CE TIN IN MANA?

(perceptie)

Purpose

This activity highlights individual’s ability to recognise objects by hearing their visual
characteristics and illustrates the importance of perception and attention to detail in gathering
information.

Objective

Delegates must guess an object through hearing some physical description of it.

What You Need

• A blank sheet of paper and a pen for each delegate.

• A collection of 10 items in a cardboard box. Examples for items include: a mug, a hole
puncher, car keys, a wallet, etc.

Setup

• Select one of the participants randomly or ask for a volunteer and assign him or her as
the describer.
• The describer has to look into the box, pick an item and describe it in such a way that
the other delegates won’t be able to see the object.
• The describer should describe the object using characteristics such as shape, colour,
texture and size for 1 minute. The describer shouldn’t mention the use or the
composition material of the item.
• All other delegates should write down what they think each item being described is.
• At the end of the tasks, delegates should write down their guesses on a flipchart and
compare the accuracy of their choices.

Timing

Explaining the Test: 5 minutes.

Activity: 15 minutes

Group Feedback: 15 minutes.

Discussion

Ask delegates how did they find this task? Was it difficult? Why they were more successful in
identifying certain items but not the others? What kind of information would have made the
identification process easier? How did they find the role of the describer? How important was
the way an object was explained?

What characteristics do they need to pay attention to so they can get better results? How does
this scale up to their normal daily professional life?
Joc de echipa – cum interactionam?

Purpose

This simple yet powerful exercise helps the delegates to understand several concepts all at
once; communication skills, cooperation, patience and how to manage small contributions to
achieve an effective results with the correct balance.

This exercise is particularly suitable for team building courses and is remembered well by
delegates well after the course due to the nature of the activity and its simplicity.

Objective

Lower a beam to ground cooperatively.

What You Need

• A long rod.
• An area where all delegates can stand in a line where half the group faces the other
half.

Setup

• Line up all the people to form two rows.

• Explain that the exercise is quite simple. You will shortly give them a rod. They
should all hold this rod with their fingers. The objective is to lower this bar to the
ground.
• The rules are as follow:
o Each person should use one finger from each hand to hold the bar.
o Fingers should touch the rod at all times while it is descending.
o No pinching, holding or grabbing is allowed.
• When a group tries this exercise the first time, it is likely that the stick starts to move
upwards rather than down! It is indeed like a helium stick! This usually leads to a
surprise and it is the moment when everyone becomes more interested in this
deceptively simple exercise.
• Encourage the group to have patience and work towards a solution.
• If you think the group is getting frustrated, provide hints and help them to overcome
their frustration.
• Facilitate the exercise until they can succeed.

Timing

Explaining the Exercise: 5 minutes.

Activity: 15 minutes

Group Feedback: 5 minutes.

Discussion
The key to success in this exercise is to work cooperatively and communicate towards a goal.
The reason the bar goes upwards is that the total upward forces exerted by everyone is simply
more than the weight of the rod. This is why the more the group tries, the more the rod goes
upwards.

After a successful attempt at lowering the rod, debrief with the following discussion:

• What did you think of this exercise?

• What was your initial thought when you were told about the objective of the exercise?
• Did you really think it was going to be this difficult to do the task?
• What did you do as a group to prevent the upward movement and finally achieve the
objective?
• How did you manage the team?
• How well did you communicate?
• What did you learn from this exercise?

Variations

To make this more challenging, you can ask delegates to go through the exercise while
blindfolded.
Limbajul non-verbal

Purpose

The aim of this exercise is to emphasise the importance of non verbal communication when
working in a team.

Objective

The teams should design a specific product without any verbal communications.

What You Need

• A piece of A3 paper or a flipchart sheet for each team

• Coloured marker pens
• Some scrap papers for each team

Setup

• Split the group into subgroups of three or four people.

• Each team is given a sheet of paper, some scrap papers and coloured marker pens.
• Ask the teams to design a specific object (e.g. Shoes, Bags, etc.) on their paper using
the markers. Team members cannot use verbal communication during design.
• Each team has 10 minutes to finish the design.

Timing

Explaining the Test: 5 minutes.

Activity: 10 minutes

Group Feedback: 20 minutes.

Discussion

Explain to the group the importance of effective communication within the group. Mention
that 55% of any communication consists of non verbal clues. How difficult was it to
communicate without speaking? What methods participants used for communication?
Oferirea feedback-ului

Purpose

This is a fun exercise which demonstrates the importance of communication and feedback in
the success of a team.

