GAME #86: Group Juggle
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Game Categories:
Opener Energizer Communication
Team-building Review Topical: Change Management
❖ Purpose: To show a group the consequences of acting (or not acting) together and to make a point about responding to change.
❖ Time Required: 10 to 15 minutes.
❖ Size of Group: 10 to 25.
❖ Materials Required: Objects that are suitable for juggling.
❖ The Exercise in Action: Mary Todd, training director at the Shadow Mountain Institute, uses a technique she calls a “group juggle” to make a variety of learning points. Todd has a group of 10 to 25 people stand in a circle and asks each person to take a turn juggling an item as best they can—throw it up and down, throw it from one hand to another—then toss it to another group member until everyone has handled the item. Todd then asks the group to remember the juggling pattern used—the number of times someone threw the item up, and who they threw it to— and to repeat the pattern several times to develop competency. Then with- out announcing it, she adds a second item and then a third—like a rubber chicken—and has the group repeating three patterns simultaneously. Todd says the activity makes several learning points:
1. Competency must be developed gradually.
2. People respond differently to change.
3. Some participants focus on individuals who drop the item or err somehow in the process; others focus on the efficiency of the group system. 4. Individual styles impact the acceptance of change, as does the amount of interest paid to the goal versus the process.
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