The Take and Change Challenge
Take and Change is a simple competition game that is very effective for developing change management skills.
Prepare a set of alphabet cards, modelled on the letter tiles of the commercial board game Scrabble. Place all of the cards in a central pile face-down on a flat surface.
Divide your group into smaller units of 2, 3 or 4 people at the most. Ask one person from each group to take 7 of the letters from the pile and reveal them to the rest of their group.
Challenge each group to be the first to successfully use all of their letters to form a series of interconnected words, ie similar to Scrabble. The typical rules of Scrabble apply, ie no nouns, pronouns, contractions, abbreviations or acronyms are permitted.
Each group applies their words to an independent ‘board’ and the groups are entitled to change the formation of their words at any time.
When a group successfully uses all of their letters to form a series of interconnected words, they will call “AGAIN” which requires every group to take 7 new, random letters from the central pile.
The game continues for a few short minutes. Interrupt the game and ask every group to assume responsibility for the word grid of their left-hand neighbour, and continue as if it was theirs from the start.
This will come as a surprise to people and they are disoriented at first. Play continues until when one group announces that they are the first to use all of their letters.
Consider inviting your group to reflect on their feelings and their reaction to this change.
Moment of Reflection
- What was the most difficult or challenging part of your group’s task?
- How did it feel to have to leave your board and take another group’s board?
- What was your first reaction to the new board?
- When you changed boards, did you have more tiles than before to place? How did it make you feel?
- Where else in your work or life do these feelings occur for you? What do you make them mean?
The topics of this publication: teamwork, collaboration, leadership, cooperation, ingenuity, managing change, self, reflection, emotions
