Better Practices - Decompression

This is a series of posts that outline our better practices - tactical things that you could do right now that The Ember Cast has found highly profitable for growing global leaders. Feel free to use these ideas with attribution, meaning just say, "I got this from The Ember Cast."

Decompression and debriefing is one of the most difficult things to execute as a leader and the research is clear: if you do not decompress the experience with your team, your cross cultural trip will have zero impact. It will be as if your team never left their house. It is that important.

It's difficult because it comes at a time in the lifecycle of a trip when everything is winding down. Your team has just completed most of their tasks. You are probably traveling on your way home. The team has been away for more than a few days. Everyone is looking forward to being home. It is precisely at this moment in the trip when decompression requires you to stop imagining what it will be like to sleep in your bed and instead ramp your energy up for a few more days to properly engage your team for finishing well.

Here are a few suggestions for making this work well when your trip is winding down and you are sick of your team, salivating for some good Dim Sum and ready to sleep in your own bed.
+ The theme of good decompression is 'change.' You put this experience together for your students so that they would be different from it. They would be more joyous, more giving, more selfless. Do not be afraid of asking significant questions that will lead to change.
+ Resources for decompression are very scarce. Seth Barnes has given the world gold with his series of posts on the subject. Save off a subset of his great questions to use with your team.
+ If you can plan for one or two days at a neutral location, on the way home, where you can relax as well as have time to process what you have experienced. Granted it is difficult and expensive to add this to your trip. At times we have done this without other locations too, in airport terminals and restaurants, on public transport, on flights home. The key is not locale, the key is to do it.
+ I like to do this over a whole day, meaning I plan 5-10 questions, and we give the team free time at the beach or pool or whatever and we have a mini session for each question, time to journal and share, all spread over a whole day, one question every hour.
+ One of the questions I always use is asking the students to write a 20 second summary, 2 minute summary and a 20 minute outline of the trip. This is a fundamental one that helps them process the trip for themselves as well as for people who ask them about it. Most people will only listen for 20 seconds. A few will listen for 2 minutes. One day, they may get asked to write a report or give a talk for a missions agency.
+ We have a two page 'toolkit' for Decompression. It's ready to be printed out and delivered to your team. You should have one too - if you prep it now, it will be much easier to execute when you are only hours from home.

London, 2015.