Exercise 1: Circle of Concern and Influence - S. Covey

Overview:

This is a self-reflective exercise to help individuals consider whether they are proactive, and to assess whether they tend to take initiative or not.

Estimated time to complete: 2 - 10 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Easy

The activity:

Imagine a circle, and within that circle, you put all of your concerns: your health, job prospects, kids, finances, etc. Anything and everything that causes you to worry or keeps you up at night. Even the little stuff. This is your Circle of Concern.

Now imagine a circle within that Circle of Concern. Inside that circle, you put the concerns that you have some or complete influence on. This is your Circle of Influence. You can download your circles template and work on it.

Source: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/7-habits-proactive-not-reactive/

Now take some time to think about things that you would put on the Circle of concern and calculate how much time you will need.

Make some notes

What can we observe?

If you have spent more time listing things that belong to the circle of concern it is likely that you tend to be reactive rather than proactive. This means that, instead of taking initiative, you tend to wait for someone else to take it for you.

If this is the case, don't panic! The objective of this exercise is to gain awareness about this soft skill and work on ourselves.

Exercise 2: Commitments to become more proactive

Overview:

This exercise helps individuals face problems, monitor attitudes towards them and take action using the Circle of Concern.

Estimated time to complete: 3 - 10 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Easy

The activity:

Phase 1:

One action to make a change in our attitude in the workplace to try to be more proactive is to pay attention to our language. How we speak guides how we see the world. If most of your language is reactive, you’re likely going be more reactive. If it’s proactive, you’ll be more proactive.

Some reactive phrases to look out for:

• There’s nothing I can do.
• That’s just the way I am.
• He makes me so mad.
• They won’t allow that.
• I have to do that.
• I can’t.
• I must.
• If only.

Whenever you catch yourself using one of these reactive phrases, replace it with a proactive one:

• Let’s look at our alternatives.
• I can choose a different approach.
• I control how I respond to this.
• I choose.
• I prefer.
• I will.

Phase 2:

Take action (no matter how small). As you take action, you’ll begin to show yourself that you can have an influence on the world, which kickstarts a virtuous cycle of proactivity.

Look at your Circle of Influence. What’s an action you can take to move one of its items in a positive direction? Your actions don’t have to be big. In fact, they shouldn’t be big. Whenever you face a problem, break it down into the smallest parts possible and tackle each part one by one. It makes the problem less daunting and more concrete.

Exercise 1: Super Me

Overview:

In this exercise, individuals can practice how to engage in free idea generation (the divergent phase); to filter and narrow ideas through specifications (the convergent phase); and to combine them. Generating ideas freely without limitations and criticism are essential for creativity.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

Creativity helps to open minds, create mental flexibility and tolerance to failure and insecurity, and to find new combinations, ideas and opportunities. There are three rules: (1) do not use a computer, tablet or other such devices; (2) write by hand, as it is essential for thinking, understanding and imagination, and last (3) do not limit yourself but have fun!

1. Use 15 minutes to generate ideas on a sheet of paper how would your “Super Me” be. The Super Me can be related to work, hobbies, studies or life in general. What would be your skills and characteristics? What would you do with them? You can invent new ones of even enhance your existing characteristics. Use your imagination and do not let creativity killers get in your way! This is the idea generation phase (the divergent phase).
2. Next think about the real world and the limitations of looking at the skills and characteristics you listed in the previous phase. Real life limitations create specifications and frames which filter the ideas and help to narrow and combine them, which you will use in the next phase. White these limitations next to each characteristic or on another sheet of paper.

For instance:

Use 5 minutes for this list of specifications of the real world.

3. Lastly, look at the description list of your Super Me characteristics and the list created in point 2. Select one real life scenario or situation for this, name it (you can also add an image that tells about it) and write under it or around it the skills and characteristics of the Super Me you can use in it and how. What does this tell about you and your skills? For instance, healing as a super power reveals empathetic and caring qualities. Use 20 minutes for this last phase of the exercise. You can use mind-mapping, lists or other methods for this work.

