Watch your team improve
A fun and versatile experiential training activity that can be used for any size group for any time between 30 minutes and 2 hours depending on your requirements and how much learning you wish to achieve. Perception is an activity that tests individual and team observation skills and highlights real team issues, offering real team learning.
A great team activity that appeals to everyone!
The Perception Starter Pack includes everything you need to train up to 20 people. We recommend team sizes of 4, 5 or 6 people, so there’s enough for 3 to 5 teams depending on team size. The DVD (with video clip) and the USB flash drive are both reusable. For training sessions with more than 20 participants order 1 x Participant Pack (containing 1 Participant Booklet and 1 Answer Sheet) per extra person.
It delivers more than just an engaging and fun time. Perception is based on years of experience of using experiential activities to generate real team learning. The provided structured and focused debriefing process turns a team’s Perception experience into a powerful learning tool.
The Participant Booklet debriefing section leads all teams through a process of discovering relevant learning that has an impact back in the workplace.
Learning Outcomes
• Discover where they are as a team on the team performance continuum
• Identify 6 areas of team effectiveness
• Recognise existing blockages to the team’s performance
• Agree at least 3 action points to implement back in the workplace
• Capture additional learning points for later implementation
What’s in the Box?
All you need to run sessions for up to 20 people, including:
• A comprehensive Facilitator Guide with session plans and full guidance on running successful sessions
• DVD with the Perception Video (Alfred Hitchcock’s trailer for his famous movie 'North by Northwest')
• 512MB (plenty of spare space!) USB Flash Drive with a computer-playable version of the video plus 3 PowerPoint presentations – for briefing teams, showing them how to score their answers and for introducing the debriefing process
• Facilitator copy of the Participant Booklet
• Facilitator copy of the NCR two-part Answer Sheets
• 20 x Participant Booklets containing the questions and the structured debriefing participant guide
• 20 x NCR two-part team Answer Sheets
• Presentation Case that everything fits neatly into
Extra 'Participant Packs' are available to allow you to run extra sessions for more people.
How it Works
The participants are shown a 3 minute video – Alfred Hitchcock’s trailer for his classic 1959 movie 'North by Northwest'. They are then given 30 questions to answer individually on what they have seen and heard. They are told that they get 1 point for a correct answer but lose 1 point for a wrong answer. Unanswered questions do no harm but also cannot gain points. Instantly you get to see who within the group like to gamble…
Next they are arranged into teams and asked to agree team answers to the same questions. Once again they are told that they get 1 point for a correct answer and lose 1 point for a wrong one. They are also told that they can win and lose 'team synergy points'. Any questions that they get right as a team that no team member got right individually will gain them an extra team synergy point. Any questions that they get wrong or leave unanswered that one or more team members got right individually will lose them a team synergy point.
The potential for winning and losing team synergy points animate teams as some people are more risk averse than others. The team discussions are lively and full of learning potential for how teams communicate and how their members relate with one another back at work.
Trainers can set their own timing for the activity. It can be used as
• A different and engaging 30 minute icebreaker at the beginning of a larger programme
• A learning-focused session of up to 2½ hours
• A recurring energiser for teams to return to throughout a longer programme
• … or anything in between!
The Team Performance Continuum
Working Group
A loosely formed set of individuals who happened to be all working on the same activity. Little or no structure to the team and very little in the way of obvious team processes helping the team to do the best that it could with the challenge. Team members rarely talked with one another about the challenge and when they did the discussions had little impact on the way that the team went about it.
Pseudo-Team
Team members got on well with one another and there was a friendly enjoyable atmosphere while they tackled the challenge. There was little or no disagreement or conflict of any kind. No one challenged the way that the team worked or the speed that it was working at. All team members were happy to trust one another to work towards the common goal of getting as many questions right as possible in the time they had available.
Potential Team
Even if team members enjoyed the challenge they experienced some frustration because they clearly didn’t all agree on the best way go about it. There may have been some open disagreements or people may have 'bottled up' their frustration for the sake of keeping the peace, but more than one person was dissatisfied with the team’s approach and that was never resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Real Team
The team had a productive discussion near the start of the activity about the best way to tackle it. Between them, the team members offered more than one way of going about it and, after looking at the pros and cons of each, they agreed a common approach. During the activity they checked that their approach was effective and anyone who felt it wasn’t said so and was listened to.
High-Performance Team
The team did everything in the 'Real Team' description above but also showed a high commitment to making sure that every team member enjoyed the challenge and was comfortable doing it throughout the exercise. Even before they started the formal debrief they had started to examine how they could have done better at the activity and what learning they could take back to their workplace.
