ACTIVE REVIEWING TIPS
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Active Reviewing Tips 2.11   Developing Potential What ''offers much more and costs nothing''? DEVELOPING POTENTIAL Childhood: Where has all the potential gone? Youth Development: How can you raise Self-Esteem? Adult Development: What's in your Success Store? 'Reviewing Success' article - now available in MS Word. Internet Resources for and about Experiential Learning COMING ATTRACTIONS: Ezine, Forum and Workshops

Active Reviewing Tips for Dynamic Experiential Learning http://reviewing.co.uk Roger Greenaway's Active Reviewing Tips 2.11 ~ ISSN 1465-8046 This free opt-in publication from Reviewing Skills Training reaches 655 enlightened people interested in reviewing. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ A C T I V E . R E V I E W I N G . T I P S ~ ~ FOR DYNAMIC EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ~ ~ the free monthly newsletter associated with the ~ ~ 'GUIDE TO ACTIVE REVIEWING' http://reviewing.co.uk ~ ~ Editor: Roger Greenaway roger@reviewing.co.uk ~ ~ Vol. 2.11 ~ ~ DEVELOPING POTENTIAL ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ This issue of Active Reviewing Tips is about using activities and active reviewing to 'DEVELOP POTENTIAL'. This is a new angle on a theme that will be familiar to regular readers. It is also an opportunity to introduce new methods to you. First a little celebration ... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CONTENTS (TOP) ~ 1 ~ What ''offers much more and costs nothing''? The November issue of Training Journal included a two page review of www.facilitationfactory.com The sting in the tail of this review delighted me so much, I just had to tell you. It reads:     "If you are interested in facilitation, then I would suggest     that Roger Greenaway's site at http://reviewing.co.uk offers     much more and costs nothing." So here's a special welcome for readers of 'Training Journal' as well as for other new subscribers. Thank you also to readers who are telling others about reviewing.co.uk and Active Reviewing Tips. More than anything else it is your personal recommendations that bring these 'active reviewing' resources to the attention of others. In each issue I will do my best to deserve such recommendations. This issue is dedicated to a fundamental theme in education and training: DEVELOPING POTENTIAL. As usual I aim to provide lots of practical advice. Some tips are easy to apply. Other tips you might find more challenging - both for you and your learners. After reading these tips you should have a bigger and better toolkit for developing potential - yours and theirs! This month's sister ezine 'SiteFinder' on 'Fun and Games and Flow' features a review of deepfun.com a generous website where you can gain some very useful insights into game playing and ... Send a blank email to sitefinder-subscribe@topica.com to sign up for this free monthly publication. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CONTENTS (TOP) ~ 2 ~ DEVELOPING POTENTIAL - Introduction A glimpse at how adults treat small children introduces the topic. This is followed by practical sections on how reviewing can be used to bring out the potential of young people and adults. [Developing the potential of organisations follows in the next issue.] Most of the methods described can be adapted for all ages. Many of these reviewing methods (I have recently discovered) are closely aligned with Appreciative Inquiry (AI). But AI is based on questioning, so in the next issue (with reference to reviewing tools on my website) I will show you how AI questions can be converted into more dynamic reviewing methods. Taken all together, these 2 issues of Active Reviewing Tips provide you with a philosophy, a system and a reviewing toolkit for bringing out the best in people. If this is what you want, then why not take part in a training workshop that will help you to bring these ideas to life! [see later] ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CONTENTS (TOP) 2.1 ~ Childhood: Where has all the potential gone? Watching young children at play is almost as interesting as watching adults watching young children at play. Many of my climbing friends have been quick to point out how their toddlers have a natural talent for 'climbing'. Other parents watching their offspring's antics think their children will make good clowns. When toddlers grunt or bang spoons, friendly adults say they will be pop stars. When babies smile, aunties say they'll be famous models. And when babies dribble witty uncles say they'll make good football players. Every micro-sign of potential gets identified and magnified - in the first years of life. But ten or fifteen years later the OPPOSITE is happening. Every micro-sign of a problem gets noticed and commented on by teachers, parents and other critical adults. Most teenagers will tell you this is so. And ten years later in the workplace it is WEAKNESSES and MISTAKES that will often attract more attention and comment than strengths and potential. Why? How on earth can 'potential' develop in such unfavourable circumstances? In 'The One Minute Manager', Hersey and Blanchard implore managers to catch people doing things right, and to reverse expectations that ''management = fault-finding''. 