Hispanic Chamber of Commerce - Savannah, GA
Facilitating Creative Thinking
Design managers need to create the conditions for creative thinking and innovation in environments composed of diverse professionals, most of whom are not familiar with design thinking. In this course project, the group worked with The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Savannah to facilitate their process of clarifying the roles of their team members while empowering them, so they feel more involved, invested, passionate and connected. Another priority was building alignment through clearing out the organization’s goals.
The course team designed and facilitated a workshop to help The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce board members feel more empowered and aligned toward their vision.
Focus: helping the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to clarify the roles of their team members. Building alignment through clearing out the organization’s goals.
Services: research, capacity building, organizational strategy, workshop design and facilitation, leading multicultural teams.
The course team designed and facilitated a workshop to help The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce board members feel more empowered and aligned toward their vision. Following are the main activities that were designed, their purpose, and the result of each for the client.
The Thread Between Us
The purpose of this activity is to create visual clear connections between team members in both personal and professional level, making evident the common ground between participants and breaking the ice to start the session.
Reflection
By the end of the activity, team members expressed they didn’t know each other that well and that with this exercise they realized they were more similar than they thought, building common ground amongst them. Team members agreed to have an open communication during the rest of the session.
The Foyer
This activity helps to align the participants' understanding of the Hispanic Chambers of Commerce's general purpose.
Reflection
The Foyer guided the participants into reaching a better and deeper understanding of the purpose of a chamber of commerce. At the end of the activity, the members of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce came to the conclusion that they now have the knowledge of the purpose of a chamber of commerce; which is crucial to be taken it into account when developing new projects and in decision-making processes.
Wishes
The intent of this activity is to align the wishes of Board Members for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and lead them to think about their own solutions and ways to achieve them.
Reflection
The discussion a er the activity lead to more team oriented bridges such as working together, learn from their mistakes, apologizing to each other and helping fellow members in their own responsibilities. The development of the activity allowed them to connect what they want with how to get it and, in the way, highlighted the importance of their relationships with each other as a major support.
Blinded Train
The intent of this activity is to refocus on the day’s activities by helping Board Members build a feeling of belonging to the HCC. This activity also showed HCC leadership that situational leadership can be assumed by other Board Members in the organization.
Reflection
The activity showed how different team members have
to rely on their team captain to succeed on the task they were asked to accomplish. The reflection by the team concluded in alignment with the purpose of the activity. The clear communication and sense of trust influenced the synergy of the team, and this activity was meant to forge bonds between the team.
Draw Out
This activity is designed to bring to the surface similar values within the members of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and align them with the more important ones to later help them define the vision of the Chamber.
Reflection
This activity showed that the members needed to have a clear understanding of the values that were already set by the HCC. When they paired to talk about the values and rank them was a tough decision because not everyone thinks equally. Finalizing the activity, the team was happy having as their main values: trust, honesty and build great relationships.
Vision to Vision
This activity is designed to create an understanding of the overall vision of the HCC by understanding the Board Members individual perspectives.
Reflection
The teams shared their vision with each each other, which was then compared to the vision of HCOC. Having them define a blurred vision and not being too specific with words, helped them to make direct and indirect connections to the original vision. The teams felt aligned and on track.
Vision Map
The intent of the activity was to align and clarify the personal vision of the board members towards the vision of the chamber of commerce. This activity also searched for sub-visions that would support the overall vision of the chamber and bring focus towards the actions that must be taken.
Reflection
This activity opened the opportunity for new ideas to come into consideration, which was a crucial milestone for the board: to collectively embody the vision, enhance the sense of belonging and feel passionate about being a part of this board.
Organize Cards
The intent of the activity was to challenge participants to work toward a goal using non-verbal and verbal Communication.
Reflection
At the beginning of this activity, the facilitators became aware that particular members were becoming overpowering voices of the team as a whole. In response the facilitator chose to make the first round a silent version. This was to encourage others to communicate with body language and encourage verbally quite participants to take the lead using a different form of communication. In conclusion the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce learned that communication, strategy, and leadership help create and reach common goals. They also learned that things can be accomplished using different ideas, techniques, and leader roles to complete the task at hand.
Five Bold Steps
The intent of this activity was to help participants identify key strategies or bold steps that are necessary and significant for them in order to achieve their vision. This activity centers the team from the abstract mindset into the analytical mindset of how to achieve it.
Reflection
The Five Bold Steps activity showed the different ways team members communicate in a whole group. Throughout discussing ideas, actions and activities, the group figured out the significant steps that the company can take to achieve the vision. Narrowing down the number of the significant steps helped team members to realize and pay more a en on to the most important strategies.
Supports and Challenges
An activity to identify the current and future challenges of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and to identify supports they currently have and the ones they can potentially have.
Reflection
This activity showed that the team agreed on the most important challenges as well as the existing and potential supports to help them overcome those challenges
Scribble
The purpose for this activity is to break the ice and help participants to relax and focus their energy to think about the next process steps.
Reflection
From the feedback, we collected that this activity was successful because the team members engaged in the primary goal which was to give them the opportunity to think outside the box, making room for creativity by creating new things from something that is unknown, in this case, careless drawings. At the end group members experienced a relaxed and fun activity, and also had the opportunity to share their masterpieces with each other, which led them to talk and participate.
Once Upon a Dream
By defining Dreams and Fears participants will be able to move forward and create their future dreams for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Reflection
The activity worked really fluently because the team had already done the supports and challenges in the Five Bold Steps Map and the Wishes map. It was nice to see that it was a harder job to think about the fears than the dreams. Clearly the participants could see themselves in the HCC future and looked forward to be present in its growth.
Golden Connections
The purpose of the activity is to make evident the new connections and agreements made between team members throughout the facilitation session. Also, the exercise provides closure and reflection about the participants progress comparing the new golden net with the first one made in the Thread Between Us.
Reflection
Golden Connections made visible the new agreements and connections created throughout the facilitation session and made evident that the group built trust and alignment around a common goal during the session. It served to settle new ways to connect team members oriented to specific actions.