Team Round Response
RESPONSE SHEET FOR PROXY
Team Round Response
RESPONSE SHEET FOR PROXY
Team Round Response
RESPONSE SHEET FOR PROXY
Team Round Response
RESPONSE SHEET FOR PROXY
Team Round Response
RESPONSE SHEET FOR PROXY
Team Round Response
Games That Boost Performance. Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. www.pfeiffer.com
Rear View Mirror
• PURPOSE
• To demonstrate the importance of team trust and communication.
• To demonstrate and practice one-on-one coaching skills.
• To demonstrate the dynamics of “walking the talk.”
• GAME OBJECTIVE
To safely cross the Obstacle Grid in the shortest time.
• PLAYERS
Six or more.
• TIME
Thirty-five to fifty-five minutes.
• SUPPLIES
• One or more rolls of masking tape.
• Overhead projector (if using transparencies) or a newsprint flip chart and felt-tipped markers.
• One Obstacle Grid Sheet for each team.
• Noisemaker (optional).
• Stopwatch or timer (optional).
• PREPARATION
Create a floor grid (four-by-four Tic-Tac-Toe grid) as follows:
• Using masking tape, outline a six-foot square on the floor.
• Divide the square into four sections by placing three six-foot strips of tape vertically.
• Complete the sixteen 18-inch squares by placing three six-foot strips of tape horizontally.
Prepare one Obstacle Grid Sheet for each team. (See Obstacle Grids at the end of this game.)
• GAME PLAY
1. Divide the group into two to four teams.
2. Have each team select one floorwalker—it is the “walker’s” task to safely walk backwards through the obstacle course.
3. Have each team select a coach—it is the coach’s task to talk or guide the walker safely through the grid.
4. Explain the following rules:
• The coach may not touch the walker.
• The coach issues a set of verbal instructions to the walker.
• The walker cannot talk with the coach.
• The walker must cross within the grid by using diagonal or side or back moves.
• The walker may move only one square at a time—jumping over squares is not allowed.
Round 1
1. Distribute one Obstacle Grid to the first coach.
2. While the coach is familiarizing himself or herself with the grid, have the walker step to the front of the floor grid.
3. When the coach approaches the grid, have the walker face away from the grid—that is, the walker should be in front of the grid so that any steps he or she takes are backwards and onto the grid. The coach should be facing the walker.
4. Without touching the walker, the coach has 1 minute to verbally guide the walker through the grid.
5. If the walker steps on an obstacle square, the team must start over.
6. Call time at the end of 1 minute or when the walker safely transverses the grid.
7. Play is the same for all rounds.
• POST-GAME DEBRIEFING
In life we may have some say in the choice of our coach. But typically, we are assigned a coach, if we have a coach at all.
• If we were able to choose one however, what qualities would we look for in a coach?
• What specifically would we like him or her to do so that the coaching would be of greatest help to us?
Once the exercise is complete, ask the walkers, whose job was to “walk the talk”:
• What is the most useful feedback you received?
• What happened when you got contradictory advice?
• Did the quality of coaching or feedback you received improve over time?
What changed?
• If you were to “coach your coach” what would you have him or her do differently in leading you through the grid?
Ask the coaches, whose job was to “talk the walk”:
• What were the challenges you faced in trying to help others?
• How did you go about trying to find out what the walker needed?
• How did you explain the task to yourself before you tried to explain it to someone else?
• Were you open or resistant to the idea of anyone else providing feedback or coaching?
• What did you do as a result?
• GENERAL COMMENTS
• We all know that it’s harder to back up than it is to drive forward. Yet it’s a cliché of history that military planners seem to prepare to fight the last war.
Similarly, some people in the workplace are so focused on what has been that they appear to drive by looking in their rear view mirrors. Rear View Mirror turns the planning process on its head by asking teams to figure out how to communicate with each other in order to proceed backwards.
• Rear View Mirror is a very “hands on,” physical demonstration of the importance of good coaching and timely feedback—talking the walk—in order to figure out initially what we are supposed to do and then to improve our performance over time. In this exercise participants must rely on coaching and feedback in order to move at all because the maneuvers they must follow are literally out of sight behind them.
• Rear View Mirror presents rich opportunities to discuss what it is like when we are expected to work “in the dark,” “wearing blinders,” or with an inade- quate vision of where we need to go. Like any novice worker, participants cannot foresee all the things they must do in order to complete the assigned task. The only one who can help them succeed is their coach. The first time any of us attempts a new task we need to rely on coaching and feedback from others to understand what is needed and how best to accomplish it. This game clearly demonstrates the importance of coaching to help both individu- als and teams succeed.
• In setting up this game, take a few minutes up-front to engage the group in discussing how we find out what we are supposed to be doing. Probable responses include:
Read the regulations.
Take a class.
Do what the boss tells you.
Observe what others do.
Figure it out on your own.
Have your teammates explain what to do.
• A common denominator of successful performance—whatever the source of instruction—is that once you start doing a thing, it helps to have someone who is ready, willing, and able to point out what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and where you might improve. Without feedback, all of us are literally “blind.” Explain that, in this exercise, the point is to discover just how critical it is to be able to ask for and receive timely, specific, helpful feedback on what needs to happen and how you are doing as you go along.
• If you see that your coaches seem “stuck,” call a time out and inquire whether the coaches have established a reference for the Obstacle Grid to help them with the walk. Introduce this simple grid pattern to help your coaches “talk the walk.”
1 2 3
5 6 7
9 10 11
4 8 12
13 14 15 16
• SAMPLE PLAY
1. Group is divided into two sets of five-player teams.
2. Team A selects a walker, who is led to the start position.
3. Team A’s coach receives an Obstacle Grid, as shown below:
Starting Position
4. The coach directs walker to place her right foot back into the first open square.*
5. The coach then directs walker to place her left foot into same square.
6. The coach directs the walker to place her right foot behind her left foot.
7. The coach then directs the walker to place her left foot back into the same square.
LR LR
L R
*All obstructed squares are marked with an “x.”
R⫽right foot L⫽left foot X⫽obstacle
8. The coach directs the walker to place her left foot diagonally back one square.
9. The coach then directs the walker to place her right foot back into the same square.
10. The coach directs the walker to place her left foot diagonally back one square.
11. The coach then directs the walker to place her right foot back into the same square.
12. The coach directs the walker to step off of the grid, left foot back one square.
13. The coach then directs walker to place her right foot next to her left foot.
14. Team A has successfully walked through the Obstacle Grid.
15. The facilitator notes that it took 53 seconds and posts “53” on the flip chart easel.
LR LR
LR