Have you ever heard of a man named Vic Cianca? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, don’t worry: he’s one of the many unsung heroes of the world who make their communities just a little bit better by virtue of being themselves. Vic Cianca was a traffic cop in Pittsburgh who was beloved for his, shall we say, unique ways of directing traffic every day on the job. Rather than just standing there, pointing the way with his arms, he truly made the job his own–from pretending to fall asleep when distracted drivers failed to move, to pleading with traffic to keep going, to even using legs and other limbs to direct cars, Cianca turned this one intersection into his own Jester’s Court every day he worked. He even gained some notoriety for his antics: not only did everyone in the city love him, but his passion and humor even made it into the hit 1980’s movie Flashdance , where he served as inspiration for Jennifer Beals’ would-be dancer. Sadly, Vic Cianca passed away in 2010 at the age of 92,

  Sådan sikrer lederen, at  medarbejderne kan lide hinanden og kan de lide deres arbejde:  Når medarbejderne kan lide deres kolleger kan de også lide deres arbejde. Nogle mennesker hader at gå på arbejde. Det skyldes, at de ikke kan lide alle deres kolleger eller ikke kan lide chefen. Det kan lederen gøre noget ved. Men umiddelbart lyder det ikke nemt, at få mennesker til at holde af hinanden, have det sjovt sammen, nyde hinandens selskab. Men hvad nu hvis lederen kan skabe et fællesskab, hvor alle kan lide hinanden? Løsningen kommer her: Lederen kan bruge FISH! som er det enkleste og billigste redskab på markedet. FISH! består af film, bøger, plakater, hæfter, fisk, øvelser og planer for at skabe et fællesskab med gode relationer - og god hjælp til at komme i gang og holde det ved lige. Enhver leder kan gøre det selv - uden at blande eksterne konsulenter ind i opgaven. Først lidt forhistorie. Det var Pike Place Fish i Seattle som skabte deres fællesskab i den nu verdensberømte fis

And this is exactly what the four FISH! practices will do to you and your team. The four practices can help any individual and any team to become ‘friends’. Well, ‘friends at work’ at least. The four practices are BE THERE, PLAY, CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE and MAKE THEIR DAY. These fabulous four are not just smart headlines. They are interrelated and they are very practical. They are interrelated in the sense that you have to use all four simultaneously. You can not leave out one of them or just go with one of them.  They are practical in the sense that everyone can practise them daily - alone and in the team. FISH! delivers a series of methods and exercises easy to use - and fun too. The leader does not have to invent ways to keep on talking about FISH! - lots of material has been invented. Why is it vitally important that your employees are friends or ‘friends’ at work? The answer is quite easy - and you know it already. People like what they are doing with people they like. The opposite i

5 FISH! Philosophy Strategies for Avoiding Burnout:  For many people, they think that burnout is the same as stress, but that’s not entirely accurate. Stress is acute – we experience it in-the-moment due to a particular trigger. But burnout? Burnout is more long-term. It stems from accumulated stress over time, and often manifests almost like a depression: you may feel perpetually exhausted and anxious. You may feel like you can’t catch up on sleep, or that nothing brings you pleasure. You have trouble concentrating and connecting with people you love. Burnout takes time to set in, and also takes time to heal, and it’s often caused by long-term workplace stressors (although it can definitely be caused by non-work-related concerns such as marital problems or ongoing crises). What can you do if you’re feeling burned out at work? Here are five things you can do as a coworker or manager to help yourself and others find relief: 1. Take care of yourself (physically and emotionally) One of th

Play can’t be forced:  How Children Can Teach Us to Play “The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression,” says Play expert Stuart Brown. Far too often, we think of play and work as being mutually exclusive concepts positioned on opposite ends of the same spectrum, and that’s why we so often hear from people that Play is the most difficult-to-grasp pillar of the FISH! Philosophy. But Play is not mutually exclusive from work; instead, it’s something that can be integrated into our workspaces and our work processes to help improve the quality of our ideas, our outputs, and our collaborative processes. If you’re struggling to wrap your head around the idea of what Play looks like in the workplace, let’s remove the idea of “the workplace” entirely and take a step back to a time when Play was a natural way of being: childhood. Children are the ultimate experts in Play, and adults could learn a thing or two about it from them: after all, we all need to play, and humans (and animals!) t

