The concept behind the activity
Team work would be so nice – if the others wouldn’t make things so much harder for you! The reality is, however, that everyone in the team has his or her own way of seeing things. And if the team members don’t manage to share their different points of view with each other, the lack of information inevitably leads to misunderstanding. – and, in turn, to inadequate coordination and to delays. In specific terms this means that you need to communicate your perspective clearly and unambiguously and to really listen to your colleagues in order to fully understand where they’re coming from. Because only excellent communication and coordination can lead to excellent results!
Facilitating the activity
Just like in the real world, building the FutureCity requires “Visionaries” and “Doers” to work well together. Each Visionary has a picture card containing the relevant information for their construction project, but they are not allowed to show their cards either to the other Visionaries or the Doers. The Visionaries must solely rely on clever communication to coordinate their plans with each other and with the Doers – because only the Doers are allowed to touch the building blocks they will use to construct the FutureCity. Only when all of the team members really coordinate properly with each other can the building project be constructed step by step according to plan. But, be careful, because the building blocks look different from the different perspectives. Just because a building block looks blue to one Visionary doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination mean it looks the same to another. This learning project is ideal for group sizes of 4 to 24 participants and can be adapted to suit the desired level of difficulty.
