Purpose
This is a fun activity that requires concentration and focus. It is ideal as a team building exercise or as an icebreaker to make people feel more comfortable with each other.
Objective
Place you index fingers on the palm of the person next to you while avoiding the same from the person on the other side.
What You Need
- Space for participants to stand in a circle.
Setup
- Ask the delegates to stand in a circle, slightly spread apart. They should be able to easily extend their arms sideways without hitting each other.
- Ask everyone to extend their arms sideways while pointing their palms upwards.
- Using their right hand, everyone must point their index fingers downwards while hovering on the left palm of the other person.
- There should be no touching at this point; fingers are only hovering above the palms.
- The objective is to lower the index finger and hit the palm of the other person’s hand while simultaneously avoiding the index finger of the person on the other side hitting their palm. This will require concentration. As delegates can only look to the left or to the right, they can easily miss a person’s palm while aiming to touch it, or miss moving their palm away as another person’s index is about to touch it.
- The first person to successfully do this should shout, “I WON!”.
- Say, “GO”, to mark the start of the game.
- You may need to go through an introductory warm up round so everyone understands what is going on.
- The game will produce lots of laughter and the competitive atmosphere helps to bind the group.
- You can continue with several rounds. You can declare the person who consistently wins as the ultimate winner.
Timing
Explaining the Exercise: 2 minutes
Activity: 5 minutes
Group Feedback: 0 minutes
Discussion
N/A
Variations
You can change the game in different round to add variety:
- Rather than using the right hand for the index finger, instruct them to use the left hand.
- Rather than palms pointing up and index finger pointing down, ask them to point their index fingers up and palms down.
- Do the exercise while blindfolded, though this can be tricky and may lead to no winners or disputes.
Comments
By Tarek Hegazy @ Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:30 AM
In fact i got and still getting great benefits from your site
It is really providing me with lots of ideas that helping my in my training sessions as bedise my work as HR director i am delivering a Diploma courses in HR.
BUT , what is really missing here is to include HR case studies related to the HR functions and i am ready to subscribe if the new service will be with charges.
Also would aapreciate your support in informing me about other site who can provide such services of case studies.
Thank you
By Chelsea Elm @ Tuesday, January 15, 2013 12:40 PM
Thanks Tarek for your kind remarks. We will consider your suggestion about HR resources and case studies. It would be great if you could be more specific. For example do you mean case studies on communication skills and workplace communication or do you have something else in mind?
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