Icebreaker – Blind Card

Trainer guidelines

Preparation

You will need a blindfold for each delegate and a strip of card for each delegate. Each strip of card should be a different length ranging from say a few cms to 30 cms. 

This is an icebreaker aimed at highlighting various aspects of decision making and confidence.

Put the delegates into teams of between five to fifteen people. If there are more than fifteen people then divide into two groups. Ten is a good size group whereas four may be to few for this activity to be effective. Issue everyone with a blindfold and tell them to put it over the eyes and leave there until the end of the activity. Then ask the delegates to hold out their hands so that you may place an object in them – you may say it’s not nasty! Now put a piece of card in each person’s hand. Make sure the cards are mixed in terms of size e.g. if people are standing in a line make sure one person has a large strip whilst the person next to her or him has a small piece etc.

Read the instructions below.

“Ladies and Gentlemen I want you to form a straight line in the correct order. You have five minutes"

(NB This instruction is intentionally unclear as it is intended to push the delegates into agreeing their interpretation and making their decisions)

Observe the activity but DO NOT speak. When delegates have finished this activity they often ask your permission to take off the blindfolds. DO NOT ANSWER. It is their decision.

You may notice some people taking a sneaky look but do not get involved. Hopefully someone will prompt the group to take off the blindfolds. Sometimes however they do just stand and wait for you to give permission. If this happens then whenever you feel the time is right ask them to take off the blind folds.

Although the activity is given five minutes it is often advantageous to let it go longer in order to see what decisions people make or avoid.

Review

For the review ask the delegates to form smaller groups, say around five people and to discuss what they think they learned about decision making, confidence and leadership. There are no right and wrong answers. The aim is to get them thinking about their actions. If you wish you may lead on the discussion to make comparison to situations at work.

Please note that during this activity delegates will be blindfolded and therefore it is best to keep each team at a safe distance. During the activity watch to see that team members are safe and don’t bump or knock each other.

During the activity don’t speak to the delegates unless you are giving instructions regarding safety.

Click here to purchase our CD Rom ’50 trainer activities’ –price £99 plus vat

Wakefield Metropolitan District Council have enjoyed numerous training events delivered by Syd Strike Training Solutions including unique leadership programmes for the Benefits Department and Facilities Department. Syd Strike delivered a number of leadership modules designed specifically for the departments commencing with ‘The Dynamic Duo’. Syd believes that a great part of successful leadership is the effective partnership between the manager and the supervisor or team leader and so he commences his training programme with ideas, techniques and advice to create powerful and meaningful leadership partnerships. During the training managers and team leaders worked together to implement the learning from the courses and workshops to put in place key performance indicators to measure the success of the programme.

Melissa Mallaby, Benefits Manager at the time, said that this was an extremely important programme as she believed that good leadership would be the key to providing citizens with a first class service. Syd and Melissa, with assistance and guidance from John Ward, Learning and Development Manager at the time, invested a great deal of time and effort into tailoring the courses to meet the specific needs of the Council leadership team.

In addition to the leadership modules managers and team leaders were able to benefit from one to one coaching and all team members from both departments participated in some ‘Festive Team Building’ where they were introduced to some of the principles and ideas covered during the leadership training.

Some of the modules covered were:

Dynamic Duo (The partnership model), focused and customer focused leadership, Performance management, communication, problem solving and decision making.

Melissa Mallaby commented that …

"The programme has been successful on a number of levels, the opportunity for shared learning has allowed managers and team leaders to develop together as by working together outside of the office they gained knowledge, understanding, and appreciation. Syd’s own work experience and his particularly positive and enthusiastic delivery style have significantly contributed to this progress. He makes the sessions fun and enjoyable, he has a gift of making the theory interesting as well as practical (and certainly no ‘death by power-point’) but equally ensures the important messages are not avoided and are clear. Syd also challenges thinking and behaviour in an honest but not confrontational way...

This programme and particularly Syd’s skilled techniques and guidance has provided everyone undertaking it, the opportunity to recognise how much their individual and collective behaviour affects the culture of the service and the behaviour of the people they work with and manage. The success we have had so far has been in improved relationships with our teams, improved communication, creating a service that is more innovative, that recognises and appreciates the need for change. This has also been a contributing factor in increasing productivity and delivering continuous improvement."

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