From: Carol Achziger (CAchziger@mail.mlms.logan.k12.ut.us)
Date: 03/13/03
We just had a leadership training session. Here are some "games" we
played. Our focus was communication and team building.
1. Strange Animal
In this game, the members of a team are all assigned to be different parts
of an animal. Just as different parts of our body can communicate in only
certain ways, so could the body parts. For example, if you were the
"head" you could use your voice to communicate (but only in a whisper). If
you were the shoulders, you could only communicate by movement of upper
body muscles, and so on... The goal was to get the "foot" of the body to
pick up what was desired by the head and put it in the container for the
team. Since feet do not have eyes, the person at the bottom was
blindfolded. The ultimate goal was to grab a variety of things from the
floor (we used stuffed animals) to meet criteria (color, taste, texture,
type of animal, etc.) that only the head knew. After the game, we
debriefed by talking about communication difficulties, working as a team
with different strengths/weaknesses, and how to check for effective
communication.
2. I don't know the title of the second game. However, the idea is for
team members to move each other through a hall filled with tennis balls.
This can be set up like a relay - move one member at a time from one end
to the other. Team members must move through the hall without touching a
tennis ball. As they move through the hall they are blind folded. The
confusion comes in when more than one person from a team communicates
information or when communication from your team gets mixed with
communication from the other teams. Again, debriefing was held about
communication in "noisy" environments, responsibility of every member to
communicate and respond to communication, and how to make sure your
message is heard and understood.
This was very helpful for us as we had some communication and team
sustainment difficulties. It allowed us to discuss them in light of the
tasks that were fun and light hearted. I have done training like this for
several years and the success always depends on having a purpose for the
game and quality time to discuss the results afterwards. Hope this helps
you.
Carol Achziger
21st CCLC District Coordinator
Logan City School District
(435) 755-2370
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