Major Landowners – Cooperation Exercise
Aim
Increasing self-knowledge, dealing with defeats/obstacles, dealing with emotions in communication, strengthening the ability to work in a team, identifying strengths and learning fields.
Description
TARGET GROUP
Teenagers and young adults
TIME NEEDED
2-3 hours
EXPLANATION
Cooperation exercises simulate and train social behaviour in unknown and unexpected situations.
Through purposeful reflection, attention can be drawn to behaviour patterns (how did a person deal with obstacles, which communication techniques were beneficial/unhelpful, etc.).
IMPLEMENTATION
The whole group stands behind a line on one side of a meadow (or a large room).
The participants are each assigned a randomly selected number ranging from 1-10, e.g. by drawing “lottery tickets”. (Thus, if there were 25 participants, five numbers would be assigned twice and five thrice). As mentioned above, the line and a finish line are between the start, 10-15 meters away, 20-30 floor tiles/water boxes/etc. They are freely and randomly arranged on the floor. The floor tiles (water boxes) symbolise the large plots. They are also labelled in random order with the numbers 1-10, as are the participants. The distance between them ranges from 50cm to 1.50m.
The exercise aims for the whole group to cross the plots from start to finish without touching the grass. The following rules apply:
- Never touch the lawn
- A property may only be entered if one of its owners is at home (i.e. has at least 1 foot on it).
If the rules are violated, the whole group must return to the start. The execution can be limited either in time (we recommend 30 min pure execution after the introduction phase) or in the number of failed attempts (we recommend 3-5 shots, depending on the size of the group).
We would like to point out that cooperation exercises must be tailored to the respective group constellation and objectives or selected accordingly. Collections of cooperation exercises can be found on the internet and in many specialist books. The cooperation exercise “major landowner” was suitable for our group at this point. In other situations and group constellations, other activities might be better suited.
LIST OF MATERIALS
- 20 -30 floor tiles/water boxes etc.