Exercise 2: Opportunity Spotting

Overview:

In this exercise, individuals will focus on transforming the negative into positive opportunities to strengthen creativity.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

Opportunities often lie in plain sight. For instance, setbacks and closed doors can be transformed into opportunities. In this task, the focus is on transforming the negative into positive opportunities. For this exercise you will need 2 sheets of paper (A3) and a few pens of different colours.

1. Take two A3 sheets of paper. On one, write ‘PAST’ on the top and on the other write ‘FUTURE’ on the top. Next:
2. Past sheet: Think about a setback or failure at work, in a hobby or during studies in the university. Write this in the centre of the ‘PAST’ paper.
3. Future sheet: Think about a trend that might negatively impact your work, educational profile or job search in the future. Write this in the centre of the ‘FUTURE’ paper.
4. Make a mind map of both sheets. Start from the centre of the paper where you have added the challenge. Write on the first layer around the centre the elements that immediately influence the issue in the centre. Create 2-4 layers of impacting issues for both mind-maps until saturated.
5. Once ready, start identifying opportunities on both mind-maps. Circle the opportunity factors with a different colour and write your opportunity idea and its justification below the mind map on another piece of paper or a post-it note.
6. You can present your ideas to your peers, family or friends in order to obtain feedback.

You can keep the mind-maps and modify them, or recreate them, with time and as the situation will change.

For the mind-maps, please remember that this is not a research exercise but a creativity exercise. Keep your mind open, add even silly ideas and be observant and creative.

Exercise 1: Learning from experience: Not simply ‘hands-on’…

Overview:

This exercise is designed to help individuals demonstrate the kind of questions one has to answer in order to reflect on experiences meaningfully and add the ‘minds-on’ aspect. This is often missing from the ‘hands-on’ concept.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

The fact that most of our knowledge comes from experience, doesn’t mean that experience alone is magically able to teach us valuable things, while we are merely ‘engaged’ in an experiential situation. There is a need to reflect on our involvement, to track and be aware of all the idea-building aspects as we go, which will be able to make our learning from experience lasting, applicable in future situations and transferable.

This exercise is simple; its goal is to demonstrate the kind of questions one has to answer in order to reflect on experiences meaningfully and add the ‘minds-on’ aspect which is so often missing from the ‘hands-on’ concept. Consider the following example which makes a very practical point about learning from experience:

The world of sports brilliantly offers itself as a field where ‘learning from experience’ is potentially the only means to progress, to win, to continue existing as a team or athlete. Choose football, basketball, even individual sports, such as high-jumping or running. Team sports serve, however, as the best examples. Imagine a team which is merely playing game after game without reflection.

This won’t help in understanding and learning from the process. Nothing would be drawn from the game experience without a deliberate process of reflection following every game experience.

Instead, the team in collaboration with its coach pose questions such as:

• What is working in the way we play?
• What does not?
• What is working for the opponent team?
• What do we need to do now? How will we follow this up?

This type of question facilitates the process of learning from experience at two levels: first, during the engagement with experience (Exercise 1 deals with that phase); and second, at a meta-cognitive level, when reflecting upon the experience, how one dealt with it, what is to be learned from this experience (Exercise 2). This eventually leads to an increased awareness of the ‘learning‘ aspects that an experience offers, to understand the components of the hands-on experience as a learning experience, to apply and even transfer this knowledge to future situations; thus, adding the ‘minds-on’ to the ‘hands-on’ level of experiencing.

What you can do

Think of any situation in which you have been involved as an actor to reach a clear goal. It could be from scheduling a trip, carrying out a task at work, or dealing with a longer assignment such as a project, organising an event, doing some research to provide an article about it etc. Reflect on your steps towards organising the course of action and try to remember all the stages of the process, as associated with certain actions having been taken by you or in collaboration with others. Break the process down in terms of answers to the questions above, by adapting them to your situation. For example, in the place of ‘opponent team’, you can use the possible feedback (if there was one) from the ones expecting the outcome of your task. At the end, try to put down on paper the answers you might have given to the question “What do I need to do now? How will I follow this up?”.

