- Identifying relating style and tools to precisely identify the styles of others - Generating the necessary attitude for cooperation - Understand the necessary behaviours to help others motivate themselves - Enlarge awareness of the crucial importance of influencing performance through effective feedback - Managing conflicting situations while giving and receiving feedback and enhancing positive outcomes - Develop productive behaviours for smoothing continuous development - Thoroughly understand that own performance is a sum of team members performance - Using key factors to influencing and persuading - Developing capabilities of owning and solving performance problems through feedback

FEEDBACK SESSION OBJECTIVES

Recommended workshop structure

Time (min) Activity Description

3 Introduction

10 Presentation scenes There will be presented and opened for discussion 3 types of feedback: aggressive, vague, constructive.

10 STAR ModelA model that is very easy to use in daily activities and that comprises the main characteristics of a good feedback (for both praise and improvement) in a fashion easy to understand and to remember them.

15 Role play [1]In groups of three the participants will receive three situations. They will each play, each turn, one of the three roles: feedback giver, feedback receiver, observer.

30 Specificity

From our experience being specific is the hardest part when offering feedback. People focus so much on the way they deliver it that they sometimes get lost between words. Through improv exercises we will emphasise on the importance of being clear an specific and we will practice this skill.

15 Role play [2]Same as Role Play [1], but with different situations. In order to measure the improvement and make steps towards forming a habit of giving good feedback.

60 Working togetherImprovisation exercises that focus on collaboration. The trainer will facilitate “real time” feedback which will be needed in order to achieve the task/the exercise objective.

- Final Debriefing

Sample exercises (1)

Specificity: Blindfolded from A to B

In pairs. Participant A will have to guide Participant B who has his eyes closed, from a part of the room to the other, using only vocal commands. The other participants will act like “obstacles” on the way.

At first Participant A is tempted to use commands like “turn a little to the left”, “make a not too big step to the right”. This makes the Participant B feel confused, as they are different and do not have the same measures for “not too big”.

Take outs: • increases the level of trust between

the participants • teaches them “working together”

and counting on each other • emphasises the importance of being

clear, specific, validating perceptions (because we are all different)

• offers multiple study cases for the ones “observing” thus realising differences in approach and encouraging sharing and discussions

Sample exercises (2)

Working together: Counting to 30 / One word storyThe group must count to 30, everybody saying one number at a time, from 1 to thirty, in no particular order. They are allowed to talk only when two persons say the same number at the same time (which is against the rules) and only if they have a specific feedback to give.

Another similar exercise it to have the participants build a story using one word at a time per person. The story has to make sense - in the first attempts the participants tend to be each in a different story. Using feedback they can manage to discover the rules of making the exercise to work.

Take outs: • helps participants to feel more confident

working together - team bonding • good practice of “listening skills” (direct -

when receiving feedback, indirect - because you need them to reach the objective of the exercise)

• helps them practice feedback in a more natural environment (the focus is on another objective not on the feedback itself so it makes them incorporate it as a habit)

• It’s fun and the team relaxes, this stimulates the brain to learn easier

• usually inside jokes are born during these exercises so it adds to the organisational culture

Sample role play

Alex is a dyer at the toys factory. He is very creative and his colleagues admire him for his talent!and ability of putting the colours together. Thanks to this he was nominated and last month won the!“employee of the month” prize. This motivated him even more to search for even more interesting!colour combinations for different types of toys. Gabi, The Colour Department manager, started to!receive more and more complaints from the Quality Control Department: a lot of products have to!be rejected and sent back because they have small areas where they were not painted good and!you can see the natural colour of the wood. Gabi looked into this issue and discovered that most of!these products came from Alex. Gabi realised that because Alex focuses to much on the creative!process he does not pay the same amount of attention to the painting process. !Today he asked Alex to come to his office.

Take outs: • the situation is a real one but hidden in a

more interesting setting so that it captures the attention of the participants, but still make them practice the “giving feedback skills”.

• participants get really involved in the role play, the start to debate and share ideas.

• the situation is complicated enough resembling the real life situations when usually an employee does some things good and he should keep on doing them and in the same time has to improve others.

Advantages of using improv

• Focus on practice (70 practice / 30 theory) • The theory is pragmatic and easy to remember and to use anytime • Everybody gets equally involved (no matter the disposition they were in

when they arrived at the workshop) • The method itself is fun and it helps in creating a successful learning

environment • The team bonds because they are together in a new type of experience • It encourages individual “AHA” moments and free discussions which can be

coordinated easily by a skilled facilitator

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EXEMPLES OF PROJECTS (adapting the structure to specific needs)

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Context: launching the annual performance review. Needs: to help managers to understand the performance review process, to teach them how to give constructive feedback and how to disseminate the feedback coming top-down.

Time WHO

Structure Details

1 hour HR

Technicalities of the performance review process

HR presented the performance review process and the internal organisational system

1 hour Improv.ro

Qualitative improvements in giving feedback

Presentation of the STAR Model

Role-plays (each person played three roles: feedback giver, feedback receiver, observer)

Debrief

Feedback & follow-up: participants found the sessions very valuable, admitting that practice helped them to reinforce the theory that they tend to forget. We were asked to offer another similar session (2 hours long).

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Context: bridge&share / monthly event when people from different departments get together to meet, learn something new etc. Brief: workshop on communication, focus on giving feedback and asking questions

Time WHO

Structure Details

1 hour How we obtain information (asking the right questions)

HR presented the performance review process and the internal organisational system

1 hour How we give out information (offering feedback)

Presentation of the STAR Model

Role-plays (each person played three roles: feedback giver, feedback receiver, observer)

30 min Putting them all togetherImprov exercises with focus on communication FINAL DEBRIEF

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Feedback:

- all participants got equally involved - “I didn’t get bored” - “an interactive session in which practical abilities we

developed can be applied in real daily life. I learned a new applicable feedback technique + some tips&tricks which I plan to use with my team.”

- fun, useful, interesting

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corina@improvizatie.ro + 40 727 814 607