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Michael CardusAdventure Consultant

Team Building Facilitator

Choices

Read each set of choices. Write down the correct answer from each choice set.

Cold or Blue

Up in the Air or Down on the Ground

Metal or Cloth

Stars or Planets

Green or Red

Snow or White

Stripes or Plaid

•What made this activity easy?

•What happens if everyone is not clear on the goal?

•What about this activity can we use in our current organizations and teams?

Purpose: To illustrate vision and the need for everyone on the team to have the same understanding of the end goal.Set-up: Scrap paper (blank page in workbook, notepad, etc.) and pencil/pen for each participant.  Writing surface for each participant.Activity:  Without providing any forewarning or foreshadowing, ask participants to take out a piece of paper and a writing utensil.  Tell them, "I am going to show some pairs of words or phrases. For each set, please select the correct word or phrase. There is a correct word or phrase in each set.“ Show the power point slides.Read each set of choices a couple of times. Answer questions by simply saying write down the correct answer. This will frustrate some people (a good processing point that sometimes we get frustrated when we don't understand where we are going - or don't have the complete picture).Choices (correspond to the presentation)Cold or blue Up in the Air or Down on the ground Metal or cloth Stars or planets Green or red Snow or White Stripes or Plaid

After you have finished select a couple of people and have them read their answers and tell them how many they got correct.  Ask how people felt (frustrated, confused, didn't make sense).  Ask if anybody knows the answer - often times one or two people will have figured it out.  If not, show the slide of the US Flag. Now quickly run through the choices - with the whole class responding out loud.

Processing:How easy those choices are if everyone shares the same vision. How do we take that back to the workplace (project, team, etc.) How it eliminates frustration and anybody who shares the vision can take more complex decisions and make the "right" choice by just focusing on which decision aligns with the vision.

Variations:I have used company mission and value statements as the choices. For example one choice would be actual wording from their organizations mission or value statement and the other choice would be from a competitor or the total opposite of what their mission or vision statement is. This variation hits home that not very many people in organizations know that their company has a mission statement.

Originally from;Rick Hicks, Randy Smith Training Schoolhttp://firststepstraining.com/resources/activities/archive/activity_choices.htm

www.create-learning.comwww.teambuildingwny.blogspot.com

1-716-629-3678

Michael CardusAdventure Consultant

Team Building Facilitator