Access the essential membership for Modern Managers
Aim
This exercise encourages creativity through interpretation and reinforces the importance of sharing ideas and opinions at work. It takes about 15 minutes to complete.
You will find this exercise works best with two small groups (up to five people in each).
The exercise is similar to ‘charades’ in that each team is required to portray something for the other team to guess. Unlike charades, however, the whole team must work silently together to portray the object.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to …
- explore creativity through interpretation
- realize the benefit of sharing ideas and opinions at work
Preparation
This exercise requires some advance preparation. You need to write down suggestions for the participants to portray on pieces of paper.
Some suggestions for objects to portray include:
- the Eiffel Tower
- the Trevi Fountain
- the Great Wall of China
- a combine harvester
- an armchair
- an elephant
Or perhaps something more abstract:
- stress
- camaraderie
- motivation
- workplace spirituality
- creativity and innovation
Suggested Resources
- a box or a bag containing pieces of paper with suggestions written on them
- enough space to accommodate up to five people forming a statue
What to Do (15 Minutes)
- Introduce the exercise, pointing out that team members will be required to collectively portray certain objects using various poses. However, team members will not be allowed to discuss their ideas as to how best to portray the object and must rely on the creative interpretation of each individual. Explain that you will invite team members onto the floor one at a time and ask each member to choose a part of the object to portray. For example, if the object was a bird, the first person might try to portray the bird’s head and the second person would then portray the bird’s wing, etc.
- Divide the group into two equal teams – team A and team B.
- Invite one member of team A to pick a piece of paper from the box or bag. The piece of paper should be shown to their team, but there should be no discussion.
- Invite the members of team A onto the floor one at a time. Each team member should strike a pose or a movement that best reflects the object on the piece of paper. This must be done silently and each member should build upon what the person before has done. The other team members must look at the individual poses of their teammates and decide what they themselves can do to help portray the whole object, and position themselves accordingly.
- Once every member of the team has struck a pose or a movement, team B should begin to try to guess what the object is.
- Once they have guessed correctly, or if you decide that the guessing session has gone on too long, team A should retake their seats.
- The members of team B will now repeat the process with team A doing the guesswork.
- It may be beneficial to allow both teams to do this twice, to evaluate whether they work any better together at the second attempt.
Review Activity & Apply Learning (5 Minutes)
Bring the teams back together and begin an informal discussion on the exercise.
- Was the exercise enjoyable?
- Were any team members surprised by how creatively their team worked together?
- Did anyone have a really good idea about how to express the object and would have liked to tell the other team members what to do?
- Did anyone have a good idea but felt too embarrassed to express it?
- Ask the team members how they would have portrayed the various objects if they had been allowed to give instructions. Take note of the amount and variety of ideas generated by the group.
Bring the exercise to a close by reminding the teams that for creativity to flourish, it’s important for everyone to feel comfortable sharing ideas and opinions at work. All team members should work together, not only to generate ideas but also to encourage and support the ideas of other members of your team.