Having reached this point, please proceed to Exercise 2.

Exercise 2: …but always ‘minds-on’ too!

Overview:

This exercise facilitates the process of learning from experience at a meta-cognitive level. It helps individuals reflect on an experience in terms of how one dealt with it and what is to be learned from it.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

Stick to your situation with an experience as used in Exercise 1. Now, you can move to the meta-cognitive level, where learning from experience begins to happen and is gradually subsumed in you. The following set of questions will guide you through this process. Reflect on the answers and write them down on paper to have an overview afterwards:

• While engaged in this experience, what were the highlights during the process?
• Identify the difficulties and the points where things got difficult.
• What do you understand now? How would you account for this?
• What is it that you still don’t understand?
• Was there any opinion, perspective, possible input that you left out of the equation? If yes, why did you omit it? If this was not the case, to what extent did you include it in your understanding?

Exercise 1: Life Events

Overview:

In this exercise individuals will observe planning through life events.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

1. Choose one big event in your life that has taken place and that has required planning. It can be, for instance, moving to new place, a big life event, such as a wedding, the birth of a child, a birthday or graduation, or another big change in life. Write it down.
2. Think about the things you had to consider while planning this event.

• a. What were the primary phases and priorities to think about in planning and what comes second?
• b. What were important deadlines and timetables? Think both short-term and long-term deadlines.
• c. Set up action plans to implement the tasks according to the importance of actions and timelines to deliver those.
• d. List all people or groups related to the event. When listing people or groups, make sure you think of different situations or actions they will participate in.

You can use a Gantt chart and different tables for this work

3. Make “must lists” of things that were necessary for implementing the actions. Set the most critical points, activities and deadlines and continue with the less critical ones. Also list actions with flexibility in delivery although still mandatory to implement.
4. Finally, analyse how you succeeded in planning and carrying out the event and what you learnt about this. What skills and competences did it develop in you that are useful in work life?

Exercise 2: Planning a Project

Overview:

This exercise requires individuals to bring planning to a work environment by planning a project using needed materials and tools.

• • White board
  • White board pens
  • Post it notes
  • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

It is time to bring planning to a work environment. Use any materials and tool to make notes and plan the project. For instance, whiteboards, post it notes and Gantt charts can be useful, but simply writing and post its notes are useful when sketching the process.

1. Choose one project you have implemented in a professional environment and situation. It can be from your sector, from another sector, a study project or other demanding project outside from work.
2. Now think all the elements you need to implement in the project and make an action plan for the project, considering all listed recourses and actions:a) actions such as meetings, travel, deliveries etc.b) resources: people, time, money, materials, equipment, outsourced work, etc.

Make a proper Gantt chart for activities and a timeline, calculate the resources (e.g. salaries, subcontracting, travel, etc.), and think about any other relevant element in planning, including the main milestones.

3. Imagine there is a sudden major change and you have to adjust your plans radically. A radical change can be, for instance, a cut in the costs, an important part of work cannot be completed or the planned time will be reduced radically. Modify your plan so that it is possible to carry out the work despite the major change. Consider this change from different perspectives to find solutions for the new situation with the same outcome.
4. Analyse the outcomes and plans before and after the major change. What positive outcomes you can find from change and what did you learn from it?

Exercise 1: Mining for time

Overview:

This exercise can help individuals gain an overview of how, and to which ends, they use time in their everyday life.

• • Pens: red, yellow and green
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

This exercise will eventually help you to:

1. Identify time spent in several activities (routine) and non-productive time.
2. Identify unexploited (blank) time slots that are available throughout the day and could be turned into useful, productive ‘time units’ towards achieving a specific goal (professional or personal), or supporting/starting an activity which is beneficial for you or others.
3. Re-consider and evaluate the amount of time you dedicate to certain activities, compared to the benefits of these activities for you.

In order to do the exercise, you will need 3 blank pages. Draw on each page a table with 4 columns and 6 rows so that you have 24 boxes which represent the 24 hours of a day (see figure below). Download your time-plot here.

