Following are ten SmartStrategies™ from my Multiple Intelligence Toolbox. I've included these to give you some instant ways to incorporate PeopleSmart into the mentoring, coaching, and training you provide.

The basic process for doing this is . . .

1. Name the content or information you want to teach. Get very clear on the specific concepts, ideas, processes, skills, etc. that you want to get across in your mentoring, coaching, or training session.

2. Write down the learning objective(s) you have for the mentoring, coaching, or training session. What do you want your participants to be crystal clear on at the end of the mentoring, coaching, or training session?

3. Look over the SmartStrategies™ below and select a couple of strategies you believe can help participants understand what you're teaching more fully in an PeopleSmart way. Basically you'll be asking them to in some way create "visual representations" of the content you're teaching.

4. Outline your teaching plan, incorporating the SmartStrategies™ you've chosen into your mentoring, coaching, or training. You'll likely be teaching something you've taught before, but this time in a new way – accessing your and your participants PeopleSmart.

[NOTE: The descriptions I've provided of the various tools are merely to help you get started working with this intelligence in your mentoring, coaching, or training. Feel free to redefine any of the tools I've provided and to add additional strategies to the toolbox!]

• Giving feedback—offer honest, sensitive input on one’s performance/ expressed opinion(s)

• Intuiting others’ feelings—”second-guess” what someone else is feeling/experiencing

• Cooperative learning strategies—structured teamwork in the formal learning situation

• Person-to-person communication—focus on the ways people relate and how to improve their relating

• Empathy practices—express understanding from someone else’s standpoint/life experience

• Jigsaw—division of the learning/teaching into distinct segments with participants assigned to learn and teach each other

• Collaborative skills teaching—focus on learning/recognition of the “social skills” needed for effective person-to-person relating

• Receiving feedback—dialogue with another’s input or reaction to one’s own performance/opinions

• Sensing others motivations—explore a topic asking why others acted in a certain way or made certain decisions

• Group projects—investigate/ study a topic with others as part of a team

• Conflict resolution—learn and employ strategies for dealing with disagreement

• Peer coaching—teach another person a skill, process, or procedure for mastery

• Bonding practices—trust-building between members of a team or group

• Communication skills—practice listening, skillful disagreement,paraphrasing, and questioning

• Consensus-building—use strategies to reach a decision with which all can live and take responsibility

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