Editorial This article was first published in Business Issues, no. 66, in May 2007

I, Me and Myself

Monica Hoogstad UK

Monica is a Business English teacher and a Teacher Trainer with twenty years experience in ELT. She runs The English Channel, a language institute specialising in organising and conducting bespoke in-company business communications training programmes and teacher development courses. MonicaHoogstad@yahoo.co.uk

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Introduction
Background
Activities
Conclusion
References

Introduction

One of the most used and abused buzzwords in today’s workplace is, without a shadow of doubt, team. If I had a penny for each time the word and its collocations popped up in a meeting, presentation, speech or memo, I’d most probably follow in Sir Alan’s footsteps (merely for the pleasure of telling certain people “You’re fired!”). The truth of the matter is that head-hunters are always after team players whose task is to fulfil a series of team roles in order to increase team cohesion, contribute to enlivening team spirit, add to the team effort, and boost team performance. To keep the team momentum going, the company will organise plenty of team building events and set team development challenges aiming at achieving the ultimate goal of effective teamwork.

Background

Wrongly applying the citius – altius – fortius mantra and blindly joining the race to outperform competition, corporate managements often lose perspective and forget that synergy is a sum of individual efforts. There are no excellent team achievements and outstanding team performance without the knowledge and skills of brilliant individuals. Team success can be obtained by streamlining employees’ personal strengths and by creating a working environment that nurtures, recognises and rewards them. Believing in oneself and striving for eminence don’t jeopardise team unity, as long as a climate promoting respect, trust, support, openness and co-operation between individuals is established.

By investing in the personal development of their workforce, companies are actually helping employees discover the unique values they bring to their jobs. What distinguishes one secretary from her colleagues is not their job description; ultimately, they all perform more or less similar tasks. It’s the distinct merits and strengths each of them brings into their work, which could be listening skills, conflict management, stress tolerance, networking abilities, intuitive insight or a good sense of humour. These virtues define them as who they really are, and not their job title. No matter what position they hold – receptionist, secretary, personal assistant, office manager, communications manager – they will always express themselves through and will always be driven by their unique qualities. It’s the responsibility of the employer to ascertain what their employees’ exclusive strong points are and to put them to good use for the success of the business.

The first step to achieve this is delving into each employee’s emotional intelligence, which has become a decisive factor in gauging work approach and relationships management. To oversimplify, the key to developing EI lies in brushing up both intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, since having a good relationship with oneself is the foundation for developing sound relationships with others. Elaborating further on this theory, Goleman has coined the term ‘social intelligence’, whose scope spans over several competences, including empathy with others and good self-presentation. The latter involves high self-esteem, self-confidence and a certain savoir faire that enable the individuals to master and control the expression of their emotions, and to get their messages across in a nuanced way – crucial assets in any workplace.

As Business English teachers, we need to pinpoint our students’ unique talents and to offer a valid pattern of co-operative learning, with a view to encouraging them to implement the newly-gained knowledge and skills in the workplace, where the sum of their individual strengths is validated by team effectiveness and success. The following activities aim at revealing individual hidden assets to the group. In the long term, this facilitates the bonding and blending process through mutual understanding and recognition.

Activities

What Do You Do? This activity should be done at the outset of the course, as its underlying purpose is to raise students’ awareness of their unique strong points and to manage their expectations regarding individual contributions to the team. It also seeks to override social prejudice and pigeonholing, and provides a more productive attitude, that embraces people’s strengths instead of limiting them.

Start by asking your students what they do. Invariably, they will define themselves in terms of their job. “I’m an auditor”, “I’m a computer analyst”, “I’m a lawyer” are the answers you’ll receive, so you’ll need to stimulate them to identify themselves through their qualities, rather than a title. This could prove to be a wearisome process, because people are unaware of what makes them unique. Moreover, in a wrongly understood egalitarian attempt, many cultures promote the wearing of mental uniforms and nip any tendency of standing out in the crowd in the bud. To set them on the right track, prepare several cards containing suggestions for the conversation, and invite each student to pick up two cards and follow the instructions.

If the participants don’t know each other, use disclosure cards:

State three reasons why your colleagues appreciate you.
State three challenges you’d like to overcome.
How do you perform best: in a team or independently? Explain.
What do you think was your positive contribution to the successful outcome of the latest project you were assigned?
What would you do differently in a future similar project?
What assets do you think you’re bringing to this group?
What would you like to achieve in the next five years?
Pick four people in the group and give them a compliment.

If the participants know each other, add some feedback cards to the above:

Ask a classmate to state what they think your main strengths are.
Ask a classmate to state what they think you ought to improve.
Ask a classmate to mention what your positive contribution to a team is.
Ask a classmate to mention two things for which they admire you.
Ask a classmate to state two things they’ve learned from you.
Ask a classmate to mention two things they’d like you to teach them.

Tracking down your students’ talents gives you a better grip on the group. You’ll know precisely on whom you can rely in any given situation. For instance, students with strong analytic skills are reliable feedback providers after a role-playing task; the risk-takers will salute competitive and innovative tasks; the mavericks will excel at tasks that challenge their out-of-box thinking; the goal-oriented ones will keep an eye on attaining learning priorities and will prevent any derailments, and so on and so forth.

What’s in Your Bag?

This assignment, which can be used as an energiser, is meant to help the students open up and reveal their true inner self in front of their team mates.

Ask the students to select two items from their wallet or handbag, and give a short speech on the personal significance of the objects. The aim for each speaker is to present their items in a creative, persuasive and witty manner.

