Square Wheels® presentations are unusual because of the very useful metaphor that is the anchor of the overall program plus the high levels of engagement generated. Attendees actively participate with the content and frameworks in tabletop discussions during the program and afterwards. We have the expectation that managers will use the provided tools after the workshop.

We try to make conference presentations fun and entertaining, but the very serious purpose behind our approach is the focus on impacting people and performance by adding real leadership engagement tools for the attendees and generating more active engagement.

It will be FUN! But it will also require active involvement and tabletop discussions.
Passive attendance is not allowed by me or your tabletop of peers!

Maybe, this will be the most rememberable presentation people ever have, and one where they so actively participate. People tend to remember things that are meaningful and useful and where they are emotionally engaged and intellectually challenged. I think the participants will be surprised at how useful and applicable the program will be to their specific needs and thus more valuable to them than the vast majority of presentations by more famous, big-name talking heads. I say that because:

• I have received comments from people who have attended one of these sessions 25 years before and who can remember the approach and the images along with the work they did in the session.
• so many people will actually choose to so something differently because they attended and participated
• many people report they have used many of these same tools for 20+ years in their own training, consulting and leadership.
• there are no other tools even remotely like these useful images and metaphors, and they take away the tools, worksheets and instructions about how to actually use them. And,
• we can readily address so many issues with the images and the interactive tabletop discussions among peers that address their common organizational development needs.

We have been planning for a half-day workshop for the Sales Professionals Society in Amman, Jordan for weeks and some of the principals of the conference asked me to share some thoughts about the presentation. At the same time, I do not want to “give it all away” because surprise is a good element in the delivery and surprises are more fun.

We will start with this image and question:

and we will use other images, simple models and metaphors to allow everyone to generate their ideas for improvement. What they see ME do, they can do.  

Square Wheels are Everywhere!
They represent that things work, but that don’t work smoothly.
And the REALITY is that your Round Wheels are already IN your wagon.

Things that could work better often just don’t. The Square Wheels / Round Wheels model naturally sets up cognitive dissonance, which is a motivator to close the gap and implement better solutions.

And from a people and performance viewpoint, “Nobody ever washes a rental car,” and people who have things done TO them can be expected to push back more than engage. Ownership involvement is a powerful motivator and our tools impact that directly.

By asking people for their ideas and working to discover ways for teams to focus on implementation of the best of them, we can really do so much more to actively involve and engage people in organizational improvement.

THAT is the mainstream purpose of using the images, the metaphors, the models and the process of asking for ideas — the benefit is a development of teamwork and ownership involvement to make improvements and innovations much more likely.

I wrote this up so that Raed Daoud would have something to motivate more professionals to come to our conference. I hope that the benefits of attending can be seen clearly. Please note that my presentations are generally at the top of most of the conferences I have attended over the past 25 years and we have been using the Square Wheels metaphor globally since 1993.

Every attendee will get a toolkit of handouts, images and worksheets along with some reminders of presentation tips.

Plus, you will play a world’s best teambuilding games in the world in the afternoon. Bring a team!

Visit the Facebook page for the Sales Professional Society here and view a flyer for the August program by clicking on the link below:

IAPPD 2022 Sales Professionals Society August 2022 Conference Flyer AM2-F Flyer

For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools.
Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant who is trying to retire!! He now lives in Cuenca, Ecuador.

You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

Learn more about Scott at his LinkedIn site.

Square Wheels® are a registered trademark of Performance Management Company
© Performance Management Company, 1993 – 2022. All rights reserved.
The Amman, Jordan Conference for the Sales Professionals Society is from August 1 to August 3. See the link to the flyer above.