Hi, everyone. What's going on and welcome to the darn good leadership podcast. This show is all about being a strong and effective leader. One that can make positive impacts on your teams and communities and the next 20 minutes you're going to get ideas, inspiration and practical advice. You can take action on to be a darn good leader. I'm your host, Emily holding. And today I have the thrilling conclusion in the three part Halloween theme series. Can you hardly stand the suspense? I know. So in the first episode I shared three lessons. The Halloween holiday can teach us about leadership and community. And then the second episode I shared the biggest leadership takeaways from the best Halloween themed movies. So what do I have cooking up for you find folks today. Well, I will be sharing some spooktacular To build community fun and KYP that's know your people through. Denton, Anna. Halloween retrospectives and icebreakers Now I've mentioned my love of retrospectives and previous podcast. Retrospectives are the most critical and impactful meaning for any team or working group, if done effectively. I'll hold a future podcast on this topic, as I would love to bring in some of my coaching crew to further discuss, But for now let's quickly review what a retrospective is, why you should care about it and why you should be holding them with your teams. The general purpose of a retro is to allow a team or a group to evaluate its past working cycle. Now, what do I mean by cycle? Uh, cycle could be a sprint, which is more in the R and D world, but it could also be for your team every two weeks. It could be a month. It could be at the end of a quarter, the end of a project. Uh, milestone within a project, but essentially it's a point in time. For that group to inspect reflect and improve It's a moment for those doing the work to pause. And to constructively discuss data and candid feedback of what's going well and what is not now you may be doing retros and just not calling them that a lot of people are. But regardless the practices of inspect, reflect and improve matter because it enables your team to learn from their experiences. And to take action on areas that need some TLC, some tender, loving care. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing. Over and over and yet. Expecting a better outcome. Retros provide that opportunity to change, to try something different and see if we can get a better result by doing Retros are also great at building trust and communication within a team. And fostering KYP know your people. And this is because during retrospectives, it's an opportunity if done right for the members to be heard for you to learn about how they're feeling, how they're thinking, what they care about. And for those team members to feel that their input is valued. And this is why getting to actions and retros is so important because it really solidifies that you heard them Okay, now that we've briefly baselined on retros. I've got two Halloween retros and a bunch of Halloween icebreakers. I'll share some tricks on how to run these. And you can take these treats back to your teams and community. So therefore virtual trick or treating I'm sharing the tricks. Then you bring the treats to your teams. Okay. I think we're all on the same page. So let's get to our virtual trick or treating. Retro number one is a Halloween themed. Bingo. Now bingo and Halloween. Can it get more fun than this? Y, yes, it can. The bingo card is based off my last podcast. I did on the biggest leadership takeaways from the best Halloween theme movies. So here's how it works. Step number one, have your team listen to that last podcast. I will link it in the show notes. Step number two, I created a kick ass bingo card. That will also be linked in the show notes and is free for anyone to download screenshot and use. There are nine bingo squares on the board. I created. And each square represents one of the Halloween theme movies I spoke about in the last episode, as well as its respective leadership takeaway. But instead of just the takeaway, summarize it is stated. Now, as a question back to the team to think about and reflect on,

So just as an FYI, what I'm about to go through will make a lot more sense. If you have listened to the previous If not, you might need to go back and listen to that, or at least look at the. Visual, but if you have listen, we're ready to rock so to give you an example of how this board is set. It up one of the squares has a picture of Michael Myers face, and the question is asked, what do we need to take extreme ownership And that's because the leadership lesson out of the movie, Halloween was all about, you have to take extreme ownership of everything you're responsible Another quick example of how the last podcast relates to this bingo board. Is there, is it picture of the shining because it's one of the movies I talked about and the question is asked, how can we improve our connection as a team? And that's because the big leadership takeaway from the movie, the shining was all about community and connection being important. So after you have listened to the podcast, you now have your bingo board And you're going to pick with your team. What are three out of the nine boxes that you want to focus your retrospective on? So maybe these are questions that speak to your team. Maybe they're the ones that are the movies that you guys are most interested in. Choose a way to pick the three, but go ahead and pick three to focus on if you wanted to do more than

