Purpose: This exercise is a closer that promotes the transfer of training back to the job. It helps participants visualize and verbalize their future success.
Audience: Any size
Time: 10-15 minutes
Space: Enough room to create small groups of three
Materials: None
Application: Have participants see themselves using and applying the new skills and techniques they have learned in the class and creating a more successful future for themselves as a result of putting into practice the information they acquired in your class.
Process:
1. Have participants get into groups of three. If you have an uneven number, you may have several groups of four.
2. Tell participants that they are going to have the opportunity to predict their future success by creating it right now. They will soon be entering a time machine that will propel them six months into the future. Read this script:
Imagine that it is six months from now (you can give them the exact date) and the three of you are sitting at a company picnic or dinner catching up with each other. The topic of this class comes up and someone asks, “How are you using the information you learned in the class? And more importantly, how have you become more successful by implementing some new solutions or ideas as a result of the class?”
3. Now tell the class to have some fun and “brag” (it is okay to toot your own horn) as you share how you are using what you learned in the course. Share your success stories and how you have become a “big cheese” in the company for your innovative and creative ideas/solutions as a result of this course.
4. This should just be a give-and-take conversation. Tell them they will have six minutes to do the exercise with about two minutes for each person to share. You may want to give them a signal when their two-minute intervals are over.
5. After the six minutes are up, ask for any volunteers who would like to share the best success story she heard. Finish the exercise by challenging the group to live up to their predictions.
Cautions: Casually observe the group to ensure that each person has an opportunity to predict the future.
Variations: This technique could also be used as a review technique for a two to three-day course at the end of the day to review a specific segment of content.
This activity was taken from SCORE! by Rich Meiss and Doug McCallum. This book is available here.
Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
