Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for a leadership
activity a couple of weeks ago. There were great ideas, which my
colleagues and I tried out in the lectures and tutorials. Most people
posted their replies to the list, but Tom Bryant posted directly to
me. I thought it was well worth sharing - thanks Tom.
Tom's game:
I do New Products skunkworks with a lot of different age groups. I buy a
bunch of different kinds of things at a local bulk food store (jelly beans,
pretzels, dried fruit, etc.) and use them as starting points for the
exercises. For example, the red jelly bean team has a different point of
entry than the blue gummi worm team, than the straight pretzel team, than
the banana chip team, etc. then I challenge each team to come up with (1)
as many new product ideas as possible (2) sort the ideas on various
criteria (3) decide which ones would be the best for (profits, social
good, fun, etc.) One can add various gatekeepers if you want to run a real
intrapreneurship program, but your situation suggests trying different
forms of small group dynamics and leadership styles.
I'd break them into groups of 4 or 5. Unless the students are glued to
their seats, I'd put five of each kind of edible into a big bag, then hand
the bag around with each student taking one item. Then, I'd forced them to
get up an move into close association (breaking the usual friendship bonds
of seat-mates, and forcing people to meet strangers with common interests).
Seat them two up and two down for a group of four, not four across where
the ends can't talk. You probably want to pan in advance which groups
should be seated where, and put up an overhead showing them all where the
new assigned seating is located.
In your class, I'd push them throughthe NewProd process, then ask them
about small group behaviours and leadership styles, but you can probably do
a more directed version, e.g., forcing some groups (all the RED item
groups, for example) to follow one style, others doing other things...
At the end, of course, they have to eat their "spark plugs" (:->) I've
rarely found students that did not leave happy and buzzed in various ways,
esp. when they've been fed a little.
Best regards,
Tom Bryant.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Thomas A. Bryant, Ph.D.
President / CEO, The Brystra Companies (
brystra@golden.net)
snail mail: P. O. Box 125, Waterloo, ON Canada N2J 3Z9
Tel: (519) 746-6225; Fax: (519) 725-9384
Visiting professor, Rutgers University, 1998-99
Chair 1997-98, Entrepreneurship Div., Admin. Sciences Assn. of Canada
Senior Research Fellow, The Institute for Enterprise Education
"Always do right. It'll gratify some people and astound the rest" - Mark
Twain
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Sandy Millar, Manukau Business School, Manukau Institute of
Technology, Private Bag 94006, Manukau City, NEW ZEALAND.
Ph: 0064 9 274 6009, Fax: 0064 9 273 0707
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