Team Workshop

Attention Training

Improve commitment by paying closer attention to others

50-70 minutes

10-20 people

Remote & on-site

Background

Being aware of all members of a Team and paying attention to their personalities and needs is essential for generating trust in a team. Trust, in turn, fosters team cohesion because the team members have the feeling they can rely on each other. They trust to bee seen and that their individuality is taken into account.

Team workshop instructions

Preparation

Have a room with enough space for the size of your group. The team members need to be able to line up.

Check-In (5 minutes)

Welcome the team and use a check-in question to help everyone become present. (Proposal: What’s the most unusual thing you are wearing today)
Introduce the workshop’s goal and overview.

Goal: Improve how we pay attention to other team members.

Overview: It’s a fun game in which we’ll look at each other closely.

Step 1 (5 minutes): Set up & instructions

Divide the team into two equal groups.
Both groups should line up in a row opposite each other. Everyone should be able to see the other row well.
Explain the procedure from step 2.

Step 2 (25 minutes): Two rounds of the exercise

One group starts: The team that goes first has one minute to study the other team and then turns around.
The opposite row then changes ten things about themselves (swapping jewelry, untying shoes, untucking shirt, changing order etc.) in a given timeframe (e.g. 1 min) and without speaking.
As a facilitator, keep track of the changes the team made.
When the time is up, the first group turns around again and has to figure out the changes within a time limit of 10 minutes.
Once the time window of 10 minutes has passed or when all changes have been discovered, switch roles and let the other team have its turn.

Step 3 (5 minutes/person)

Let each person share how they tried to memorize the status quo
You can use the following guiding questions:
What was especially easy for you to remember?

What was particularly difficult to remember?

Which strategy did you apply to observe more closely?

Ending & Check-out (10 minutes)

Summarize the different approaches of the team.
Explain how being aware about the others in the daily work increases empathy, creates a sense of caring which is a prerequisite for commitment. (see example below)
As a check-out, ask everyone to share in which situations they’d like to become “more aware of others in the future”.

Proposed explanation

“Commitment can only happen when a person feels comfortable in their environment. To create a comfortable environment, we need to develop an understanding of each other on a daily basis. The training of attention and perception of others is meant to be a basis for the creation and maintenance of commitment.”

First Aid

Didn´t go as expected? Check out the following tips.

Team doesn’t notice any changes
If team members have not known each other for long and are not yet so aware of the usual clothing, you can offer two jokers: (1) Name a person that has a change. (2) Name an object that has changed.

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