You can use this team exercise to get a more accurate assessment of the key challenges your team is experiencing, and what they—and you—can do about them. You may also use this exercise in solitude to gain a deeper understanding of the key challenge that you are experiencing at work, or at home.
What You'll Need:
- Finger paints, or tempura paints and brushes
- Poster Paper (2 sheets per person)
- Water for rinsing
- Paper towels
- Pens
- Notepads
Instructions:
- Ask each person on your team to:
- Paint a picture of a challenge they are facing in their job right now.
- Give their painting a title.
- Paint another picture of the way they would like to see things instead.
- Give this second painting a title.
- Use their notepads to write out ideas and next steps of ways to narrow the distance between their "before" and "after" paintings.
- When everyone is finished, give each person a chance for a show and tell, giving them the option of whether they want to reveal their paintings, or just their ideas. Protect their speaking time without interruptions from the group and with applause at the end. Set a time limit in advance so that people can highlight what they feel is most important.
Option:After this second step, you can create a group exercise by grouping these challenges (paintings) with one another. This will provide further insights to the overall challenges your department faces by seeing relationships and patterns among individual concerns.
