Note: Obviously, this happened many months ago, but I’m just now getting around to sharing this. The information is valuable, the release date not so much 😉
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A few days ago, I was up in the mountains facilitating an executive offsite. I had spent months planing the facilitation guide and what would happen to help this team work together towards their goals. I was packed and ready. On the morning of day one, I was finalizing the last of the setup materials. The team would be doing an activity to create paper airplanes in several rounds (to highlight pros/cons of batch/silos/etc). I got all ready and still had some time to spare, so I did what too many people do, and got onto facebook. The first post I see, is a 9/11 remembrance post. OH NO! It’s 9/11. I can’t ask people to make paper airplanes. I have 10 mins before we start! CRAP!!!
Google is my friend. I’ll search for a paper boat. We’ll make boats. Only there were so many steps and how was I going to remember this in time. CRAP. Now there’s only a few minutes. And I looked down and realized, it kinda looks like a hat. Let’s go with these steps and make a hat. I’ll call it a hat. I can tie the activity team dimensions to us wearing different hats on the team. I can make this work, right?
In this case, this was a team that I’ve worked with before. They saw me frantically trying to fold paper in different ways. So I was just transparent about the last minute change and they were game to make hats. And they did. And the learning was perfect. The activity still completely worked. In fact, I think the hat angle added to the discussion over planes.
I was so nervous and yet, I have often said the learning is not the activity itself but the debrief/discussion for what the team needs. I’m more of a believer in this then ever before. And a bit motivated to make a few new last minute changes to see what else can emerge.
How do you keep your cool in last minute adjustments?
