Inside Out

Heard on Radio 4 this morning,

…any those are my thoughts on the matter, now go away and make your own mind up.

It struck me that these should be the final word of any training course.

Takes 20-30 minutes

Resources

A set of poker chips. 200 in four colours works fine, the less you have in more limited colours, the harder the task will be.

Instructions For Tutor

Give the group a box of poker chips. Tell them

“You have 20 minutes to create a means of transferring a message from one half of the group to the other using only the chips placed on the table.

No paper or pencils are permitted.

After 20 minutes I will split the group in two and half of you will be asked to leave the room. I will give the remaining participants a 20-30 letter message that may involve letters or numbers but no punctuation, which you must pass to the other group using only the poker chips”

Facilitate the creation of the code. This is where the bulk of the team dynamics and personal development takes place as the participants try to refine their aim, then develop the code and finally to ensure that everyoe understands the code.

Use whatever means you like to capture this discussion, we have successfully used video, notes, phrases used jotted on a blackboard and having observers taken from within the group.

When they have a code, split the group into two and send half out of the room. Give the other half a short (20-30 letter) message on a piece of paper and help them encode it.

The messages are best if they have several words, and aren’t too easy to guess once you have 2-3 of the words. We’ve used short Shakespeare quotes and the names of the building we are in.

Invite the other half back in to decode it and ensure that there is no  cheating.

Swap the two halves of the group over and try with a different message.

Using it elsewhere

We have used variants of this task in a number of places.

• On a beach with different coloured stones.
• In a forest using sticks.
• On a draughts (checkers) board using the pieces.
• In a park using “whatever you can find”.
• In a mountain campsite using “the contents of your rucksack”.

Doing it outside makes it a much more physical, tactile task and adds whole new areas of discussion such as role allocation “You go and collect black stones” or even “What shall we use?”.

This 2002 obituary for Goran Kropp, the Swedish adventurer and mountaineer contains this passage which describes how he prepared himself for the unexpected.

“While doing his national service in a Swedish infantry regiment, he trained for Alpine climbing expeditions by sleeping in a gravel pit. His tough, self-imposed programme included setting his alarm clock at random: if he woke at 3am he would walk 30km in full combat gear; if he woke at 6am, he would walk 60km. “I wanted to get used to living with the unexpected,” he said.”

The rest of the obituary further emphasises how dedicated this man was to both adventure and minimal impact techniques.

“Kropp aimed to tackle each expedition “in harmony with nature”, without support and leaving no trace of his passing. “It is important for me to leave nothing behind me on a mountain,” he said.”

You can read the rest of the obituary on the Telegraph website.

Photo from MountainZone.com.

If you watch any group discussion where more than 3-4 people are trying to achieve something, an interesting effect occurs. The group often start out with everyone contributing but after an initial period of politeness (Tuckman’s forming stage) the group begin to resemble a fried egg. Both physically and conceptually, people place themselves either in the yolk, the white, or outside the egg entirely.

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This is a task for the start of a course,  allowing you to guage the “fear factor” within your group and allowing the rest of the group to get a sense of each others fears.

Equipment: Post-Its, Whiteboard/Flipchart/Flat Surface and chalk/markers

Down the left hand side or along the bottom of the board write the numbers 0 to 5. Ensure they are spread out along the whole width to give the maximum room and that they are evenly distributed.

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