GAME #39: Elevator Speech
̊ ̊ T
̊ ̊ T
Game Categories:
Opener Energizer Communication
Team-building Review Topical: Train-the-Trainer
❖ Purpose: To help trainers—especially new trainers—better monitor time in the classroom and answer participant questions with greater brevity.
❖ Time Required: 20 to 30 minutes.
❖ Size of Group: 8 to 12.
❖ Materials Required: Prepared questions, written in advance by the trainer on index cards. ❖ The Exercise in Action: Linda Shear, a professional development man- ager with Lotus Development Corp. in San Francisco, uses these two exer- cises to make points in her train-the-trainer classes: • Time control: Ask participants to close their eyes and raise their hands when they think 30 seconds has elapsed, opening their eyes as they put up their hands. Using a stopwatch, the trainer raises her own hand to mark the 30-second interval, and records times as participant hands go up. One telling result: Shear says, “Trainers who tend to ramble a lot and whose training programs consistently go over the allotted time are the same people who raise their hands far after the 30 seconds is past.” Trainers who tend to barely finish their sessions in time usually raise their hands a little before the 30 seconds is up. The exercise helps trainers understand their own views of time and “whether they have a tendency to think time goes slowly and therefore think they have a lot of it, or that it passes quickly and they need to rush,” she says. • Giving concise answers: Shear uses an “elevator speech” analogy to help trainers develop skills to answer participants’ questions concisely: Imagine you just stepped into an elevator, and your boss’s boss gets on and asks a question. You want to make a good impression, but only have 20 seconds to answer before she leaves the elevator. Shear has participants go through the scenario one by one. She also has each participant stand in front of the room and answer questions other participants have asked and that she has written on index cards. Participants have 20 seconds to answer, thinking “elevator” all the while.
101 More Games for Trainers
39
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker