The concept behind the activity
How can trust in relationships between individuals or even groups be fostered? How can I manage my ‘relationship account’ with others? But, also, what happens to the feelings and attitude of the person I am talking to when lack of transparency and conflicts surface? HeartSelling generates direct feedback on how the behaviour of the other person is experienced. That’s what makes it so valuable.
Facilitating the activity
The group is divided into four teams. Each team’s goal is to exchange or to sell parts through intelligent and fair trading. Each team’s task is to create a complete shape from these parts. The teams come together for three trading phases and attempt to sell high and buy low. Between trading phases, they meet for team briefings to further develop their strategy and to agree concrete steps. As in a real market, more and more new information comes to light that influences events and needs to be responded to. At the end of the trading rounds, the teams give each other feedback. The question here is: “How did you experience the contact with the others?” The main point here is that this mutual feedback can either be debited from, or credited to, the total team result – just like a ‘relationship account’. So, with a trustworthy negotiating style, the team that was initially behind in points could end up coming first – constantly moving within the area of conflict between appreciation and profit, HeartSelling is an ingenious tool for anyone who wants to offer first class relationship management training.
