A LOLA is a Live Online Learning Activity. There are different types of LOLAs and they usually require the learners to respond to questions, polls, and discussions.
An Interactive Story LOLA incorporates fictional narratives in the training session. In this activity, the participants modify, expand, shrink, analyze, deconstruct, and roleplay the stories presented to them. The participants also create and share their own stories. You can learn more about this type of LOLAs by reading the Linked In article (https://bit.ly/2X1e6F2).
The interactive story LOLA described below does not require the participants to create stories. Instead, it requires them to generate the personality traits, values, habits, and behaviors of a leading character.
Synopsis
Present the outline of a story related to the training topic. Ask the participants to create the hero for this story by listing the positive characteristics, personality traits, values, and behaviors. Later, ask teams of participants to list 10 positive items related to the protagonist.
Purpose
To identify the characteristics and behaviors of an effective intercultural facilitator.
Participants
Minimum: 4
Maximum: Any number
Best: 12 to 30
Time
20 to 40 minutes
Flow
Present the background. Introduce a story related to cross-cultural facilitation. Identify the protagonist of this story in general terms.
Example:
Charles-Louis is a facilitator and a trainer. He travels to different cities in different countries and conducts training workshops. Sometimes, he facilitates groups of people as they make collaborative decisions. He smoothly handles different cross-cultural communication challenges.
List the characteristics of the protagonist. Invite the participants to generate different characteristics, personality traits, habits, attitudes, and values of the hero of the story. Give some examples and tell the participants to type additional items in chat. Encourage the participants to type as many items they want to. Announce a time limit of 3 minutes.
Examples:
He is an ambivert who behaves like an introvert or an extrovert as the situation requires.
He tolerates ambiguity and effectively facilitates even when the objective is not clear.
He is aware of the norms and values of the cultures to which the participants belong.
Review the list of items. After 3 minutes, ask the participants to stop typing. Tell them to visit the chat, scroll up and down, and read the items contributed by others. Ask the participants to note down different items on a piece of paper. Announce a 2-minute time limit.
Work with a team. After 2 minutes, divide the participants into two or more teams of three to eight members each. Send the teams to different breakout rooms and ask the members of each team to share the items they recall, discuss them, and create a list of 10 or more desirable characteristics of an effective cross-cultural communicator. Announce a 7-minute time limit for completing this task.
Share the team’s list. After 7 minutes, bring the participants back to main room. Invite spokespeople from different teams to take turns to read their list of items. After all teams have made their presentations, conduct a discussion to identify similar and different items in the team’s lists.
Adjustments
Change the scenario. Instead of focusing on an international facilitator, you can identify a manager posted to an African country or a young woman appointed as the leader of older men.
Portray a villain. Instead of asking for the characteristics of a hero, you may specify an undesirable villain. Obviously, the activity will end up with a list of characteristics to be avoided.
Work without breakout rooms. If you don’t have access to a breakout room or if you are not comfortable using them, you can randomly identify different participants and have them announce the two characteristics they like the best.