and I always come home tired yet fulfilled from working on this great […]
It’s dumping snow in Colorado today. I mean DUMPING snow–and yesterday it was 70 degrees and I was wearing flip flops! Springtime weather in Colorado is always a little unpredictable, but days like today always make me think of one of my favorite tag games to play in the snow with groups. Wagon Wheel Tag! […]
The Many Hats We Wear If you think about the many hats we wear on a daily basis, the list is quite long. Just to name a few hats I wear, I’m a mom, wife, business owner, facilitator, an author, sister, friend, mediator, collector, fly fisher, supervisor, daughter, trainer, lunch lady and at times a […]
Let Participants be Creative! I love watching the creative process unfold. There is something just magical that happens with a good brainstorming session. I love giving a group a task with a limited number of resources and then as them to create something new. The creative juices that get flowing are almost palpable! Recently I […]
Find a metaphor that resonates with you. Do you remember learning to ride your first bike? How impossible it seemed at first? And how impossible it now is to imagine it was ever hard? Remember the first time you facilitated a group on your own? Were you nervous? I remember both events quite well… Aligning […]
Rock, Paper, Scissor Splits This is one of my favorite time fillers! Have participants pair up and start the game being toe to toe with one another. Play one round of RPS, whoever wins takes their front foot and puts it directly behind their back foot. Whoever loses that round must slide their front foot […]