'Learning Organisations' can help to reverse this negative spiral - but ONLY IF their learning culture gives sufficient attention to successes and possibilities - so as to balance the inevitable (and necessary) attention that learners give to mistakes and difficulties. Appreciative Inquiry is a philosophy and a bundle of practices that is designed to counteract such negativity. It is an approach to research, to organisation development and to personal development. It is optimism turned into a science. And there is plenty of evidence that it works. Making the switch in emphasis from fault-finding to talent-spotting is the key to developing potential. Faults should not be studied in isolation from the very forces that can prevent and solve them. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CONTENTS (TOP) ~ 2.2 ~ Youth Development: How can you raise Self-Esteem? 5 confidence-raising combinations of activities and reviewing 1) REPLAY RELATIVE SUCCESSES Ask learners to repeat an activity. Second time round highlight their relative successes during the review. You can emphasise the difference by asking them to perform two ACTION REPLAYS back to back. The first replay shows edited highlights (or freeze frames) of the problems and difficulties experienced. The second replay highlights things that went better second time round. This method is well suited to reviewing TEAM performance. 2) HIGHLIGHT CONTRIBUTIONS TO SUCCESS Review positive experiences in ways that highlight how INDIVIDUALS contributed to success. This can be done retrospectively, but a lot of important contributions to success may have passed by unnoticed. So it is better to have OBSERVERS (participants or facilitators) looking out for examples of POSITIVE behaviour. These observations can be saved until the end of the activity, or you can have a review break as soon as the observers say they have positive feedback for each member of the group. Always invite participants to add any positives that went unnoticed by observers. [If everyone wants to be part of the action, then set up a 'buddy' system in which each individual is responsible for taking special notice of one other person while taking part in the activity.] 3) CELEBRATE HIGH POINTS IN FAVOURITE ACTIVITIES Use activities in which people already feel confident. Then use review techniques that help individuals to EXPRESS and CELEBRATE their feelings of confidence. You can also invite personal feedback amongst learners through GIFTS or ROUNDS. A nice way to give feedback actively is through SNAPSHOTS... Split a group into subgroups.  Ask subgroup A to think of moments where they think individuals in subgroup B would like to have had snapshots (or MOVIE CLIPS) taken of them - because they were doing something well. Subgroup B prepares in the same way for As. The subgroups come together and present their feedback in snapshots, movie clips or both. [If there are 3 subgroups, subgroup A gives feedback to individuals in subgroup B, B gives feedback to Cs, and C gives feedback to As.] 4) RELIVE THE STORY: ''HOW I ACHIEVED THE IMPOSSIBLE'' Do an activity once - to overcome a fear. Don't leave the review at the point ''Well done - you overcame your fear''. To increase the chances that the individual will be able to use this experience to overcome other fears, carry out a detailed review in which the individual tells the STORY of before, during and afterwards. Ask what was going on 'inside' during this process, and what was going on 'outside' (e.g. was there support and encouragement from others?). To bring the story alive, everyone in the group can help ACT OUT THE STORY as it is told - with the space inside a rope circle representing 'inner' thoughts and feelings, and the space outside the circle representing the visible 'outer' world of things and people. A nice set up for such reviews is to invite each individual to record their feelings about a challenging activity on AUDIO-TAPE just before embarking on it - and then playing back their words as a prelude to their story-telling. 5) COMMUNICATE ON ALL CYLINDERS Use a VARIETY of review techniques in order to give individuals plenty of scope for expressing their positive experiences. Remember that individuals learn in different ways, so provide opportunities for private reflection as well as for small and large group reviews. Also provide opportunities for art work, writing, talking and for acting or performing. Vary the pace. Vary the setting - use indoor and outdoor locations for reviewing. Include music. Use meandering, open-ended methods. And use business-like tightly structured ones. Involve learners in setting the agenda, but don't abandon your own. The more variety you provide in reviews, the more you are helping learners to mobilise their WHOLE BRAINS for learning. Stimulation is as important during reviews as it is during the activities being reviewed. