Cooperation And Communication Exercise Via Lego

Brief Description/Purpose

 Exploring the usefulness of communication in c ompleting a task, and virtues of cooperation over competition in teams.

Type

Physical activity, LEGO

Age Appropriate

All Ages

Ideal Group Size

20 people

Time For Exercise

20-30 minutes

Topic/Subject

Communication, competition, cooperatiion, working together, leadership

Detailed Instructions If Needed

Task goal of exercise: build the same model (a house is what I use). 

What is needed to be prepped: Bags or boxes of Lego bricks duplicated based on the number of groups, a sheet of written instructions, one photo of the model, one actual model in a box. 

1) Create 3 or 4 groups and separate into the corners of the room as best you can (distance is helpful). 
2) Tell the participants the each group will get a set of Lego bricks to build a house. The SAME house. 
3) Advise them they have 5 minutes to build a specific model based on communication by working quickly. 
4) Each group will need to determine the person who will do all the communicating. Everyone else will be silent and follow the direction of the communicator during the exercise. "Pick your communicator now. You have 30 seconds." 
5) Ask, "What questions do you have?" 
6) Pass out the bricks (one set to each group). 
7) Tell them they have 5 minutes and begin. 
8) Once begun, provide one group the written instructions, provide another group the photo, and another the box with the actual model. (If a forth group... they will receive nothing extra.) 
9) have them work the models for 5-7 minutes. (No more than 10 minutes.) 
10) When time is called have the groups share what they created. You will see variations of creativity and fun.

 
Debrief the exercise by asking them to share what communication went well and what was difficult. 

Tie your discussion to levels of communication and that often we as communicators need to See, Hear, and have Demonstrated. And often repeated in different ways to get the desired result. 

11) Ask them if anyone sought help from the other groups. Competition creates a disadvantage sometimes. Explain you never told them they could not work as a larger group. You just decided them up similar to a sub-project groups on a large project or task. 

Exercise is good for anyone who needs to communicate: Leaders, Project Managers, Sales, Customer Service, etc. 

Additional Information if Available

Credit: Paul Levandowski at LinkedIn