playing with communication portrayal game session

Playing With Communication

Playing With Communication

Portrayal Game SessionPortrayal Game Session

AgendaAgenda

Discuss Session Goals Portrayal Game Rules Play Portrayal The Curse of One-Way Information Flow: The

Communications Loop Impact of Diversity on Communication “Hearing” the Forest and the Trees: Extracting

Both Details and The Big Picture in Communication

Wrap Up

GoalsGoals

Discuss some of the communication challenges we face in our organization

Discuss strategies we can use to address these challenges

Play Portrayal and have fun!

Game RulesGame Rules

In each round, one player is the “portrayer” and the rest of the players are “artists”.

The portrayer selects a scene card and inserts it into the concealment folder without reading the 10 criteria on the card.

The portrayer rolls the die to choose the “golden criteria”; it’s worth three points.

The portrayer reads the title and the card and then starts the timer. The portrayer has 90 seconds to describe the image on the scene

card using any words he/she wishes, but no gestures. The artists attempt to draw the image based solely on the portrayer’s

description; they cannot ask questions or provide feedback to the portrayer.

At the end of the 90 seconds, the artists all exchange drawings. The portrayer reads the criteria on the scene card one by one and

each artist determines if the image they are judging meets the criteria.

The artists receive one point for each criteria met (three for meeting the golden criteria). The portrayer receives one point for each criteria that at least one artist’s drawing satisfies.

After scoring, players may see the actual image and review each other’s drawings. This “art show” will generate quite a few laughs.

The next round begins and a new player becomes portrayer.

Time To Play!Time To Play!

The Communications Loop

The Impact of Diversity

“Hearing” the Forest and the Trees

Teambuilding SessionTeambuilding Session

The Communications LoopThe Communications Loop

SENDER RECIEVERFeedbackFeedback

TransmissionTransmission

What part of the communications loop is missing in Portrayal?


One can identify five main categories of feedback. They are listed below in the order in which they occur most frequently in daily conversations.

Evaluative: Making a judgment about the worth, goodness, or appropriateness of the other person's statement.

Interpretive: Paraphrasing - attempting to explain what the other person's statement means.

Supportive: Attempting to assist or bolster the other communicator.

Probing: Attempting to gain additional information, continue the discussion, or clarify a point.

Understanding: Attempting to discover completely what the other communicator means by her statements.


Tips for providing feedback:

Effective feedback always focuses on a specific behavior, not on a person or their intentions. Focus on what or how something was done, not why.

Feedback should be timely (closely tied to the action), specific, and honest. Feedback that is requested is more powerful. Ask permission to provide

feedback. Say, "I'd like to give you some feedback about the presentation, is that okay with you?"

Effective feedback involves the sharing of information and observations. It does not include advice unless it was requested.

Check to make sure the other person understood what you communicated by using a feedback loop, such as asking a question or observing changed behavior.

The main purpose of constructive feedback is to help people understand where they stand in relation to expectations.

Effective feedback is as consistent as possible. If the actions are great today, they're great tomorrow.

Recognition for effective performance is a powerful motivator. Most people want to obtain more recognition, so recognition fosters more of the appreciated actions.


Tips for receiving feedback:

Try to show your appreciation to the person providing the feedback. Even your manager or supervisor finds providing feedback scary. They never

know how the person receiving feedback is going to react. Summarize and reflect what you hear. Your feedback provider will appreciate

that you are really hearing what they are saying. Focusing on understanding the feedback by questioning and restating usually

defuses any feelings you have of hostility or anger. Understand that one person’s feedback may contradict another’s due to

various biases and differences in perception. Seek feedback from multiple independent sources.

Be approachable. People avoid giving feedback to grumpies. Your openness to feedback is obvious through your body language, facial expressions, and welcoming manner.

If you really disagree, are angry or upset, and want to dissuade the other person of their opinion, wait until your emotions are under control to reopen the discussion.

Remember, only you have the right and the ability to decide what to do with the feedback.


Discussion:

1) How might Portrayal play differently if the artists and the portrayer are allowed to offer feedback during the 90 second time limit? What might some undesirable consequences of this rule change be?

2) What sorts of organizations might benefit by limiting or even discouraging feedback?

3) Does 360 degree feedback play a role in your organization? What can managers learn from the feedback of those they manage?

4) How does your organization encourage feedback from its customers? What is done with that feedback?

5) How have new forms of communication such as email, voicemail, and instant messaging impacted the communications loop?

6) Are you encouraged to provide feedback to your peers?



“Hearing” the Forest and the “Trees”


The Impact of DiversityThe Impact of Diversity



How does diversity impact communications in Portrayal?

Education Political ViewsCulture

Age GenderRaceReligion Class


Diversity, for the sake of this discussion, can be thought of as all relevant characteristics that differentiate people and can lead them to have different perspectives or interpretations.

Diversity is a “filter” which impacts the meaning of messages.

In addition to “obvious” categories of diversity such as age, race, and gender, there are also temporary, external, and message-based filters that further impact communications:

Environmental Noise: Distractions from equipment, other people, nature, bright lights, and any other external stimulus.

Message-Based: If the message is spoken too quickly, not fluently, or includes inappropriate (e.g. vulgar) words.

Emotion: Strong emotions, particularly stress, anger, fear, and love.


Discussion:

1) How might diversity among artists and the portrayer lead to misunderstandings in the game? What strategies can portrayers use to minimize these misunderstandings?

2) How does diversity impact communications with customers in your organization?

3) What challenges does your organization face in effectively managing diversity? How do you ensure you don’t “cross-the-line” of discrimination for “protected classifications” such as race, age, sex?

4) How do cross-functional teams reduce the impacts of diversity on communication? Increase them?

5) How does jargon (e.g. technical terms specific to your organization or industry) act as a filter?

6) How do new forms of communication such as email, voicemail, and instant messaging act as filters?

7) How is globalization creating diversity-related challenges in communication? Do these challenges impact your organization, even if only indirectly (i.e. through important customers or suppliers)?





What’s more important in Portrayal: the details or the big picture?

No Legs Smiling MouthScarf Around Neck

Long Pointed Nose Two ArmsTop HatThree Buttons Round Head

Two Small Eyes

Details

Draw a Snowman

Big Picture



In our communications we are constantly balancing the needs to provide details and “the big picture”. Because we do not have unlimited time to convey our messages, the right balance is critical to being a successful communicator.

Not actionablePolitician-speak (too vague)Too few projects completedFeelings of mistrustStrong emotional response

Actions are misguidedAccountant-speak (no vision)Paralysis by analysisFeelings of mistrustNo emotional engagement

Too Little DetailToo Much Context

Too Much DetailToo Little Context



Discussion:

1) One “rule” for giving effective presentations is described as, “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you’ve told them.” What does this mean? How do the three parts of this guideline pertain to detail versus context? How can using this strategy improve the performance of the portrayer?

2) What roles in your organization are mostly operational / tactical (detail focused) versus mostly strategic (big-picture focused). How do the communications between and among these groups differ? How does this align with the goals and day-to-day operations of your organization?

3) How are rumors, gossip, assumptions, and speculation related to the frequency and type (detailed versus visionary) of communications in your organization?

Final ThoughtsFinal Thoughts

No one would talk much in society if he knew how often he misunderstood others.

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Final ThoughtsFinal Thoughts

Suppose these were Portrayal images. How would you describe them?

playing with communication portrayal game session

Documents

effective feedback

feedback loop

golden criteria

scene card

main categories of feedback

communications loopone

communications looptips

actual image