Puzzling

Preparation:

Purchase three different children's puzzles (ideally all made by the same company so the different pieces have a similar weight and coloring, etc.) that have large-ish pieces. The more people you have the smaller the pieces could be, I guess. Each of mine came in a box with a picture on the cover. Wrap the cover so that participants don't know what the completed puzzle looks like. Mix the puzzles up, so that each box contains pieces of all three puzzles.

Implementation:

Quickly create three teams from your group (you could put all sales together, or not) and give them each a workspace. Once the teams are made up announce that there is no more talking; this is a teamwork activity and they need to work in silence. Give each team a box and say they need to "complete the picture" as quickly as possible.

What happens, of course, is people assume they have all the materials and information they need to get their assignment done. In addition, a competition often begins between the teams. Sometimes they even "hide" their work from each other. If they are really struggling and I am concerned about time I've given little statements about teamwork as hints (get help when you need it, think outside the box, take time to reflect and create a plan). Eventually someone realizes what is going on -- there is a "eureka" moment when s/he lifts his/her head and looks around the room, then tries to communicate to others about what they've noticed. I think how the group works together from that point on is also very telling -- do they readily share, do they move their workspaces together, do they work on each others puzzles? They need to continue to work in silence.

Discussion:

Once the puzzles are together, you can all have a good laugh and talk about 1) assumptions made 2) what happened when the teams worked in isolation 3) how did the eureka occur 4) what happened once people realized what was going on. THEN ask how it relates to their work. I wouldn't suggest that this is a diagnostic tool for dysfunction in groups, so don't run the comparision into the ground -- but it is just a lively way to get people thinking about the big picture.

 

contributed by Betsy Vegso

 

 

 

 

 

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