Every departmental meeting, team meeting, kick-off meeting needs the participants to hear new things, learn new things and understand new things. This does not happen when the leader is talking everyone to sleep. As you know, nobody learns anything when they are bored or have fallen asleep. Hence this helping hand in the form of a collection of MEETING JOKERS, who create awake and fresh and enterprising employees who are given the opportunity to reflect on what they see, hear and perceive. The manager must therefore accept that the employees challenge and provoke and twist what they have heard. This does not mean that the decisions must therefore be overturned or annulled. This means that all employees must understand and internalize (take it in) and make the 'news' their own. The manager is also not going to hear everything that is said. But there is nothing new in that. What is not said in the conference room is said at the coffee machine or even later - at home. The 'new

A friend of mine has a job in a local community. She is head of Human Resources. She has lots of transactions with her leader on a daily basis. The leader happens to be quite aggressive. Last week my friend fainted from stress and was taken to hospital with a stroke that paralysed half of her face. My friend is very dutyful and may be a sensitive woman but this incident is without discussion pure terror. The incident happened at work during daytime. And this is not the first time employees meet terror from this leader. Local newspaper has had several articles about the horrible leader. No colleagues stod up helping my friend. Nobody did a thing. Lots of people knew about it and nobody stopped the leader from repeated actions. This terror is not OK This is not OK at all. We can’t accept a leader with a temper like this, a behaviour this aggressive and a series of consequences like this. I suggest that time has come to introduce a leaders license. I know that lots of companies are able t

Coaching Cubes with 36 questions on 6 different theme cubes: Explore new areas of discussion with Coaching Cubes  Colorful foam dice that feature positive coaching questions and they are great for promoting discussion and unblocking stuck conversations with your coachees. One of the most effective techniques to help someone develop their own thinking is to ask them questions. Good questions prompt new thoughts, bring previous experiences to bear on present dilemmas, shed new light on the issue, and prompt plans for action. This activity consists of six coloured, soft cubes with positive coaching questions on them. The cubes are designed to be rolled as dice, with each cube having its own theme relating to the coaching process. The Coaching Cubes follow this model. The PRISMM COACHING CUBES Model The PRISMM coaching model combines systemic consulting, appreciative inquiry and positive psychology to create a powerful coaching process. A colourful, tactile, innovative addition to any coac

Colourblind® is used to simulate modern day communication when a shared visual reference is not always available e.g. communicating via text / email / telephone, or even face-to-face, and using active listening and questioning skills for mutual understanding: The original Colourblind ® game relies on participants being blindfolded and asked to describe abstract shapes in their hand to figure out, as a team, which two pieces from a complete set of 30 have been removed. This requires active listening and questioning skills, as well as problem solving and team leadership in order to come to a consensus. Whether new entrants to the workforce or seasoned Executives, everyone can benefit from taking some time to further develop their communications skills - whether it is active listening, communicating abstract and difficult concepts to others, or indeed ensuring that the message being received is that which was intended! All of these are required to be successful both individually and as a

Why Team Small Talk is vitally important to working life: Team Small Talk is important at work - actually, it's an important and essential part of work. It enables us to find common ground and shared interests. It improves active listening skills. It helps us build muscles to overcome social discomfort and it improve spontaneity. Team Small Talk sparks collaboration, improve creativity, innovation and performance. Team Small Talk boost energy and make everybody feel 'seen'. It lays the groundwork for transitioning into more serious, deeper topics which require a greater degree of psychological safety. Here are 7 groundrules for making Team Small Talk work. But before this you have to come closer to all your colleagues in order to give these groundrules a chance to work: Be friendly. Be enthusiastic. Be curious. Be helpful. Send the right signals with face. Send the right signals with body. Send the right signals with voice. How to learn to become a Team Small Talker Practic

FISH! testing: Test yourself with these 28 different FISH! practice questions. You can also use the questions with a colleague and have a great conversation while you fill out the form. How Well Do You live The Practices? This self-assessment tool gives you a quick scan of how well you are living the FISH! practices with your coworkers and customers. Take it again in the future and see where you’ve made changes. Use the following scale to respond to each statement: 1 Never. 2 Rarely. 3 Sometimes. 4 Consistently. Circle the number with a red pen describing the situation NOW. Circle the number with a green pen describing the situation 14 DAYS LATER. Circle the number with a blue pen describing your WISH. Be There I focus on others when they are talking to me.  ❶      ❷      ❸      ❹ I listen to understand, not just to reply.   ❶    ❷    ❸    ❹ I quiet my judgments about others when talking with them. ❶    ❷    ❸    ❹ When talking with others I get curious about their thoughts and feeling