Objective

Participants to guide their team mate in throwing some balls into a waste basket.

What You Need

• 10 Tennis/Golf balls
• A waste or any other similar basket

Setup

• Ask for a volunteer to stand in the front of the room.

• Place the basket about half a meter behind the volunteer.
• Ask the rest of the delegates to sit down facing the volunteer.
• Explain that the volunteer has to drop as many balls as he can into the basket using the
directions and feedback given by the rest of the participants.

Timing

Explaining the Test: 2 minutes.

Activity: 5 minutes

Group Feedback: 5 minutes.

Discussion

Ask the volunteer which types of messages were most helpful? What would the volunteer
suggest on improving the type of feedback given?
Bariere ale comunicarii

Purpose

Avoiding communication barriers is a necessity in today’s business world. Not only it is

critical to identify if these barriers exist, but also how to remove them or reduce their effect.
This activity enables delegates to explore new solutions in overcoming communication and
listening barriers.

Objective

In this exercise, delegates identify practical and effective ways to remove communication and
listening barriers at workplace.

What You Need

• A flipchart or a whiteboard
• Pen and papers for each delegate

Setup

• Split the group into teams of 3 or 4 people.

• Each team is asked to come up with a practical solution in removing listening
obstacles such as:
o People working in isolated office or environment
o Dealing with a customer who talks too much
o Working in a noisy workplace
o Dealing with a frustrated client
o Dealing with visual distractions at workplace
• Each team has 10 minutes to come up with at least one solution for each scenario.
• At the end of the activity, one representative from each team writes down their ideas
on the board and explains how his or her team came up with the solutions.

Timing

Explaining the Test: 5 minutes.

Activity: 10 minutes

Group Feedback: 20 minutes.

Discussion

Get the group to discuss the solutions offered by other groups and add solutions if necessary.
This is particularly useful if delegates have previous experience and can share their stories
with the group so that everyone can learn from real-world scenarios.
Ask the delegates what they thought of this exercise? Is it easy to overcome such barriers or
does it need training, patience and persistence? What are some good qualities which would
help a person to deal with communication barriers?
Feedback

This training game illustrates that feedback is an important part of the communication cycle.
The message is the beginning of the communication cycle. It emanates from the sender. It
reaches the listener.

More often than not communication is construed to be limited to this aspect of the cycle.
However, this is only half the cycle. The cycle is complete when the sender of the message
comes to know the listener's interpretation of the message. The second half of the
communication cycle is called feedback.

Feedback games: The feedback figure

This feedback game is used to demonstrate the value of checking whether you heard
correctly.

This training game is played in pairs. It is played in two rounds. The seating for this training
game are pairs of chairs are placed around the room giving the participants the room to spread
out. The chairs have their back to each other. So when participants are seated they will have
their backs to each other.

In the pairs one of the participants is assigned the letter name A and the other is assigned the
letter name B.

All the 'A's in this training game are given the following figure on a paper.

The 'B's in this training game are given an empty sheet of paper and a pen or a pencil. This is
the first round. The 'A's are expected to communicate to 'B' the figure in their hands so that
the 'B's are able to draw an exact replica on the sheet given to them.

In this round of the feedback game a constraint is introduced. The 'B's are told not to speak
while playing this round of the training game. They have just to listen and draw according to
the instructions by 'A'.
After everybody has finished playing the round the 'B's share their version of the figure with
the 'A's. Very rarely does anybody get the figure right. There's quite a bit of laughter at the
copies of the figure that the 'B's have made.

In the next round of this feedback game the 'A's are given a second figure.

This time the 'B's are given the opportunity to speak and check
with the 'A's about any instructions that they did not understand. After, they have finished, the
'B' show their figures. In this step of the listening game they discover that except for a couple
of mistakes all the reproductions are similar to the above figure

Feedback games: Debrief of this training game - 'feedback figures game'. Using the questions:

'How do you feel?' and 'What are you learning?'

have the group reflect on how their 'listening' was better when they sought feedback from the
speakers. Drive home the fact that to work effectively in groups feedback is essential.

For other categories of experiential learning games follow the links training games, Games for
kids and Group Norms.

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experiential learning. Stories and their lessons are easily remembered.

They can also be used to communicate a concept effectively. They add the 'aha' or 'Eureka' or
'got it' factor to presentations and lectures. They are great tools to use in debriefs of training
games and learning games, to drive home a crucial point.