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CONTENTS (TOP) ~ 2.3 ~ Adult Development: ''What's in your Success Store?'' The more learners know about their own ''recipes for success'', the greater the chance that they will use them again. Also the very process of studying the ''secrets of this success'' makes future success more likely - whether or not clear recipes are produced. Ask learners to imagine they run a SUCCESS STORE. This store is full of items that will help them to be successful. Ask them to take a look in their store and tell you what they see. This is similar to the 'My Ten Best Points' exercise. But 'best points' is about things that people ALREADY do well, and may not reach into their latent capacity and unformed potential. The 'Success Store' identifies early signs of success. It catches them in the bud. If success is not spotted and encouraged in its early stages it may not put in another appearance. Supporting the early stages of developing a new talent is the most critical job in developing potential. Mature lifelong learners may need even more support at this stage of learning than do young lifelong learners. Ask people from time to time to check the shelves of their 'Success Store' and tell you what they see. As they get used to the idea, the shelves will slowly fill up. See it as a stock-taking exercise. This is NOT a needs analysis (That would involve itemising what is NOT on the shelves). It is an audit of what you already have - even if in only small quantities, or even if it is something that is not always visible on the shelf. Every 'Storekeeper' also works as a 'talent scout'. They need to get used to the idea of noticing what is in their own store and what is in other people's stores. When a group first meets, or when a familiar group starts out on new projects or adventures, no-one quite knows what they will find in their own store or in each other's stores. Initial thoughts might be:     ''Do I have what it takes?''     ''Do we have what it takes?''     ''What will we find out about ourselves and each other?'' There is a natural curiosity to ask such questions at the start of any training programme - whatever the nature of the challenges it presents. The 'Success Store' builds on this natural inquisitiveness. (It is tempting to rename it the Curiosity Shop!) To start with the shelves are fairly empty. That is not because people lack talent. It is because people's talent is locked away in the store cupboard at the back and is not out on the shelves. In many work cultures, the prevailing humour is often about 'empty' shelves. It involves cutting people down to size by focusing on their blind spots. Such humour can at times be very funny - especially when it is an attack on pretentiousness or when it is someone laughing about their own empty shelves. Pretentiousness is people pretending to be greater than they are. But many people play safe and pretend to be less than they are - and get stuck like it - sitting on their latent abilities. So a key strategy in reviewing (represented here by the 'Success Store') is to provide people with a whole range of opportunities in which they will discover untapped potential in themselves and in others. Ideally this variety of opportunities extends throughout a programme - and applies BOTH to the learning activities AND to the reviewing methods.     When did you last look at your own 'Success Store'?     How carefully did you look? The point of this stage of reviewing (we're not finished yet!) is to get people tuning in to each other's qualities, talents, interests, strengths and potential. That's a fairly random list. These can be labels on different shelves. Each label represents different sets of qualities that individuals might draw on in order to help them achieve their objectives. An appreciative review helps to develop potential. There are many ways of structuring and showing appreciation. Where groups are not naturally appreciative, or where people are not specific about the qualities and talents they are appreciating, it is necessary for facilitators to do some structuring and enabling. ALTERNATIVE METHODS The 'Success Store' provides a useful metaphor, especially if it captures people's imaginations. Alternatives in the same family of appreciative reviewing techniques are: 'My Ten Best Points', 'A Vote of Thanks', 'Personal Recipes for Success', 'Team Recipes for Success' and appraisal sessions in which there is a built in positive bias together with an opportunity to use symbolism. This is because symbols and imagery can capture qualities that are difficult to describe adequately in words alone. This is where appraisal exercises such as 'Gifts' can be particularly useful and powerful. Action Replays can be even more effective for highlighting and celebrating successes. Replays tend to be most useful for celebrating a group success. But replays can be directed in such a way that individual contributions to success are clearly highlighted and celebrated. [Use the search box on my home page to track down details of the 'alternative' reviewing methods mentioned above.] TIP: When trying out new reviewing exercises like 'Success Store', test the water with an abbreviated version. If the metaphor catches on, build on it - or encourage learners to do so. Keep an eye out for what's working well - and use it. If you prefer to put all your eggs in one basket, don't let me stand in your way! But remember that more cautious approaches also pay off - IF you are observant enough to work with early signs of success, and astute enough to know when it's time to try something else. