This week, I trialled a new activity for self-awareness with some participants for an in-house training session.
Participants had to share their preferences for how their colleagues could best work with them.
To make it fun, participants had to select some items without realising that the number of items they selected equalled the number of things they had to share about themselves.
The instructions were simple, “Take as many items as you like.”
It was really interesting to see how the participants turned this into a competition. They competed for items which backfired on them when they realised the connection between the number of items and number of shares.
Suddenly those who had not collected many items were now feeling relieved.
The competition that participants created wasn’t the aim of the activity, however, it did provide an opportunity to gain valuable insights into understanding that you need to know what you are competing for before committing.
It also provided an opportunity for participants to realise that making assumptions (as in more items is better) can be risky.
What would you have done? Would you have questioned whether the number of items was important or would you have gotten swept up in the competition, which turned out to not be something many wanted to win?
