COMMUNICATION

Improving relationships, teamwork, efficiency and results.

PRE-WORK 

Here is messaging to send to your participants prior to this meeting. Feel free to modify to fit your personality: 

Thank you all for your participation in last month’s MIBE Meeting. During our next meeting we will be focusing on communication. No pre-work is necessary, but please take a few minutes to think about our current communication systems within our organization. What is really effective? What areas have opportunity to be “MIBE’D”? Thank you all, I’m looking forward to another great meeting! 

AGENDA

Intro from facilitator (2-5 min)

The Why: Use this opportunity to communicate with your team as one group. It’s powerful for them to hear the same message together and a great opportunity to recognize participants in front of their peers.

The How: Choose the things that are most relevant for your company to go over.

Suggestions:

• Welcome – Reinforce your mission/vision/values – Why do you exist as a company?

• Announcements

• Celebrations

Centering Exercise (5 min)

The Why: This exercise helps everyone to be present and focus their attention on the meeting. The quick-fire questions keep participants on their toes and force them to think about what they’re feeling right now.

The How: Go around the room and have everyone complete the sentence one at a time. As the facilitator, you should go first. You can reverse the order of who responds after each question if you want to mix it up. Remind participants that this is meant to be fairly quick and their first thought is often their best thought, so don’t overthink it and go with what pops into their head right away.

Examples:

• Today I’m feeling _________

• I need help with _________

• I’m looking forward to _________

• My favorite thing about my job is _________

Video from MIBE® (10 min)

The Why: Anthony will provide an intro to the topic and give more information about the overall program. Each month, educational and inspirational information will be shared through this method. The video should make your job as the facilitator easier so you are not responsible for having to “teach” the lesson.

The How: Use the video below. It will be helpful for you to view it prior to the meeting. You will just need to be prepared to show it on a screen to your team. We recommend testing ahead of time to help avoid streaming/buffering/internet issues!

Discussion (45-60 min)

The Why: This is the opportunity for the group to share, collaborate and build trust. Ultimately the goal of these meetings is to move the people in your organization forward as leaders and improve your overall culture.

The How: As the facilitator it is very important that you seek participation from everyone at the meeting and that you create space for people to be open, honest and vulnerable. We will provide you with the content each month, it’s your job to facilitate the discussion around that content.

1) Review the ground rules for these meetings (1 min)

You don’t necessarily need to go over the post it notes, just review the rules and hang the poster in the room as a reminder to all participants. If there is something that needs to be added or modified, you can also do that at this time.

2) Non-Verbal Communication Activity (5 min)

Have everyone stand up. Then instruct them that WITHOUT talking, they have to get in order of their birthdays. This is a quick exercise designed to demonstrate how much you can accomplish without talking. Once the group is done, quickly debrief on how they were able to figure it out. What were the challenges? What worked? What didn’t work? Where does non-verbal communication show up at work?

3) Lego Communication Exercise (30-45 min)

View & Download Facilitator Setup & Execution Guide

Prior to the meeting you will need to source and setup for each group of 3:

• (2) Empty Boxes (they don’t need to be big - an 8”x8”x8” is big enough)

• (2) Chairs

• (2) Tables

Place a box on its side on the table with the open end facing each chair. Place the built lego structures inside the boxes on one side of the room (Bag A). Place the loose legos inside the boxes on the other side of the room (Bag B). You can also use two different rooms if you are limited on space.

View & Download Setup Photos

Divide your group into teams of three. If you have extra people you can either designate some people as “observers” or we will give suggestions during facilitator training on how to do this exercise with additional teams. Your role as the facilitator will be to explain the rules, keep track of time and observe.

One person on each team will be the “instructor,” one person will be the “builder,” and one person will be the “communicator.” The instructors should be in the chairs at one end of the room, and the builders will be in the chairs at the other end of the room. Players on the same team should be across from each other.

*It’s important that the communicators and the builders do not see the pre-built structure before starting the game.

The goal of the game is for the builder to replicate the completed structure in front of the instructor. The instructor must explain to the communicator how to build the structure, then the communicator must run to the other side of the room and explain it to the builder. The communicator can go back and forth as many times as necessary, but is not allowed to see the completed structure or what the builder is constructing. The builder is not allowed to talk or ask questions during this process. The observers may walk around the room to see what is going on and how each team is doing but should not talk or interfere in the game. The game ends when one team replicates the structure, however it is fine to cap it at a certain time limit (10-12 minutes) if the teams are struggling.

We encourage you to repeat the exercise with people changing positions. You will most likely need to create a new lego structure. You can also experiment with allowing the builder to ask questions of the communicator in round two.

4) Communication Discussion (10-15 min)

After you have run through the game two times, bring everyone together for a discussion:

What did it feel like to be the builder?

What did you learn being the instructor?

What was the biggest challenge as the communicator?

What did you notice as an observer?

Where do some of these things show up in our organization? Think about how information gets transferred.

Once you’ve had that discussion, ask the following question and capture the responses on a Post-it poster sheet or white board:

How can we improve our communication as a team?

*We suggest you break this into two categories: Structural (i.e. phone numbers for key people in your organization in a central location) and Personal (have more patience, or ask clarifying questions for understanding.)

Recap Video from MIBE® (1 min)

The Why: Anthony will close the meeting and summarize the content with an inspirational message. This is also our opportunity to share our post-meeting action items for participants.

The How: You will need to queue up the second video below. Again, it will be helpful for you to view it prior to the meeting and we recommend testing to help avoid streaming/buffering/internet issues!

POST-WORK 

Coming up next month we will be covering Innovation — Discovering innovation power triggers and how teams can better innovate together. Your team will have the opportunity to take the IQE Assessment to determine their unique IQE Everyday Innovator Style.

Here is the messaging to send to your team following the meeting. Please be sure to replace the teal text with the unique link we will send separately in a follow-up email, and include the Innovator Style graphic to help aid their excitement! As always, feel free to modify to fit your personality:

Team,

Thank you all for your participation in this month’s MIBE Meeting. I hope you enjoyed the LEGO communication exercise!

As part of our educational programs, we'll each be taking the Innovation Quotient Edge (IQE) Assessment. This is an exciting opportunity for each of us to learn more about ourselves and how we innovate.

The Innovation Quotient Edge (IQE) Assessment helps you discover your unique style and strength of innovation so you can:

• Perform at your peak

• Become a stronger voice in your organization

• Improve creative problem solving and generate more innovative and meaningful ideas. 

As a team we will discover: 

• How each of us plays a part in innovation and how that fits together in our team  

Please take 5 - 10 minutes online to take the IQE assessment by the end of the week: <<<insert your link here…we will send it to you in a follow-up email>>>

Can you guess your Innovator Style?!