General Tips and Techniques
Generally, any dwarf behavior style has some basic needs in common. Any of them want to feel important, to be accepted as unique individuals yet valued and loved as part of the "family."
These are guidelines for creating an encouraging, supportive atmosphere for all participants, which will be followed by specific strategies for each "protective posture."
Establish rapport:
- Greet each group member as he walks into the room
- In the initial introduction make eye contact with participants
- Smile
- Be sure everyone speaks as early in session as possible
- If possible, inject humor
Group leader's stange:
- To support a particular respondent, position yourself to his right
- To enlist the support of a particular person, position yourself to his left
- To encourage separateness or differing opinions, stand across from participant
- Move around the room...
- To shift the balance of power
- Raise the energy of the group
Written exercise:
- Have respondents write down reactions to insure and encourage individual response to key questions
- Reactions to:- Concept
- Ad
- Prototype
- Package
- Leader records responses on flip chart as verbatim as possible, to:- Value each person's contribution
- Reward participation
- Encourage further response
Reading non-verbal responses:
- Check facial expressions
- Notice body posture
- Look for breathing changes
- Pay attention to skin tone differences
- Listen for voice tone and inflection
- Acknowledge body language and draw out meaning when appropriate
Anchoring:
- Reinforce desired response by:
- Verbalized praise, "good!"
- Nodding/smiling
- Gentle touch on shoulder
Process interruption:
- Stop undesired response or behavior by:
- Change of stimulus; i.e., quickly draw attention to something happening in the room, noise, sneeze, "accidentally" drop something (Disrupter usually forgets what he was saying or doing and returns control to group leader)
- Do not make eye contact with disrupter until he changes behavior to more desired response
Note; most critical is to have a basic love and appreciation of people and their individual struggles. None of these techniques can work well if the leader does not have compassion for the group's members.
DWARF PERSONALITIES:
To read descriptions of the each Dwarf Personalities, choose an appropriate link below:
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