Have you ever felt trapped in a training session where the facilitator did everything but facilitate learning and just droned on and on?
I know I have, and I walked away feeling like I’d given up a portion of my day for nothing.
The master facilitators at CMOE often have participants enter our workshops fully expecting that type of experience.
But our workshop attendees discover pretty quickly that they couldn’t be more wrong.
At CMOE, we understand and apply the principles of adult learning in all of our product designs; we also know that to be effective, a workshop needs to be engaging and provide opportunities for sustainable learning.
Participants must first see a need for change and then discover ways to apply what they’ve learned in the real world. We accomplish this goal in a variety of ways, but one approach in particular is especially effective: the use of experiential exercises.
One of our most popular simulations is called Journey for Jewels™. Participants in a workshop that utilizes Journey for Jewels ™ are in for an exciting ride:
Attendees are organized into teams that each represent a crew on a ship. Each crew must work together to successfully navigate across the ocean, mine diamonds, and then return to home port to sell their bounty for cash.
During their journey, crews are faced with intense time pressures, challenges, and unexpected changes and they must work together effectively—or perish!
The surviving team with the most cash at the end of the simulation wins.
The exercise is followed by a thorough debrief, which includes group discussion on behaviors & skills exhibited by the teams:
- Goal setting
- Risk taking
- Strategic thinking
- Managing distractions
- Listening
- Decision making and ownership
- Role assignment and accountability
- Individual and team strength utilization
- Teamwork
- Conflict management (within the team and between teams)
The debrief is also designed to address how team behaviors relate to the workplace and any specific issues or objectives that have been identified for the group.
The debrief helps team members pull the learning through into real-world action plans for the team, allowing participants to begin applying what they are learning immediately. This simulation is conducted indoors and takes approximately two hours.
Over the years, CMOE has led hundreds of workshop participants on their Journey for Jewels™ adventure. Our facilitators have found that even the most skeptical of participants become engaged in this process and are surprised by how much they can learn while sailing the high seas!
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