Starting with page 1, you must fill in the boxes relating to each day, identifying regular routine activities like sleeping, eating, bathing etc., considering that 1 box equals 1 hour.

On page 2, you should think of your professional self, or if you have no professional experience, think of yourself in the course of a day where certain activities have to be conducted. Fill in the relevant boxes with time spent on non-productive activities during worktime (e.g. breaks, generic, non-work-related discussions etc.). Try to be as concise as possible.

Having done this, use page 3 to integrate all data from pages 1 and 2. All empty boxes stand for your actual productive time.

This simple time map offers you a visual canvas of where and on what activities you spend time daily. You can use it as a first step towards time planning and time management. Think of the results regarding time spent, as described in the time boxes. Consider the empty time boxes (your productive time) in terms of quantity and quality: What are the results they are leading to? Evaluate the time spent on certain activities and see if something could be adjusted.

Try to ‘sense’ imbalance, be sincere with yourself and see to what extent the way you use time is satisfactory for you or not. Think about the involvement of others (family, friends, colleagues etc.) and the ways they influence your time map. Identify dependencies, obligations, responsibilities within this aspect and see how these impair (or benefit) your time map, exploring how rigid or flexible they are.

Use a red marker to mark the time boxes which you feel ‘beg’ for intervention, a yellow marker to mark the boxes which seem to offer themselves for improvements/changes, and a green marker to mark the boxes that seem to be just fine for you as they stand. Following this, try to reschedule the following days according to your interventions. Revisit your map a few days later and write down any positive or negative outcomes. Try to clearly and directly associate these outcomes with the interventions applied. Repeat this process and notice if you gradually gain any of the following:

• Better focus on your objectives
• An ability to remember even the smallest tasks and activities
• Better performance in terms of prioritising
• A feeling of control
• A more profound sense of achievement

Remember, you cannot manage yourself absolutely all at once – it is rather an ongoing process in fairly unpredictable contexts. Thus, time management might sound a ‘contradiction in terms’ – it should always be about scheduling and planning in terms of time, in order to reduce overall stress about the unknown and the unexpected as such occurrences could potentially impact on our goals, responsibilities, expectations and dreams, rather than an illusion that we are, indeed, able to tame time and ourselves-in-time in an absolute way.

This exercise is based on a time management activity called ‘Time Squared’ which can be found in many online resources supporting the development of professional/entrepreneurial soft skills.

e.g. https://tugofwarwithtime.com/10-time-management-activities-to-try-with-your-employees/ and https://www.theexceptionalskills.com/time-management-activities/

Exercise 2: The best time to do things is the right time to do things!

Overview:

This exercise will help to determine when an individual is best energised for doing diverse tasks, which helps with time management planning.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

There are times when we must deal with totally unexpected and urgent things. No matter how fit or effective we might be when they occur, we must just do them! However, we all have low and high levels of mentally and bodily readiness throughout the day, which makes us respectively more or less energised.

It is helpful to identify our own pattern of energy so that we can allocate, or in any case try to better allocate, demanding and simpler, more mechanical tasks along the working day and more difficult tasks at times when we may have more energy for them. This will eventually help us in our time management efforts, since energy will be better channelled according to the nature and character of our tasks ahead.

We will be able to save our ‘most effective’ selves for the demanding tasks, while offering our ‘slower’ and less effective ones to simpler tasks. Of course, especially in a work-environment, this might sound far from reality. However, determining when we are best energized for doing diverse tasks, is highly supportive of our time management planning.

This is exactly what this simple exercise is about. It is based on the concept of circadian rhythms – something similar to the more familiar concept of the biological clock – which are the mental, physical and behavioural changes that follow the cycle of a day and affect our effectiveness in complex, demanding and simpler tasks.

