Dr. Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan is a real guru in the interactive training and interactive learning field. I was fortunate to attend his workshop and train-the-trainer in Singapore in January 2011 to be certified as a certified facilitator for all our Thiagi’s training strategies - which are designed to banish forever the possibility of a boring talk, lecture or training workshop ever again!
I have put some of these techniques into practice since then and they have greatly increased hte variety of pace, interaction, challenge and participant engagement which are all important aspects of improving the adult learning environment. I have just published an interactive card game called Speed Talk, and was interviewed for Thiagi’s newsletter.
Here is the interview:
Warwick John Fahy is an author, executive speech coach and facilitator of learning with executive teams based in the Greater China Region. He is a Mandarin speaker and has been working with multinational clients in Asia since 1994. Outside business, he trains for triathlons and is an avid fan of stand up comedy.
Warwick is a life-long-learner specialising in the art and practice of executive public speaking, and is the published author of The One Minute Presenter: an 8 step guide to delivering successful business presentations in a world of short attention spans.
Warwick coaches Asia’s leading senior executives who need to influence their clients, investors, and board members. In particular, Warwick helps CFOs working in multinationals who need to better express their messages to key stakeholders and so expand their influence and enhance their credibility.
Warwick is a great believer in learning through laughter and facilitates executive retreats for senior management teams based in Greater China.
Warwick can be reached at www.warwickjohnfahy.com or www.oneminutepresenter.com
What is your specialty area?
Executive communication. Executive retreats with senior managers. Building management competencies in Chinese young professionals. Helping professionals prepare for important conference speaking.
How long have you been designing and using games?
Since 2005. I tend to think of myself as a facilitator of learning who helps the participants arrive at a defined better outcome through a range of highly participatory experiences, which include games and other facilitation methodologies.
Where do you use game?
During executive retreats, in communication workshops and I just designed a card game that could also be applied in a coaching session.
How do your clients respond?
As I work with executive teams who are often from very rational and logical backgrounds like finance, I tend not to call the activities “games”.
Firstly, I set a context covering a specific competency development area, for example, listening skills, or understanding what type of language should be used at various stages of a presentation.
Importantly while setting up an activity, I always demonstrate what behaviour the game expects from participants so that they can get straight into the game without thinking and talking too long about the instructions. I will spend quite some time before the workshop to prepare my script for the instructions. Like stand up comedians setting up a joke, I try to deliver the clearest instructions in the fewest possible words.
After the game, I spend time to debrief extensively so that the participants can see what competency they were working on and how they might apply it to their workplace situations.
If I am able to engage with the participants at all these levels, then the participants respond well. As a facilitator, I need to be very alert and active during the game to ensure that all participants are as engaged as they choose to be.
What types of games do you use most frequently?
Improv, openers, closers, debriefs, reflective teamwork activity, role playing.
Since going through Thiagi’s workshop in Singapore, I have been creating card games, textra and framegames.
Who are your favorite game designers?
Theatre games from Maria Novelly and Suzi Zimmerman, numerous improv game designers like Keith Johnstone and John Cremer, and of course, the James Brown of game designers, the world’s hardest working game designer, the genius that is… Thiagi!
What is your prediction about the future of games?
People want to be more involved in their learning journey, so games or interactive activities or whatever name you wish to give them, will continue to become more important in the adult learning experience.
I would also expect that higher levels of interactivity will be brought into conferences – traditionally a format where hundreds of people listen to a sage on the stage. While experts will still be important, participants are becoming more willing – and event planners need to adjust to this – to try out interactive learning experiences.
While this is not my specialty, I would also expect online gaming and virtual worlds to take a great role in how we (or our children) learn.
If you would like to learn more about Thiagi check out this web site at www.thiagi.com
I was fortunate to be in India last year for the Ganesh festival which was a great experience. The elephant is an important symbol for intelligence in India and other African cultures. Ganesh represents worldly wisdom and is the patron the book trade.
Blue is one of my favourite colours and it is also a symbol of knowledge and learning. The Chinese used blue to represent scholarship and in Buddhism conveys a wider meaning of spiritual knowledge. In Jungian psychology, blue is used to suggest the calm life of the conscious mind.
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