Hold Onto Your Saxophone
There’s a great scene in the movie Bird (1988), Clint Eastwood’s biopic of famed jazz man Charlie Parker, in which a young musician goes to a club to hear Parker play. Bird (as Parker was called) is so naturally gifted that the musician in the audience leaves the club in despair, walks directly to a […]
Gridlock at the Plaza
When does the puppet-master become the puppet? Not that often, probably, but that’s exactly what happened to me last month at the annual NASAGA conference. (NASAGA, by the way, stands for the North American Simulation and Gaming Association — a “network of professionals dedicated to the design, implementation, and evaluation of games and simulations […]
6 secrets for Transforming Your Team into a “Community”
All worthwhile endeavors start with a question. In a 1962 speech at Rice University, John F. Kennedy famously asked: “But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? … We choose to go to the […]
Debriefing Training Activities the ORID Way
When I first started my treasure hunt company, Dr. Clue, in 1995, I had two directions I could take it. I could either walk down the path of creating the most entertaining recreation activity in the business, OR I could concentrate on harvesting deep learning from the exercise. By and large, I chose the latter […]
Pushing the Envelope
It’s 1987 and I’m living in Shimonoseki, Japan – a non-descript town of 100,000 known primarily for its production of the poisonous delicacy, fugu (blowfish). Although here, ostensibly, to teach English to junior high school students, only I know the real truth. Inside, I’m Indiana Jones. I am an adventurer! Teaching English in Japan is […]
Three Stumbling Blocks on the Path to High-Performance Teams
It’s half an hour into one of my recent team-building programs — a treasure hunt offsite at the Bronx Zoo in New York – and Janine is clearly struggling. For 30 minutes straight she’s been sitting on a bench, 20 feet away from her “Team Indiana Jones” teammates, poring over a particularly difficult clue and […]
Pete Carroll and Grit
In a recent Sports Illustrated article titled “Pete Carroll, NFL’s Eternal Optimist, is Ready to Turn Heartbreak into Triumph”, the beleaguered coach of the Seattle Seahawks discusses how he dealt with his team’s crippling, final-seconds loss to the New England Patriots in last season’s Superbowl. Says Carroll, “[I] grieved for all of one morning”. Incredible, […]
Teams, Longevity, Blues Zones and My Dad
As long as I can remember, my dad was committed to writing a novel and getting it published. A journalist by day, Dad would come home and eat dinner with the family, linger to chat about the day’s affairs, and then retreat to his den to write his books. During those two hours of nightly […]
Motorcycle Crash
By Gordon Grant (guest writer) “Last month I spent a week motorcycling back-country roads in Oregon, California and Washington. Unfortunately one of my friends had an accident that broke a few parts on both the bike and the rider. The trip was over for them. The morning after the accident, we met in the lobby […]
The Tiger Within
The Tiger Within A pregnant tiger stumbles through the woods, desperately seeking its next meal. With her unborn cub weighing her down, the tiger mama is nearing the end of her rope. If she doesn’t find something to eat soon, she’ll most certainly die. Crawling out to edge of a rocky promontory, she looks down […]