Workshop Games Everywhere: Even from Proust and Vanity Fair
I was working with an intact team (e.g. working in the same office space) recently on a retreat, the third that I had run with them over the years. Now, working with the same group on a long term basis is wonderful for a facilitator as it absolutely demands creativity and innovation; you cannot fall back on your favourite workshop activities over and over again (like you may be tempted to do when you work with new groups each time).
For this retreat, as for many, further strengthening relationships among team members was one of the soft outcomes desired – getting to know one another better, helping people look behind the office every day and delve a little deeper into what makes people tick.
One of the opening activities for any workshop is some kind of introductions at the onset of the day. Now with an intact team, this might be more of a “check-in” as everyone knows each others name, position in the organisation, etc. For this particular team, which in some cases knew each other from years of co-work, I decided to go a little deeper than usual and still keep it relatively light in the dynamic.
I am a fan of Vanity Fair magazine and one feature of the magazine is an interview, called the Proust Questionnaire (after the French novelist, critic and thinker Marcel Proust) on the last page that has a set of intriguing questions – things like:
- What is your idea of perfect happiness?
- Who are your heroes in real life?
- What is your motto?
- Which historical figure do you most identify with?
- What is your favourite journey?
- Which talent would you most like to have?
- What is your most treasured possession?
- First I numbered the questions 1-14 (that is how many questions from the Proust Questionnaire that I ended up using), I liked the progression in the Vanity Fair interviews, so I used that order more or less.
- Typed them into a matrix that fit on an A4 sheet and printed it out.
- Copied it twice on coloured paper – yellow- I did this as it is just a little more visually interesting than the white paper that is laying all over workshop tables.
- I cut up the matrix, both sheets, so that I had 28 little squares, numbered, each with one of the Proust Questionnaire questions on it.
- I put all the little squares of paper in an envelope.
- After I briefed the activity, I asked everyone to pick a square of paper from the envelope, while I walked around with the envelope.
- I told them that some questions would be doubled up.
- I gave people 2-3 minutes to think about their answers. As they picked slips and read the questions I heard some nervous laughter. ( I let someone who wanted to change their question, although the second one was not much “easier” than the first)
- Then I called the numbers one at a time and asked people to stand, read their question and share their response.
- We did this until all were read out and everyone had answered.
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