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Empathy For Sale

If you're reading this amongst all the Black Friday/holiday shopping noise, you might be feeling the itch: Consumerism. The Black Friday Deals. They call to you. Your credit card croons, burning a hole in your pocket.

Let yourself feel the power of the Spending Side.

This year, don't be a Sith: spend it on some quality experiences for your organization.

It's a great time to invest in making your next meeting/offsite/brainstorming session a bit more transcendent. Would your organization pay $45 to invent the next generation of products or services? How about $350 to reset a toxic team culture?

Here are my top four recommendations on what you should spend some cheddar on for your organization this holiday season, ranked in terms of how easy it is to acquire.

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4. A Sticky Pad

Some of the most creative experiences can be curated with a simple giant Post-It. Having a pad of these lying around helps segment ideas, plan out a workflow, and document team recognition that you can keep in your office. It blows my mind how easy this is to obtain and how much you can do with it.

​$90 for four pads at Wal-Mart​

3. A Virtual Whiteboard

We all know how great a whiteboard can be to turn an idea into a dry-erase masterpiece. But when your team is partially or fully remote, a physical whiteboard is a great way of making people outside the room feel like second class citizens.

Enter virtual whiteboards. Beyond doodling or diagramming, a virtual whiteboard allows people to collaborate in real time, embed media like PDFs or video files, and it extends into forever. You won't be constrained by walls ever again.

​We like Miro because it's free for three virtual whiteboards​

2. A Bomb (To Defuse Together)

Teambuilding fosters communication skills, builds shared experiences, and can reinvigorate a team. Paired with a healthy sensemaking debrief ("What went well and what didn't go well?"), you're on the road to a highly engaged workforce that can't stop talking about the activity.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a team-based video game where one person has to defuse a ticking bomb and the rest of the team has the manual that explains how to do it. The group has to communicate effectively, trust each other, and self-organize quickly before the timer blows. It's a bomb-good time.

The best part is that the game really shines in virtual reality: the bomb defuser wears a VR headset while the team (in-person or remote) has the instructions. It's also available on mobile!

​Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, available on over 10 platforms

1. A Box Of Toys

If we could recommend one purchase that seems frivolous but could change the whole trajectory of your organization, it's to buy a toy from 21 Toys. This organization makes teambuilding and facilitation SO MUCH FUN with their hands-on professional development toys.

They have two types of toys available: a Failure Toy and an Empathy Toy. Each toy is really a kit, complete with a set of objects, a facilitation guide, and optional workshops/facilitators to run an experience with your team.

If your organizational goals for 2023 are to be more awesome, odds are a healthy dose of empathy and comfort with failure will get you to that next level.

​Shop at 21 Toys​

PS. We get no affiliate earnings for these products: I just think they're great.

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A TL;DR from the CRO

Keep your eyes peeled for deals, but don't overlook what's right in front of your nose.

-Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer

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I had the pleasure of having my car break down before travelling for Thanksgiving.

Fortunately, I was able to rearrange the 8-hour drive plans and take a different vehicle, but I left old CherryBelle behind at the shop to identify if it was a forever death or affordable resurrection.

When we got the news of what needed to be done to get her running again, we decided it would be an eternal sleep. Too many repairs to justify the investment...however I was thoroughly impressed at how well the repair shop used technology to try to change my mind:

• I received a detailed but concise video of the mechanic pointing out the exact issues and explaining how it would affect the car
• Once the mechanic's video ended, a follow up video explained just how easy their financing options for the repair would be
• A button appeared underneath of the video- "Finance your repair now- $0 down!"

It was such a well designed "moment of choice" to provide the right buy-now button at the perfect time. I actually considered clicking through just to see what would happen next.

Alas, CherryBelle had lived a good life and it was time to put her down.

But I really considered it.

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Going Black Friday car shopping,

Dan from Learn to Scale​

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PS. Set the mood for your next holiday party with some sweet Medieval Slim Shady​