The choice, the presentations, the qualities the students flaunt during the speech (e.g., persuasion power, charisma, sense of humour, innovative ideas, articulated argumentation) set in motion a complex mechanism based on positive shared emotional chemistry. To put it in Goleman’s terms, their social brains connect. This connection will have a beneficial impact on mutual acknowledgement of assets, and on respect and trust built up amongst the participants. They will have better grasp of their own and of their colleagues’ strengths. They will communicate better during the course, and it’ll be much easier for you as a teacher to deal with a cohesive and co-operative group.

Salesperson of the Week

This activity, which can be used as an energiser, discloses verbal prowess, spontaneity, organised thinking, and fine-tuning with the audience’s expectations.

Ask the students to go out of the classroom, find an object that draws their interest, and return within three minutes with that item. Upon their return, announce the object of the task. Each student will give a two-minute ‘elevator pitch’, trying to flog their item to the group. The audience (i.e., their classmates) will award points ranging between 1 and 5 for each of the following criteria: eloquence, creativity and persuasiveness.

The student who tots up the highest number of points will be the proud bearer of the title ‘salesperson of the week’, while you will know precisely on whom to count in the future, when trying to engage the students in tasks requiring qualities that surfaced during this activity.

During debriefing, urge the students to reveal what they’ve learned about themselves and about their colleagues, and in what situations they can and will use these assets in their work.

Teach Me, Please! This task is meant to enhance the teams’ awareness of otherwise hidden individual talents and, at the same time, to give people with logical-mathematical, kinaesthetic, musical and physical intelligences a chance to share their special gifts with their colleagues. Apart from helping them demonstrate their unique aptitudes, the activity tests other abilities, such as regulating one’s own emotions, empathy (sensing moods, emotions and responding appropriately to them), leadership, flexibility, motivational, analytical and assessment skills.
Ask the students to think of a skill they have and that they’d like to share with their classmates by coaching them, e.g., solving logical puzzles and anagrams, executing illusionism tricks, juggling, flamenco dancing, rapping, yodeling, jujitsu techniques, playing African drums, origami, twisting balloons into animal shapes, yoga relaxation techniques – the possibilities are endless.
Invite the students to write their idea on a card. Collect all cards, read the suggestions out loudly and ask the group to vote the preferred coaching theme (and, implicitly, their coach) for the following session.
Getting to know more about their classmates is bound to induce a totally new dimension to the work relationships between people. That is why it’s paramount to dwell on the following when debriefing: what hidden unique strengths of the coach have emerged, how has this influenced her colleagues’ view on her, what have people learned from her and about her, how will this impact future work projects they’ll be assigned to do together.

Noah’s Ark

This task is a benchmark for presentation, negotiation and debating skills, along with problem-solving, consensus-reaching and decision-making strategies.

Tell the group that, due to global warming, glaciers are melting and the water level is rising by the hour. The solution is to sail to the top of a mountain, where their safety is guaranteed. The problem is that there’s only one boat available, which is too small and frail to stay afloat with everyone on board. Three people must be left behind and the group have to decide whom to sacrifice.
Each student has two minutes to present their reasons why they should stay (e.g., invaluable contribution, unique assets, survival and resilience strategies, etc.). After that, the group debate, make a decision and vote.
When debriefing, try to find out the distribution of the following strengths in the group: leadership, result orientation, value assessment, ingenious coalition seeking, lateral thinking, innovative solutions, objectivity, empathy and sympathy, etc. The outcome is vital, since it will give you a clear indication for assigning the right role to the right person during future class activities.

Masterminds and Masterpieces

This is the icing on the creativity cake. The activity is geared to demonstrating mutual awareness developed during the course. The students have gained insight into their own strengths and have grown to appreciate their colleagues’ talents too. By creating a work of art together, they will use their individual assets and co-operate to obtain a common outcome.

For the final session, ask the students to bring along three objects that have some personal meaning and which also relate to their work and to the team.
Get the group to split up into two teams. Put two tables in the centre of the classroom. The members of each team take turns in placing their items on the table they’ve been assigned to. The object is to create two works of art representing the combined efforts of all team members.
After the creating process is completed, ask the students to discuss the meaning of the finished work and how it symbolises the team – dynamics, leadership, creativity, strengths and weaknesses, work styles, relationships, etc., and to talk about the significance of people’s personal objects. Then they are supposed to give a short presentation to the group, addressing all the above talking points. The team with the most original work of art and the most persuasive presentation are the winners.
While debriefing, make sure you tackle the following topics: planning v spontaneous acts, leadership patterns, unique contributions of each member, effectiveness factors, ineffectiveness factors, role assigning, lessons to take away and implement in the workplace.

Conclusion

If you’re a Business English teacher and you think your task is to help your students improve the four main skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening) and possibly a few business skills (telephoning, presenting, debating, negotiating), you’re not completely wrong. However, an even more important task is to forge an intelligent team that can optimally use each member’s unique values.

References

The Unique Characteristics of an Effective Team and Don’t Take the ‘I’ Out of Teamwork, at
www.teambuildingportal.com/articles/effective-teams

Goleman, D., 2000, Working with Emotional Intelligence, New York: Bantam Books.

Goleman, D., 2006, Social Intelligence. The new science of human relationships, London: Hutchinson.

King, N., Time to get personal in the workplace, at
www.itweek.co.uk/vnunet/features/2129779/personal-workplace

Pavlina, S., The Medium versus the Message, at
www.stevepavlina.com/articles/the-medium-vs-the-message.htm

Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Leadership course at Pilgrims website.