Wessex Training

 

THOGS is the ideal development activity as it compliments a variety of workshops such as:

• Managing Meetings

• Strategic Planning and Communication

• Change Management and Communication

• Creative & Analytical Problem Solving

• Teamworking

• Team Development

• Advanced Communication Skills and

• Leadership

 

 

Leadership under pressure: THOGS can create a high degree of uncertainty and loss of confidence within the team. The leader in such situations must be able to re-energise and focus the team on the key issues under consideration. The key role of the leader in THOGS is that of the enabler, helping the team to establish the facts as they are, and not get lost in a maze of unfocused thinking.

 

Communication: As organisations embrace change, the dilemma of communicating new ideas and concepts from a stage of confused ambiguity to rational strategy becomes critical to the success of the change process. Exploring ideas together, challenging the obvious, and being open minded are the themes of many training programmes today. THOGS leaves delegates in no doubt just how prone we all are to defending our own point of view, and how this can interfere with reaching new perspectives.

 

Group and self awareness: The dynamics created by THOGS generates a substantial amount of revealing behaviour for the team and individuals to consider in terms of productive versus destructive behaviour in group work.

 

Learning Review Process: THOGS comes complete with Reflections, an eight page workbook that enables participants to reflect on their learning experience and to draw conclusions that will enable them to be a more effective members and leaders of groups in the future.

 

• Leadership

• Teamworking

• Creative & Analytical Problem Solving

• Communication

• Group Awareness

• Group Dynamics

• Groupthink

• Conforming to Group Pressure

• Knowledge Sharing

• Peer Coaching

 

Working in syndicates participants are challenged to solve what appears to be a simple logical problem. But by inadvertently ignoring critical information, (and they will) they are soon either trapped into flawed thinking or innocent victims of groupthink.

 

This is an extremely powerful activity. Its power lies not in its complexity, in fact it is quite simple and easy to use. The strength of this exercise comes from the dynamics of interaction in any group set the task.

 

THOGS creates a situation that draws participants into the complex world of accurate group and one to one communication, without the need for role play. It also has the capacity to be used in many different ways dependent on the learning to be explored.

 

Early on in the activity the participants feel confident and able to present a solution that appears to be sound and conceptually OK to the majority. This is the critical first stage, because unless the individuals with doubts about the teams thinking voice their concern that they have ignored important data, the team will propose and implement a solution that fails. This then raises the familiar scenario experienced by many after the failure of an idea or project, individuals saying, "I felt we had missed something". But because that something was not crystal clear in their minds, they were not confident enough to try and articulate their thoughts.

 

Stage two of THOGS evokes the high frustration and confusion barrier that the team must now overcome to re-address the problem and ensure they take account of all relevant information, accurately redefine the problem and arrive at a solution that satisfies the whole team.

 

• A detailed 29 page Facilitator Guide with step by step instructions

• Laminated briefing sheets for two versions of THOGS

• CD with THOGS warm up activity "Thinking Outside The Box" - PowerPoint Presentation Slides - Team and Individual debriefing questionnaires - Reflections workbook

 

 

We know that games and simulations can bring fun, learning and challenge to the programmes you deliver. Therefore, we would welcome the opportunity to talk you through any of our wide range of activities to ensure that you obtain the maximum benefit from your purchase. Please contact us or call us on +44 (0) 1202 729823.

 

Who is it for? Graduates to senior managers

 

Duration: 2 - 3 hours

 

Number of Participants: 6 - 24