In this exciting activity, participants face a simulated "jungle survival." They must reach agreement in this imaginary setting in order to succeed, and they learn why consensus produces the best decisions.
"You are a volunteer on an expedition to South America to study the tropical flora. Your base camp is a small village near the river city of Manaus, Brazil. Today is a free day and you and a few other expedition members have decided to visit, unannounced, a mutual friend who is working as a medical assistant in a remote village in the Amazon. Because there is no road, you hire a small plane to fly you over the rain forest jungle to reach your destination and return. Before you left the airport in Manaus, the pilot filed details of your flight plan with local authorities, as required. The plane took off as soon as the rain had stopped early this morning...."—excerpted from Adventure in the Amazon
When the plane makes an emergency landing in the jungle, participants need to decide which of 15 items on the plane—including tallow candles, a pistol, safari hats, and other objects—would be most essential to their survival. First, as individuals, participants rate the 15 items. Then participants collaborate as a group and attempt to decide on the best course of action. When they cooperate, they experience the spark of synergy as never before!
Use this gripping simulation to:
*Improve decision-making skills
*Enhance problem-solving abilities
*Strengthen group cooperation
*Show groups the power of synergy?and much more!
The Leader?s Guide includes everything one needs to know about conducting this activity—including preparation, facilitation, and follow-up instructions. The activity leader does not need to be a skilled facilitator. Any team member, team leader, or manager can conduct the activity.
No one wants to write a team "pep talk" that could fall flat. Human resource professionals, team leaders, and managers piloting a team development effort, will want to conduct this refreshing activity with their groups and teams in any work setting.
Get one copy of the Activity booklet for each participant!
What is a consensus activity?
A consensus activity is an experiential learning activity in which participants are faced with a simulated problem. Participants receive a series of questions that require them to decide on a course of action. First, participants answer these questions individually. Then they collaborate and make collective judgments. When the "answers" to the questions are revealed, the collective judgments are usually superior to those arrived at individually.
Why conduct a consensus activity?
A consensus activity is the most powerful introduction to the concept of synergy. Plus these activities are fun and irresistibly involving!
Groups are greater than the sum of their parts. Each member of a group has a small piece of knowledge. When group members exchange these "fragments," they find that collectively they have a huge body of knowledge. Therefore, they are almost always more successful when they heed advice and solicit opinions. Groups or teams that experience a consensus activity become more collaborative, more productive?and smarter!
LORRAINE L. UKENS is the owner of Team-ing with Success, a consulting and training enterprise specializing in team building and leadership development. Her wide range of business experience, spanning more than twenty years, is applied in designing, facilitating, and evaluating programs in a variety of human resource development areas. Ukens, an adjunct faculty member in the HRD graduate program at Towson University in Maryland, is the author of several training books and games, including Getting Together: Group Icebreakers and Energizers (Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 1997) and Working Together: 55 Team Games (Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 1997). She received her M.S. degree from Towson University and is an active member of the American Society for Training and Development at both the national and local levels.
