Matthew Warzel Featured in a Trainers Warehouse Article!

I realize that the phrase “soft-skills” is not a favorite term for many trainers who teach these “essential skills.” For now, however, rather than focusing on semantics, I want to pass along some icebreakers that folks in our community have shared with me.

My take:

“Improv” Games

Matt Warzel likes to incorporate improvisational activities into his career coaching sessions. Here are some favorites:

Presentation Skills Game: IMPROV “EXPERT ANALYSIS”

Have a person stand up front and talk about whatever topics you shoot at them as if the’re an expert. Give them easy topics like “the new KFC Double Stacker,” “health benefits of carrots,” or anything else you or other audience members come up with.  Switch topics every 15 or 20 seconds, forcing the speaker  to switch gears right away. To prevent shyness, explain that each participant will speak a total of only 2 minutes on roughly 10 topics.

After the presentations, you can identify and discuss effective strategies,  individuals’ natural instincts, identify their strengths and discuss opportunities for improvement. Identify behaviors like:

• Hands in pockets
• Grabbing one hand and then the other
• UMM UH OH UMMs
• Reserved or quiet voice that isn’t delivered with energy,
• Shuffling feet (explain u need to walk with a purpose)
• Over-blinking (can be distracting to the audience)
• Hands on the hips too much (which can exude confidence but can also be too Superman pose like and a little defensive)
• Etc.

Finding Common Ground: “10 FINGERS”

Have everyone stand in a circle and hold up 10 fingers.  Moving around the circle clockwise, ask each person to mention something about themselves (past or present experiences, personal characteristic, a badge of honor, religion, etc…). If others have this in common, they keep a finger up; if not, they put one finger down.  Keep going until last one is holding a finger.

Posted online by Matt Warzel, CPRW, CIR