The Follow the Follower Activity

Follow the follower is a remote group activity to create joy, improve relationships, and energize people by getting people moving.

Designate one person as the leader. Everyone will copy their moves until they pass to another person on the call (~15 seconds).

For this passing version, the leader will call out the name of the person they are passing to and that person acknowledges receipt by saying “thank you X” and then people begin following them.

Especially on large calls the group will quickly discover that it’s challenging to see who is leading.

That’s fine! It becomes a game of follow-the-follower. The facilitator can name this ‘now no one is leading, you are all following each other’.

Tips and Variations

This game can be played with poses (aka “Bad yoga”) or movement. You can start with 3 designated movements (or poses) and people are simply choosing one of these.

This can help warm people up to moving and copying. Then at some point the facilitator can call out that now people can add their own invented poses or movements.

Encourage people to explore the frame of their computer screen. Framing the activity as an exploration of the computer screen can make people more comfortable than if they think of it as a performance or dance moves.

Momento of Reflection

• What did it feel like when you were the leader? When you lost track of who was leading?
• How did your thoughts and feelings change as the game went on?
• How is this activity like our team? What could this be a metaphor for?
• What made this game work well? When did it become fun?
• What would it look like to apply these same principles / skills to our team?

The topics of this publication: interactions, leadership, teamwork, adaptation