Product Description
Training Games for Leadership and Communication
The Colored Glasses Training Tool has many functions. Here is one of the games that has one of the greatest impacts for leadership and communication. This Training Game reviles with great certainty, that what we hold to be true in our perception and the “correct” directions we should take, are illusions of how our brain genetically processes information and the world around it.
Training Objective: to enroll participants in fact that their “reality” is not always the reality of others and that there are multiple directions that can create a favorable result depending on the natural processing talents of each individual.
Purpose: to enhance leadership and communication skills in developing confidence, competence, motivation, and creativity in others by allowing them to use their natural brain processing abilities to execute strategy and solve problems.
Relevance: we often see things so clearly that, in our perception, that is the ONLY way to do it, yet others will also look at the same situation and see a Different reality VERY clearly. The result is conflict. Because our brain genetically processes information in specific processes, we tend to look at the world through “Colored Glasses” and fail to recognize, effectively communicate with, and develop others who have different “Colored Glasses”. By understanding that our reality is a product of our genetic processing and not “absolute” to everyone, we can harness complementary processes that will enhance team and organizational efforts. Once understood this insight will increase our circle of tolerance and allow us to deal with these differences in a much more powerful and intelligent way creating a much more effective and less stressful environment.
Training Game Mechanics: prior to the exercise the trainer should find 2 locations outside of the training room at opposite sides of the corridor area. These are the places to hide prizes. The trainer then places multiple red arrows and multiple blue arrows facing in opposite directions with each color leading to one of the prizes. The arrows begin at the entrance or exit of the training room going in opposite directions.
To begin the exercise, the trainer divide the participants in the room into 2 groups and ask the participants and distribute an equal or similar number of both Red and Blue colored glasses to each group, i.e. group #1 has 8 participants, 4 wear red glasses and 4 wear blue glasses; group #2 would have the same.
The participants are then asked to put on their colored glasses and NOT to take them off until the exercise is complete. The trainer should then define each group as a team, group #1 is then asked to follow ONLY the “light” colored arrows, and group #2 is asked to follow the “dark” colored arrows. They are told that there is a prize at the end for each “team”
The trainer then sends them out to follow the arrows.
Training Game Debrief: each “team” will be divided since half see the red arrows as light and half see them as dark (same for the blue) so they will argue, they will separate and they will act in chaos. Some will discuss while others run off by themselves. In the end someone always gets the prizes, sometimes it’s the same team or person that gets both.
Points to bring up – teams disperse, some are fast, some spend too much time in discussion and miss the opportunity, some go off alone and win. None of this is the point, who wins the prize and who loses are not relevant, what is relevant is that until they understand that how we see the world and what we are so sure is the “RIGHT” way, is seen very differently and just as clearly by a person who processes the world around them differently – this understanding will help us harness the power of multiple brain processors approaching a problem from multiple perspectives to yield faster better solutions.
