On January 15 I hosted an introductory workshop on the Training for Trainers Programme of Schouten China.
Although the most important Chinese festival, Spring Festival, is approaching, eight participants came to my workshop aiming to know “what is new” in our training.
I had done several this kind of workshops before. But this time I decided to do something new.
I started immediately with exercises, just in the way how we often start a Schouten China training on soft skills.
As an ice breaker, I invited all the participants to line up according to their experiences as a trainer. Just to help participants get acuqainted with each other.
Then I started the next invitation: “I am happy we have many trainers with us today, can I invite any of you to do a teamwork exercise in your own way of training?”
One participant who worked both as university professor and management trainer, volunteered to do it. And he did the exercise in the following way:
First he gave all participants a task: in 3 minutes everyone needs to shake hands with at least three people and ask them 3 questions: what is your name, your interest and your goal of today.
All participants immediately move to accomplish the task…..
Three minutes passed and he asked everybody to go back to their seats.
Then he asked one participant the following questions:
how many people you got to know in the 3 minutes?
do you find any common goals in the 3 participants you shook hands just now?
if I ask you to form a team with them, how will you do it?
After this he asked the whole group: are there anyone who did not accomplish the task in 3 minutes?
Two participants raised their hands.
Then he asked the following questions:
1.why didn’t they finish their tasks in time?
2.if this kind of situation happens in your team (some members can not catch up with the others), how will you react to it?
……
Then I stopped him and thanked him for sharing this exercise with us.
“Now let me do a similar exercise in our way.” I said.
I invited the participants to have a meeting. The meeting is taking place in a training company. The CEO of the company called for a meeting to make a decision on purchasing a course from Chris Jiang, trainer of Schouten China.
One participant volunteered to be the CEO, and the others had roles as Trainers, CEO, Marketing Manager, Quality Manager etc.
Then the CEO started the meeting.
She started in a very bossy way. She asked in turn for everyone’s opinion on the subject.
After 2 minutes, I freezed the meeting and asked the following questions:
Q: (to participants other than the CEO) :what did you see on the CEO?
A: she was asking us for opinions.
Q: (to participants other than the CEO) :how do you feel about her behaviour?
A: I feel that she knows everything and she just wants to check it with everybody. I can not speak out my own ideas.
Q: (to the CEO):do you recognize your behaviour and can you understand their feelings?
A: I don’t recognize my behaviour. But I understand their feelings.
…….
Then I closed the meeting exercise and everybody went back to their seats.
“Do you see any differences between my way of doing this teamwork exercise and the one did by the other trainer?” I asked.
“Yes, but we can not tell exactly what are the differences.”
Then I debriefed with the following points:
- the exercise done by the management trainer was all about content: he asked for the goal of a team, the way of leading a team, the solution to a team problem, etc.
- the exercise done by me was all about behaviour and relationships between people: I asked for the observation on people’s behaviour, the feeling(impact) of the behaviour, what is your reaction to a behaviour etc.
So our soft skills training is focusing on behaviour change. In our training we of course also cover knowledge, theory and experience, but we put emphasis on helping participants change their habits. And this are the differences between our soft skills training and traditional knowledge training.
To further explain how we work, I did the second round exercises as follows:
First I invited one participant to share with others an “active listening” exercise in her way. She did it by dividing participants into pairs and asked each pair to do exercise in a way of “one tells a story in 1 minute and the other repeats it as close as possible”. She asked every pair to repeat the same exercise 3 times. Then she stopped all the pairs and asked them to remain to not change their gestures.
“For those who think that you understand each other very well please raise your hands.” she asked.
Everybody raised his hands.
Then the trainer went to each group and invited the others to look at them: “You see, for the pairs who communicate very well, their gestures are mirrored.”
“And if you see this you can say that you had good communication and you did actively listen to the other.” she concluded and closed the exercise.
“Okay. Now let me do an active listening exercise for you in our way.” I said.
I invited a participant who is very good at acrobatic in playing 3 balls with two hands, and a participant who wants to learn this skill.
“Start learning now.” I told the learner immediately after they were seated in front of the other participants.
Right after the learner asked the “teacher” to teach him, the “teacher” started giving instructions on how to play.
After 2 minutes I freezed the exercise and asked that observing participants: “What did you see the teacher doing just now?”
“He is giving instructions.” was the reply.
“How did you feel when he was giving you instructions?” I asked the learner.
“I just follow and listen.” was the answer.
“Okay. Now I will give new instruction to the teacher.” I turned to the “teacher”, “Can you please teach your student without giving instructions?”
“Ok, let me try.” the “teacher” immediately jumped into thinking.
“What kind of ball playing skills you want to know?” the “teacher” started with an open question.
…….
After 2 minutes I freezed the exercise again and asked similiar questions:
“What did you see on the teacher?”
“He asked questions. And he was thinking for new questions.” was the answer.
“What were your reactions to his new behaviour?” I asked the learner.
“His questions made me think….” was the answer.
“Do you mean that his new behaviour induced your new behaviour?”
“Yes.”
……
Several minutes later I closed the exercise and debrifed the following points which reflects our unique method of training:
- the exercise is very experiential and the participants can experience new behaviour and its impact in the exercise;
- the exercise is very much interactive;
- a lot of feedbacks are invited and used to help participants raise awareness on their behaviour;
……
After these exercises I did a short presentation about Schouten China and our unique way of training.
The workshop was very well received and the participants gave an average score as high as 9.27 out of 10.
–（Copyright 蒋齐仕，2009)
有选择，更要敢选择
结果是因，关系是果
沟通：最重要和最基础的软技能
在经历失败中收获成功
