Tower Exercise
Summary: An exercise of teamwork under the pressure of limited resources and limited time.
Training Application:
Time: 15-20 minutes
Materials Needed: An envelope for each group containing the same exact materials (such as paper, paper clips, pipe cleaners, straws and index cards).
Instructions:
1. Have participants count off in numbers and keep all the 1s together, the 2s together, etc.
- Once the participants are in their groups, distribute envelopes but instruct them not to open them until told to do so.
- Explain the following rules:
- You must use only the materials provided to you and nothing else.
- Choose a team leader.
- Goal is to construct the largest free-standing tower possible.
- Time limit of 7 minutes.
- Name the tower.
4. At the end of the 7 minutes, everyone must stop working on their tower. One by one, have each group tell the name of their tower and who their leader is. Ask for their experiences in doing so.
Purpose of icebreaker:
Working with strangers
Importance of teamwork
Need for leadership – without direction the group can't reach their goal
Pressures of time constraints
Limited resources available
On the Ledge
Summary: An exercise of trust, using a hypothetical situation in which participants must spend the night on a cliff ledge, asking them to trust one another "with their lives."
Training Application:
Time: 10-15 minutes
Materials Needed: For each group, a piece of chalk or a 16-foot length of string or masking tape.
Instructions:
1. Explain that this is an activity that depends upon the trust they place in one another.
2. Divide participants into groups of 4 or 5. Each group finds their own space within the room.
3. Give each group a piece of chalk, string or tape and ask that each group mark off or construct a space that is approximately 5' long and 3' wide.
4. Once Step 3 completed, read the following:
The space you have just marked, represents the size of a cliff's ledge, 300 feet above the ground. You and the members of your group are stranded on this ledge. You will be rescued in the morning, but must spend the night on this ledge. The members of each group must find a way for all of them to sleep so that no one falls off the ledge during the night. If any group member's body extends over the line, he or she is doomed.
Your group will have 30 seconds to arrange themselves in sleeping positions that you can hold for three minutes.
5. After three minutes have elapsed, call the groups together and ask them to discuss the exercise briefly. The participants then share the feelings they think they would have if they were really forced to spend the night together on the edge of a cliff.
6. Conclude exercise on general discussion of trust.
Variations:
- Ask each group to choose a leader to be responsible for the group members' sleeping arrangements and overall safety.
- Have participants pair off and perform the exercise together on a "cliff ledge" that is 2'wide and 3' long.
- At your discretion, join one or several of the groups and thus increase the odds that some group member will "fall."
Gossip
Summary: A familiar game, Gossip, shows the distortion of rumors as they are passed on.
Training Application:
Time: 5 to 10 minutes
Materials Needed: Rumor Sheet
Instructions:
1. Ask group members to form a circular seating arrangement
2. Explain the game of Gossip: the sender must whisper the rumor clearly, but he or she cannot repeat the rumor if the listener has not heard it correctly.
3. Whisper one rumor in the ear of the person sitting to your right and then another rumor in the ear of the person to your left.
4. Both rumors continue around the circle; the last persons to receive them must repeat what they heard. The original rumors are then read to the entire group.
5. Initiate a discussion of rumors and how they can be distorted.
Variations:
- If more than 20 people in the group, ask 10 volunteers to leave the room. The remaining participants all receive written copies of the rumor. Then the volunteers are called into the room one at a time. Read the rumor to the first person, the first person calls in a second person and repeats (based on memory) the rumor to him or her, and so on until all of the volunteers are back in the room.
- Solicit a volunteer to serve as the head of the circle. The volunteer makes up his or her own rumor, writes it down for reference at the end of the activity, and then begins the gossip. After this round the game is repeated with a new person creating the rumor. Two or three rounds will usually be played.
Sample Rumors
Rumor #1:
Bob said that he came to the picnic only because his boss, Fred, told him that Carol's boss, Steve, was sending all of his people and he did not think Bob should be left out because his future promotion might be affected.
Rumor #2:
Three days ago I heard that the plans for the new plant were lost one day before they were due. The cover-up took place with almost uncanny organization so that just three hours before the presentation took place, six team members were able to duplicate the 12-page report from scratch and no one knew except the two people I overheard discussing the situation.