Here is what you have to do:

Use a blank sheet of paper to plot your use of time in hourly blocks ranging from the time you wake up in the morning until sleeping time at night. You can then use the day before, or any recent day in that case, to write down all the activities you have done during that day. Next to that, write the energy level you remember having for each of the activities and during that particular time in the day. To do this, you can use descriptions such as those provided in various resources about circadian rhythms:

For example:

• On fire
• Vibrant
• Cruise control
• At 70%
• Distracted
• Slowing down
• Tired
• Hungry

Alternatively, you can just use percentages to show the level of energy, ranging from 100% to 10% respectively.

It is important to avoid choosing a day with a particular or unusual workload, as it will complicate the issue as a day of constant high energy demand. It is better to choose a fairly typical day.

After this, check your grid and see the associations between energy levels, respective activities and time slots during the day. Check what activity you did when you were ‘on fire’ and so on and consider the complexity and the level of demand (mentally or physically) of this activity. Think of trade-offs in your activity allocation during the day, following your energy levels. Think of the results you achieved and the stress levels during your performance. Try to come up with a plot which associates high energy levels with the important and more demanding activities. Check its feasibility and think of trade-offs between activities. As an extra exercise you can use this with your time map in Exercise 1, comparing energy levels along the day with the productive time boxes you have been led to.

Sources:

https://www.nigms.nih.gov/education/pages/factsheet_circadianrhythms.aspx

https://blog.trainerswarehouse.com/time-management-activities/

Exercise 1: Past Changes

Overview:

In this exercise individuals will observe past situations where they have faced a change and analyse how they managed these changes.

Estimated time to complete: 25 - 40 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Post its
  • Paper (A3) or a word document

Difficulty: Hard

The activity:

1. 1. Select a situation of change in your life that has taken place in the past. Choose the situation from one of the following options:

   a) Own life (for example, family, birth of a baby, moving alone, etc.)

1. b) Work life

1. c) Studies

    

   Name it and place it on the top of the A3 sheet as the main heading.

1. 2. Now observe it closer and list under the main heading all the main steps of the change and its process, what was done first, what next, etc. until you will have the whole process covered.

1. 3. Below the previous list, write elements that influenced on the change and on processing it as their own subheading and bullet-point lists under each sub-heading, such as:

   a) What were the personal and environmental conditions?

   b) Did this impact you alone or were others involved too?
   c) Where did this take place?
   d) What kind of skills did you need?
   e) What kind of information did you need?

    

   Now, list the results:
   a) Short-term results
   b) Long-term results
   c) What was successful? What was not?

    

   You can save the first four phases as an image or make a table of it with a computer.

    

   5. Lastly, analyse your approach and success in the process:
   a) How did you manage the change?
   b) What did you learn from the process and how and where can you use the learnt?
   c) What was the psychological meaning of the process, for instance empowerment, self-confidence, etc.?
   d) What did/does the process enable?
   e) What are the other outcomes?

Exercise 2: Changing Environment

Overview:

In this exercise, individuals will be investigating how a megatrend of climate change can impact their work environment, and facilitate a change management process.

Estimated time to complete: 35 - 60 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Hard

The activity:

Trends, from sort-term to long-lasting megatrends, continuously impact on what we do, influencing, for instance, on legislation, raw materials, opinion leaders, and many other things. In this exercise you will be investigating how a megatrend of climate change can impact your work environment.

1. 1. Investigate the megatrend of climate change and think how it can impact on your profession or sector (where and what you work on, what you have studied) or where you currently work at. Observe it at least from the following points of view by looking at the big picture:

1. 1. a) The overall picture and perception of the work, for instance the fashion business, in particular the fast fashion, has been under scrutiny as a highly polluting business

1. 1. b) Resources

1. 1. c) People and their skills

1. 1. d) Legislation

1. 1. e) Competitiveness

1. 1. f) Users/consumers and their opinions

1. 1. g) Product/service

1. 1. h) Other

Use the downloadable template, while first, have a look at the example table about the fashion business below.

Write on the table how, why, where and when the changes would table place. As the topic is vast, you can modify the template by adding more rows, make your own template or other. You can also use post-it notes.

