Great story - and it's nice to hear that it is a true story as well. It reminds me of a similar exercise used by our training staff at an inservice class a few years ago.
Once a year we are required to go through 40 hours of inservice training, and it is there we receive updates on policy & procedural changes, etc. But for the most part it is a boring week. There are what seems like endless classes on defensive & offensive tactics, use of force videos, out dated safety videos, along with a half day at the gun range and some practical exercises as well. What a site to see...a room full of grumpy people, having to set through mandatory classes that challenge one's ability to stay awake, let alone participate with any level of enthusiasm or energy.
I am a correctional officer, and at this particular inservice training, I was in a class with approximately 25 other officers. These people ranged in age from 19 to mid 50's & older. In my profession, it is easy, very easy to become a jaded person, and many bordering on just plain mean. Most though have just become very thick skinned and are not very emotional or open to receiving compliments or giving them either.
On our third day of classes, the instructor passes out a list of every member of the class with space below each name, to each member of the class.
He instructed us to not put out name on the list, but to just wite something nice about each person in the space below their name. He also requested that we not just put some lame statement, or a 1 or 2 liner in that space, but something genuinely positive about the person - and if we didn't know someone on the list very well, or at all... say something nice about what we have onserved in the inservice class, not just comments on their dress, hair, etc. We all had name tags as well, for those that did not know everybody.
It took approximately 45 minutes, but once we were done, the papers were cut up and the result was a pile of comments from everybody for each member. We all went and picked up our "piles" and brought them back to out tables.
Then we were to stand one at a time, and read through the list of compliments we had received - one person at a time. What a difference this exercise made in our class! We are programmed to leave our personal lives outside the gates, and how cool was it to here your peers actually say soemthing good about you. Talk about a morale booster. Prisons are a negative place by design, but many do not realize the effect that working in one has on the staff over a period of time. Now there we were...almost everyone in the room smiling, when minutes before there was hardly a smile in the room. That one exercise changed the dynamics of the class for the rest of the day, and it spilled over throughout the rest of the week as well.
It was a great excercise, and one that I have seen done several times since...and the effect is always the same. I just thought I would share that.
Sue - Great post!
