Team Building Exercises: What Would You Do If...?

Purpose

Knowing how other people respond in different situations can be extremely educational. Sometimes we use a particular solution in response to a situation because that’s the only way we have seen it done. A lot of these responses are acquired in our childhood, from school or our environment. However, as we all know there is more than one way to handle a situation and a great way to learn it is to simply ask others how they have done it before and then examine it in more detail in a controlled environment.

This exercise helps the delegates to find new solutions for a number of common scenarios encountered in everyday life.

Objective

Delegates share their self-perception and understanding of scenarios and share their approach with others.

Setup

• Divide the group into pairs.
• A member in each pair (Teacher) must go through the first scenario from the list provided below. You can show this list on a slide or distribute it as a handout.
• The Teacher should explain what he or she will do in the situation given in the scenario. The other person (Trainee) should imitate what was said or acted. This helps the Trainee to memorise the solution.
• The pair should then swap roles and repeat the exercise so both can see each other’s solutions for any given scenario.
• The scenarios are as follows:
  • A customer returns to your shop and demands a refund
  • A client is not happy about the late delivery of the report you should have sent a week ago
  • You are intimidated by a loud-speaking colleague in a meeting who doesn’t let you contribute
  • You have a manager who keeps checking on you to ensure you are working
  • The management has cancelled the budget for your project and you want to share this with your team members
  • You need to respond to someone who asked you for a large favour
    • Variations:
      • What if that person was immediate family, a close colleague or a friend
      • What if that person was your manager and asked you to help him out at your own expense
      • What if your colleague asked you for two days of your time to help her on a her new report/presentation
  • Your colleagues talk behind your back trying to undermine you in front of the management

Timing

Explaining the Test: 5 minutes.

Activity: 20 minutes

Group Feedback: 20 minutes.

Discussion

Get the pairs to discuss the differences or similarities of their solutions for each scenario. Once all activities are finished, get the group to share their findings and explain if anyone was surprised by other solutions.

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