Have at it, but if you want to have a concise retro, I would suggest three. Once you have decided on your three, you're ready to hold your retrospective. So everyone's listened to the podcast episode. And as a team you've selected your three squares, you're going to focus the retro on, and then you come together for the actual retro. At the beginning of the retro, you'll want to reserve about five to 10 minutes for each individual to privately. Think through and write down their own thoughts to each of the three questions. Once that time is up and everyone's got their thoughts together. Everyone will have an opportunity to share out their thoughts, their ideas. You'll see where the team is aligned, where people have different perspectives. And finally, as a group, you'll want to identify one to two areas for actionable improvement. And that's the most important part of any retrospective is getting to action. So you can ensure that all of that good feedback is being put to use And you're learning from your experiences and you're consistently making strides to get better and That was retro. Number one, all about the bingo card. Retro number two is I'm calling the happy and spooky Halloween retro. It also has a card that you can download with very fun Halloween. Visuals on it. And it has more of your typical retrospective format. And if you're not It is no worries. I got you. We're about ready to walk through it. So how this will go is you can download the visual. And essentially it starts with an ice. Breaker and the icebreaker is this that you're going to have everyone on the call, change their zoom background to their favorite Halloween movie. So for me, it would be the monster squad. And I would just go to Google images. I'd find a cool scene. And then I change and upload that to. My background. If you are in person doing a retro. No worries. You can just talk this through about what is your favorite Halloween movie and have. More of a conversation starter on it than necessarily a visual cue. The second icebreaker is what you think is the greatest In costume of all time. Now with this question, there's a bunch of different ways you can go about this again. If you're in person, you can just have. Uh, conversation. If you are virtual, you could actually have people upload photos of their own Halloween costumes that they have those around. You could just grab things off of Google images there's a lot of ways that you can answer this either with an image or a conversation. I'll let you do whatever floats. Your boat for your retrospective So those are the two icebreakers, Zoom background of your favorite Halloween movie, and then a question around what is the greatest Halloween costume of all time. Time. Okay. So then you're going to get into the real meat and potatoes of the retrospective that are going to go through your typical retrospective areas. But with a Halloween twist. This will be the first question in the meat and potato part of your retrospective but the third overall question so the third question is to list Any jack-o-lanterns and what is a jack-o-lantern when, when you think about a jack-o-lantern, it's always lit it glows. And so jack-o-lanterns are, what is lighting our way? What is helping us reach our goals? Okay. So they will list those out. You'll come up with some answers there. So these are positive things that are helping you progress as a The fourth question is to list any ghost Now, what does this mean? This means to list any issues that keep haunting us. What are these repeating frustrations errors? Things that we keep messing up on that we're not learning from. And how can we prevent that from happening in the future? Okay. And all of these things, again, on these little caveats that I'm saying are on this sheet that you can download. So you don't have to worry about remembering these things. Number five is to list your witch's brew. And this is if you could brew up the perfect To solve any work issue. What would your potion be called? And then what would it actually solve?

I've used this question Several times in the past with some of the teams I've worked with and it always is. Is really hysterical to see the names people come up with, but it's also enlightening to hear about. What issue they would go after trying to solve, because then you can start to think about, huh? Is this a. A low hanging fruit thing. Is this something we could actually take action on today? Is this something bigger than you were even. Aware of, so these silly questions can sometimes expose. Things that you weren't ever aware And have really positive benefits if you can start It

number six is to list any how louts and how I'm saying like H O w L like how at the moon. So this is all about who deserves a shout out. But werewolf style. So these are just shout outs or accolades. Thank you. As gratitude that we want to give to any team member who maybe went above and beyond helped somebody out, maybe it's a shout out to a group that isn't even in the retrospective. And those are really fun because if you hear those, then you can have someone from the team, email them, or call somebody from the group or send it through slack. And whenever you get those messages from outside groups to say Hey, your team was really acknowledged for, for helping us those go a long way. Building community and trust across teams too. So, you've got your six steps to icebreakers for kind of inspect and adapt areas. And then at the end of this, you'll look at everything that you have and you'll one identify one or two areas again, to potentially take action on as a team. What do we want to try? What do we want to change? What do we want to do this upcoming cycle? Whatever that cycle is for your groups to make some tiny improvements. And then at the next retrospective that you do. You can inspect and adapt how those items are going for you. There you have it too. Retro treats, ready to go. Bingo style and one more traditional, but both with a very fun flare.

