Wednesday 16 March 2005

Results 2005

. ISTCs
. Focus on organic growth
. Key: inspire and lead
. Remember everyone has a right to monthly quality dialogue, team talk, annual review and objectives
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Saturday 5 March 2005

3 minute talk (...only three minutes for your speech - then use this aide memoire)

Using the following check-list you can do a three minute talk or speech on a any topic 

without any real preparation or notes

  • Go back in time 
  • History of
  • Types, uses
  • Cycles, Seasons & Patterns
  • Visual Picture
People often recommend only having three topics or themes as that is what most people can typically remember and
past, present and future are therefore the usual stalwart to frame a talk around - taking the above as a guide this can be far more imaginative. 
  • Past /go back in time, for example in the case of an apple, could be anything from Adam and Eve to your childhood or just last summer
Try it out with
  • apple
  • moon
  • potato
  • your best friend
  • you
  • your best-man or bridesmaid's speech
It is fascinating what you'll have to cut out of only three minutes

De Bono Hats

De Bono Hats : How to Use the Tool:
You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of blocking the confrontations that happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem.

Each 'Thinking Hat' is a different style of thinking. These are explained below:
  White Hat  : With this thinking hat you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.
This is where you analyse past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.

 Red Hat : 'Wearing' the red hat, you look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally. Try to understand the responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.

 Black Hat : Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively. Try to see why it might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to counter them.
Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties.

 Yellow Hat : The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.

 Green Hat : The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here.

 Blue Hat : The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, etc.

A variant of this technique is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors, etc.) or different customers.

Mentoring

3 Stage Model
Stage 1 - Exploration
Stage 2 - New Understanding
Satge 3 - Action Planning

Model can be used in a number of ways
* to reflect upon what nmentoring involves, and assess yourself as a mentor
* as a schedule for a mentoring meeting - to work through the stages
* as a map of the mentoring process - to see what ground has been covered and what needs further attention
* to review the mentoring relationship over time, as the mentee moves towards achieving the goals identified earlier in the relationship,
* to enhance shared understanding of the mentoring process and relationship, and to develop the mentee's ability to use the model indpendently.

ref Mentoring Pocketbook Geof Alred, Bob Garvey & Richard Smith