Just part of the ‘wall of wonder’ at She is Still Sustainable, 2018
On a shelf in my office there is a little shield-shaped trophy, from when I was part of the Thaxted Primary School junior road safety team. A very particular specialist subject for a kids’ quiz! We were Essex County Champions in 1977. I also have a folder called 'nice things people have said', where I save the positive feedback I get from clients, colleagues and readers. It makes me bolder to be reminded of successes, even if they were 40 years ago.
We can harness the power of previous achievements to help teams build resilience and plan their next moves. Here's how.
Individual thinking time. Give everyone some time to think of their own achievements, successes - big or small. At She is Still Sustainable (click for pictures), we asked people to come up with 3 - 5, that they led or where part of, related to sustainability. At a recent organisational planning day, we asked people to think of up to 10, from their own area of the organisation, within the last year.
Write each one on a different sticky note. In the room, you'll need real sticky notes (bigger rather than smaller, so they can be read from a distance) and good thick pens. Online, set up an area on a virtual whiteboard and make sure everyone knows how to add a sticky.
Add them to the Wall of Wonder. You can have some fun creating a background which looks like a wall, on flip chart paper or on your whiteboard. Invite people to come up and add their achievements. Some light touch grouping is helpful, but it doesn't have to be complete.
Read the wall. Give everyone time to read what's on the wall. Perhaps you combine this with a break. Don't rush it. Ask everyone to notice one achievement written by someone else, that they particularly want to draw attention to.
Celebrate. Depending on the size of the group, go round everyone in plenary with each person saying what the achievement is that they want to draw attention to and celebrate. Encourage applause or cheering. If the group is too big to do this in plenary, break people into small groups to do the same thing.
Tips
What you're aiming for here is a space on the wall (or virtual whiteboard) which is covered with achievements, successes and things the group is proud of. Maybe people won't be able to read everything that's there - that's fine. The quantity is part of the point.
Afterwards, the wall can be organised a bit more into themes if that's useful for the group.
Each achievement could be written up in the record of the meeting.
You could give the group time to make some additional personal notes.
This works really well to put people back in touch with their successful selves, ahead of planning their next steps.
MAKING THE PATH BY WALKING
This piece was first published in April 2022’s Making the Path by Walking newsletter. Scroll right down to subscribe.