Instructions

Preparation (10 minutes)

Appoint a timekeeper and keep to the schedule.

NOTE: This exercise will release considerable energy in the group. You will be tempted to extend your activity beyond the scheduled time, to expand too far for resolution and closure. The Attracting Style requires focus and closure to be effective, so manage your time strictly to ensure that the activity concludes.

All group members, working individually, think of a “Peak Experience” that they have each had in their work or professional lives. A Peak Experience may be defined as a time when:

You felt extraordinarily productive, energetic, and/or creative.
You were using your best, most advanced talents; you felt stretched to do the best you were capable of doing; you were finding strengths and abilities that you were not aware you possessed.
You felt “in tune” with the work: you were working in harmony with yourself, with others, and with the material involved.

Think of the two or three most significant of these Peak Experiences. Make some notes about each. Be inclusive rather than exclusive, and do not worry if some aspects of the experience do not meet all of the criteria listed above. The most important thing is that you focus on times when you were really working well.

Exercise (45 minutes)

Step 1. Presentations (12 to 15 minutes)

After preparing, each member should share his or her Peak Experience with the group (about 3 minutes per person). Using the Attracting Style, present your experiences with as much energy as you can. Work to find Common Ground. Help the others to see and feel the excitement that you felt at the time. Use as much imagery as possible – word pictures, metaphor, or analogies.

Step 2. Expansion (15 minutes)

Use a flipchart to list general topics for all the Peak Experiences of the group members. As a group, list on another flipchart the factors that facilitated these Peak Experiences at work. Try to analyse what it was that helped you and other group members to “lift off,” to experience and use your highest potential, to focus on the task in a maximally productive and creative way. Be as ingenious as you can in thinking of things that may have contributed to having these Peak Experiences.

Step 3. Create an Ideal Organisation (15 minutes)

Imagine you are designing a book or story about the “ideal organisation.” Integrate these key factors into a shared vision of your “ideal organisation”—an organisation that all group members would be delighted with and would enjoy working in together.

Allow your imagination the full freedom of creating a working environment where people might be having “peak work experiences” regularly. Help one another to see how this organisation could work to stimulate creativity, productivity, and enjoyment on the job. Try to eliminate the barriers and blocks to creativity that organisational structures, policies, and processes often put in the way of creativity. Build on one another’s ideas: find at least two or three good things to say about every idea offered to the group, before suggesting ways it might be made more realistic. Use images and figures of speech to get one another excited and enthusiastic about the possibilities you see.

Step 4. Closure (5 minutes)

Briefly review your exercise. The group should now focus on and assess its work process. Use the “Guidelines for Giving and Receiving Constructive Feedback”.

Set aside the task of envisioning an ideal organisation. As a group, focus on how you were working together. Give and receive constructive feedback. Discuss together your use of Finding Common Ground and Sharing Visions. What opportunities did people take to use these Influence Behaviours as you conducted your meeting? What impact did the Attracting Style have on your work together? Were there any missed opportunities?

Individual review (5 minutes)

At the end of the session take time to record useful feedback and learning in your Journal.

4 Ideal Organisation