Doni Tamblyn - The Big Book of Humorous Training Games

The BIG Book of Humorous Training Games

Other books in The Big Book of Business Games series:

The Big Book of Business Games

The Big Book of Creativity Games

The Big Book of Customer Service Training Games

The Big Book of Flip Charts

The Big Book of Presentation Games

The Big Book of Sales Games

The Big Book of Stress Relief Games

The Big Book of Team Building Games

Doni Tamblyn

Sharyn Weiss

Copyright 2000 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-150404-1
MHID: 0-07-150404-4

The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-135780-7, MHID: 0-07-135780-7.

All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps.

McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. To contact a representative please e-mail us at .

How to Contact the Publisher

To order multiple copies of this book, at a discount, please call the McGraw-Hill Special Sales Department at 800-842-3075; or 212-904-5427. To ask a question about the book, contact the author, or report a mistake in the text, please write to Richard Narramore, Senior Editor at .

TERMS OF USE

This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (McGrawHill) and its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it without McGraw-Hills prior consent. You may use the work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be terminated if you fail to comply with these terms.

THE WORK IS PROVIDED AS IS. McGRAW-HILL AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not warrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation will be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise.

Find the Perfect Game for Your Topic

You can use humor in training. Naturally. Expertly. Gracefully. Appropriately. And best of all, to enhance learning and retention.

Most trainers already know that humorused rightcan bring any training topic alive. Unfortunately, many trainers believe they are not naturally funny people. Humor is a gift, they think If you werent funny back in Junior High, then you certainly wont be an amusing adult.

The fact is, humor is a giftand everybody is born with it. Humor is measured not by peoples ability to tell jokes or use novelty store items, but by their ability to play. And anybody who has ever been a child is an expert at playing. We assume that despite your current role as a teaching professional, you are, in fact, a former child. That means you already know how to use humor in learning games. You may just be a little rusty.

The Big Book of Humorous Training Games capitalizes on the joy of playful learning with 50 original humorous training games. Throughout the book we also offer tips on how to present the games in a way that will help your learners learn better and more enjoyably. Feel free to adapt all ideas in this book to fit your own style and the logistics of your training session. For instance, each game comes with a suggested Funny Introduction. You do not need to memorize, or even use, the introduction. It is merely a suggested way to transition into the learning material while signaling to your learners that it will be entertaining as well as useful. We also show how to use humor to get willing volunteers for activities. We offer ad lib response to predictable learner witticisms.

We suggest debriefing questions to help deepen your learners understanding of the material. Notice that most games in this book can also be used to introduce or highlight other topics by shifting the focus of the debriefing. (You will see this list of alternative topics at the end of each game, and also in the matrix at the beginning of this book.)

We have two goals in writing The Big Book of Humorous Training Games. The first is to offer you a collection of playful exercises to build important business skills with your learners. The second is to help you as a teaching professional heighten your level of confidence in your innate ability to use humor as a training tool. Thats why we suggest you start with Chapter I, Five Games to Make You a Naturally Funny Trainer

The games in Chapter I illustrate the principles of what we call natural (as opposed to comedy club) humor These principles are: