Playing with learning and development

The “climate” is a bit grey in more areas than just the weather, so what better way to brighten your development program, than be a bit playful.  On a frivolous Friday, here are four games to make learning and development more fun. Try one out and see what “magic” happens.  You may have to sprinkle a little “magic fairy dust” to set the mood and cajole your participants to believe its OK to play.

Magic wand – give everyone a magic wand (easy to source from a children’s party shop), then go round the room and have each person describe what they would change in the team / organisation if they had a magic wand. You can follow this up with the Solution Focus miracle question to create even more discussion about how they would know.

Dress ups – provide mixed media materials – paper, cloth, plastic and ribbon – and ask each person to make a costume that represents their favourite hero or heroine.  Dress up, then go round the room and discuss the qualities of the hero / heroine and which of those qualities they do demonstrate / would like to  demonstrate more of.  For large groups, split into smaller groups first for making costumes and discussions.

Sparkling moments – (thanks to Svea van der Hoorn and Brief UK for this) organise the room into pairs and have each pair nominate a interviewer and a “personality”.  The interviewer asks the personality about sparkling moments from their work history when they have demonstrated excellent leadership and draws out the who, when, why, what and where of the story, especially the mental, emotional resources the person had access to.

The rules of the playground – provide a number of images of playgrounds or sporting grounds.  Work in small groups to share their examples of the rules of the playground when they were young.  Then groups draw a metaphorical playground for their company / division / team and list their understanding of the “unwritten” rules of the playground.

If you would like a copy of instructions for the Solutions Focused activities mentioned, send an email to  sharon at apassion.com.au