GAME #91: Understanding Roles
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Game Categories:
Opener Energizer Communication
Team-building Review Topical
❖ Purpose: To improve communication between participants as well as their understanding of one another’s roles back on the job.
❖ Time Required: 90 minutes.
❖ Size of Group: Unlimited.
❖ Materials Required: Feedback sheets for each participant, prepared in advance by the trainer. ❖ The Exercise in Action: Members of a work group who think they know each other well can improve their understanding of one another’s roles with an exercise used by Mary Kate Pung, staff development specialist for Guilford County, NC. The exercise takes about 90 minutes and is especially effective for staff meetings or retreats. A few days before the meeting, participants receive the following directions: Write a job description for yourself that includes the various roles you play on the job. Also write a success story that happened to you while on the job and a frustration you encountered. Don’t spend more than 30 minutes on this project, and remember to bring enough copies for your co-workers to the meeting. Pung prepares a large “feedback sheet” for each participant and divides it into thirds. Headings for the three sections are “Roles,” “Suc- cesses,” and “Frustrations.” During the session, participants sit in a circle or a U-shape configura- tion. Pung then passes out a feedback sheet to the person sitting to the right of the individual named on the sheet so that each person in the group is holding someone else’s feedback sheet. Participants receive these instructions: • Jot down one or two roles you believe the individual named on the sheet plays.
• Jot down one success story for the person named.
• Jot down one thing you think must be a frustration to them.
• Pass your paper to the right. Jot down some ideas for each person until you’ve done so for everyone in the group but yourself.
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