2. 2. 2. Now, define one solution to apply to the issue of change in a specific context linked to you:
   3. 2. a) What is it?
   4. 2. b) Why?
   5. 2. c) Where is it done?
   6. 2. d) How?
   7. 2. e) By Whom (who are involved)?
      3. f) What are the resources?
   8. 2. g) Timeline?
   9. 2. h) Risks?
   10. 2. i) What are the needs of the fast-changing environment and process? How to divert the change?
   11. 2. j) How will you prepare people for it?
   12. 2. k) How will you guide the process?
   13. 2. l) How will you monitor the process and adapt it according to the new changes?

Write these down using the tool that best suits you.

3. 3. 3. Finally, reflect on the process and define the five most important key points to the change management process in your example sector/field/work. How will you approach these?

Exercise 1: My Problem-Solving Style

Overview:

This exercise will help with the identification of problem-solving styles through self-narration and analysis, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and it helps individuals transfer and exchange problem solving methods between different problematic platforms (work/academic, work life balance, different sectors).

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

Phase 1:

Choose one problem that you have solved for each of the following:

• One for problems you have solved at work within your own sector (if having work experience from own sector) or during practical assignments in university or practical training
• One for problems you have solved in another sector or type of work (this can also be e.g. a summer job or a hobby)
• One for everyday problems you have solved.

Look at the example below about a problem from everyday life

Now it is your turn. Fill in the downloadable template for each of the three problems you selected (one template for each problem).

Phase 2:

Once you have filled in all three tables, compare and analyse them:

• What do the three cases/categories have in common regarding your problem-solving style? Do you, for instance, collaborate with others or do things alone?
• What is different between the three cases/categories?

You can, for example, highlight similarities and differences or use another method that best suits you.

Phase 3:

Analyse your problem-solving style using the three cases you just created and the list of elements below that facilitate problem solving:

• An open mind, creativity
• Hands-on
• Positive and humble attitude
• Willingness to learn
• A holistic view
• Keeping schedules, project planning
• Communication
• Multidisciplinary
• The ability to make decisions, iterate and change the point of view, respect everybody’s experience and knowledge
• Involving people related to the problem

Are you, for example, a creative, playful or a logical problem-solver? Do you prefer to solve problems with others or alone? Is your style more hands-on or abstract or something in between? Do you only use words or draw and write things on paper? What else?

Write your problem-solving style on a sheet of paper, for instance “My way to solve problems is…” and write down your style and its variations. Highlight or mark in another way what are your strengths in problem-solving and do this with another colour for your development points in problem-solving. Keep the paper and come back to it later to see how your problem-solving style and skills have developed.

Think also about which problem-solving style you could use in another context.

Exercise 2: From Blurry to Clear

Overview:

In this exercise, individuals will be solving a blurry problem (also called a wicked problem) that is not directly linked to the individual’s own sector. Learners will be using narration as the source of the activity, and designing approach for solution.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

1. Select a problem you read about in the media, the problem should not be directly linked to your sector. Select a complex and blurry problem with no clear answer, for instance homelessness, to solve.
2. Once you have selected your problem, start investigating it deeper in order to gain insight and understand its complexity. Use a mind-map for this purpose. For the mind-map, take a big sheet of paper and place your article or the name of the problem at the centre of the paper. Then start adding layers of issues related to it.

3. Once you have created sufficient insight, start creating 3–5 concepts of potential solutions. A concept is a rough presentation of an idea or a solution. It often has visual material and text. As the problem might be complex and big, you may focus on a smaller part of it for solutions.

4. Discuss about the concepts with people (real target groups) and test the initial concepts this way. Make notes of your findings.
5. Analyse your noted concepts. Based on the results, choose your final solution and develop this into the final solution. Keep the solution feasible and do not forget the common sense.
6. Based on the discussions, reflect about the three concepts and how well you managed to find a potential solution for the moment. Reflect also on:

• How well did you manage to capture the overall complexity of the problem?
• Are your solutions useful and beneficial for the target groups?
• How easy or difficult are the solutions to implement? Are there enabling and hindering factors? Are they expensive?
• What did you learn about the process and the complex problems?

"The Solution"