The Power of Perception Leadership Activities take participants on a journey of walking in others' shoes and seeing the world from new perspectives. As the group works out challenges, wearing different-colored glasses, they quickly understand the reality of others not seeing the world through the same lenses they do... literally.
Using John Riordan's workbook and course, facilitators can help teams, leaders, and managers recognize, understand, and adjust their own perceptions and others'.
FACILITATION KIT INCLUDES…
The game includes all you need for 3 to 18 players. [NOTE: Playing with the maximum number of players may necessitate sharing glasses. If this will give your participants the heebie-jeebies, consider purchasing additional sets.]
- 3 Facilitation/Participant workbooks
- 6 Pairs Red Glasses
- 6 Pairs Blue Glasses
- 6 Pairs Yellow Glasses
POWER OF PERCEPTION LEADERSHIP ACTIVITIES
In the workbook, find a complete course on the power of perceptions, including:
- Introduction – explaining Chris Argyris’ Ladder of Inference, exploring how the information on which we focus becomes the filter through which we lend meaning, make assumptions, and draw conclusions.
- Introductory Activity – in a series of two warm-up exercises, players must add up a series of numbers and agree on the sum of those numbers. Wearing the glasses, they will arrive at different totals, and there the negotiations (and learning) begin.
- People Perceptions Activity – In a second activity, participants are asked to evaluate potential new teammates based on a set of criteria. When asked which candidate they’re drawn to, players will realize that they’ve come to different conclusions depending on the information that’s most apparent to them. Debriefs can focus on self-perceptions, cultural norms, past experience, stereotypes, affinity bias, and more.
- Emotional Intelligence Activity – the third activity asks participants to consider a person’s feelings. Again, perceptions of the situation are colored by the glasses they’re wearing. Beyond building emotion-related vocabularies, debriefs can explore projection bias, attribution bias, cultural context, assumptions, mood congruence, and more.
- Decision Making Activity – In the fourth and final activity, participants must agree on a sum of numbers so that they can make a joint decision. The activity explores the need to:
- Begin with dialogue, not debate
- Strive first for understanding, not the quickest answer
- Differentiate constructive and destructive language when
- Negotiating decisions when everyone isn’t in agreement
- Debrief – a series of wrap-up questions, engage the group to discuss:
- Topics on which team members currently have different opinions or perspectives
- Ways you can manage different perspectives going forward.