The next treat i'm dishing out is icebreakers

So all of the icebreakers I've combined into one visual for you, for you to download, you can use them one at a time. You can use the whole card in one session. The choice is yours have fun with it? I'm making it rain with icebreakers here today. All Halloween style. So there's three areas to this card and you've got the icebreakers that are this or that style. And I'll go through what that means. We've got an area that I'm calling the candy crush questions. And then we have the final area of choose your choice. Let's begin reviewing the, this or that section. Into this or that you have to choose one or the other. So even if you're like, I don't like either option, that's not the rules of the game. You have to choose between one or the other. Those are the choices. So here are your Halloween choices. Will you choose the pumpkin patch or the haunted house Is it watch a Halloween feel good movie. Or watch a scary Halloween Is it, I love me a good costume. Or is it over my dead body? Would I wear a costume? Is it I'll take a pumpkin spice latte, please. Or is it I'll have a punk and So that's the, this or that you can have people.vote, circle, vote, say it out loud. However you want to do this, you could do it, you know, get creative with it, but the card is there again for you? The candy crush area. There's three questions here. The first question is what's your favorite candy anytime you ask food questions, you're going to get a lot of interested parties. That's a little pro coach tip for you food elicits conversation. So if you're ever finding a group, who's not really chatty go to a topic of food. What's your favorite candy should get people. Going the second question is what are three candies you would automatically trade after trick-or-treating. I will warn you. This one could get a little feisty with your groups of who's going to trade what candy, I've done this one in the past and, People get really into it, about what candies they would trade as a kid and the last one is what candy has a name that has never made sense to you. And what would you name it instead? Now this one's super fun. For example, I've never understood. sometimes you feel like an a, sometimes you don't. Oh, man. Joy's got nuts. Mounds don't okay. So almond joys and mounds. And, yes, I did take choir in high school for those of you wondering, but I will not be putting out an album. So we've got Back to what candy has a name that never made sense to you? You've got almond joy. And you got mounds, right?

But if almond joys have nuts and mounds, don't. Stay with me. Why wouldn't you call the ones without nuts, joy bars. You have Allmand joys with almonds and joy bars without them. Why is it mounts? They're the exact same thing. So. Almond joys enjoy bars does not make a ton of hella more sense.

That's how I would answer this question. I'm very curious as to what candy names have never made sense to you because that's my big pet peeve, almond joys and mounds. Don't like it. Okay. It should be all men joys and joys. Next area on the icebreaker card is choose your choice. So the first two up are if you guys are familiar with street fighter and the choose your champion. So you're going to choose your vampire champion and then you're going to have an opportunity to choose your which champion. Vampire champions. You've got Edward Colon from Twilight. You've got Lestat interview with the vampire. That's who Tom cruise played. You've got David from the last boys. I talked about him last episode, he's killer and like very frightening. and then of course you've got Dracula. So out of those vampires, who are you choosing as your champion go? So everyone will choose. For choose your witch champion. You've got the wicked witch the craft crew, the craft, the movie, the craft with the four girls, the Sanderson sisters, Hocus Pocus, shout out again, or the grand high witch. From the movie, the witches with, Angelica Houston. So that's choose your champions, then you've got, choose your pads. And from this, your options are thing from the Adams family. You know, the hand that roams around everywhere. You've got beings from Hocus Pocus. the cats. You've got gizmo from gremlins. Do you like that? Kind of look and feel for a pet? I don't know if he sheds, but that's something to consider. Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. Next up is choose your favorite ghost. So you've got a Poulter guys. Very scary. The twins from the shining dare. I say, even scarier. Slimer. So that's from Ghostbusters. He's the green dude, not as scary, kind of gross, but lovable. Or Patrick Swayze and ghost. I had to do that I don't even know what his name was in that movie, but we all know the movie. We all know Patrick Swayze. That is my favorite ghost. Hands down final answer. All right. And the last choose your choice is choose your best friend. So is it going to be beetle juice? Edward scissors hands. Wednesday Adams or Casper. And that concludes the Halloween icebreaker card. You could do all of these at once. You could split them up over the rest of the month for Halloween and drop one to your teams and conversations throughout the day. Use them however you like, but hopefully you. I have some foam with it.

Although, these might seem more silly in nature, retrospectives and icebreakers can hold so much value for you. And the teams and communities you're trying to create, because what it's doing is it's providing an opportunity to build connection, to build rapport, to build relationships, to build, understanding, to build KYP, to get to know your people. It's also offering an opportunity to improve if you do those retrospectives right. So you can be effective and have fun at the same time i challenge you both

That wraps up our virtual trick or treating. And our final episode in this Halloween series. Give me a shout out if you use any other retros or icebreakers and let me know how it goes. All right, guys, if you like, what you heard or perhaps what you download, please leave me a rating and review. And subscribe to the darn good leadership podcast. So that way you never miss an episode. I'm wishing you all a very wickedly fun season. And I so appreciate the time you've spent with me today. People'd be bright, be a leader who leans into the holiday spirit with a Halloween, retro or icebreaker. Cheers.