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CONTENTS (TOP) ~ 3 ~ 'Reviewing Success' article Two different versions of 'Reviewing Success' are now available. [My 'Reviewing Success' article overlaps with these tips about 'Developing Potential' but most of the content is different.] The web (html) version of 'Reviewing Success' is at: http://reviewing.co.uk/success/index.htm (and takes up several web pages). This and the next issue of Active Reviewing Tips contain new material that will eventually be added to the ''reviewing success'' section of my website. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CONTENTS (TOP) ~ 4 ~ Internet Resources for and about Experiential Learning I only include advertising that is     (a) relevant to this newsletter and     (b) that is about resources I can personally recommend No money changes hands, but I am keen to swap adverts with people who like my simple advertising policy above! CQ Today is a refreshing reminder that wise words predate the world of sound-bytes and mega-bytes. Talking of bytes ... ============================================= FEED YOUR CREATIVITY EACH DAY WITH CQ TODAY! Five Creative Quotations from a famous person born on that day. To Subscribe, visit CQ's website at http://bemorecreative.com or send a blank email to cqtoday-subscribe@egroups.com ============================================= LearningFount helps build learning communities on the web. Taking part has taught me a lot and I'm still learning ... ============================================= Is your business strategy working? Would you like to enhance its effectiveness on the Internet? Join LearningFOUNT: More than a discussion list A COMMUNITY-BUILDING COMMUNITY! And it's FREE! subscribe@learningfountain.com ============================================= CONTENTS (TOP) ~ 5 ~ Coming Attractions: ezines, discussion and workshops FUTURE ISSUES OF ACTIVE REVIEWING TIPS The next issue of Active Reviewing Tips will include feature a dynamic approach Appreciative Inquiry. Future Issues will include how to use reviewing methods to develop teamwork skills, leadership skills, learning skills and transfer skills. Use your power and influence! ... To balance this issue's positive emphasis, perhaps you would appreciate a focus on learning from negative experiences or reviewing with resistant learners? If you would like to request particular reviewing topics or contribute to them please let me know at roger@reviewing.co.uk DISCUSSION FORUM FOR ACTIVE REVIEWERS Look out for this in the new year/century/millennium! Meanwhile you are welcome to use this newsletter as a forum roger@reviewing.co.uk INFORMATION OVERLOAD? TRY A TRAINING WORKSHOP! If you ever get to the end of an issue of Active Reviewing Tips wondering how you are going to use these reviewing tools in your own work, then why not enquire about opportunities to take part in a training workshop? At these lively events you will have plenty of opportunity to experiment with these tools and adapt them to suit your own way of working. Opportunities to try things out clearly increases the chances that you will actually turn this information into practice. My practical workshops help you to convert 'information overload' into a 'bulging toolkit' of new and improved reviewing methods that you will be wanting to try out for real. Workshop titles include: PB2 DISCUSSION-BASED REVIEWING PB3 ACTIVE REVIEWING PB4 CREATIVE REVIEWING OA1 REVIEWING OUTDOORS OA2 REVIEWING OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES OA3 WHY REVIEW ADVENTURES? YP1 REVIEWING WITH YOUNG PEOPLE AL1 REVIEWING WITH ADULT LEARNERS AL2 TOOLS FOR REVIEWING in OMD TT1 PROMOTING EFFECTIVE REVIEWING TT2 REVIEWING WITHOUT A FLIPCHART TT3 REVIEWING ISSUES IN GROUPS 201 HOW TO TRANSFER LEARNING 202 REVIEWING FOR TEAMWORK SKILLS 203 REVIEWING FOR LEADERSHIP SKILLS For more details of workshops contact me or take a look at: http://reviewing.co.uk/_wkshops.htm If you want evidence of the effects of my workshops, click 'testimonials' my home page at http://reviewing.co.uk If you want to HOST a CUSTOMISED or OPEN workshop, please write to me at roger@reviewing.co.uk If you are looking for a CALENDAR of events, stay subscribed - year 2000 will see several open training workshops in the UK and other countries - maybe yours!   DON'T JUST DO IT -     ACTIVELY REVIEW IT !! I look forward to meeting many more subscribers in the year 2000! On the theme of 'Developing Potential' if you spotted something in Active Reviewing Tips that you liked, or that you'd like to try - please let me know. Your comments (positive, negative or lateral) can help to develop the 'potential' of this ezine. I will only publish comments if you give your permission.