The concept behind the activity
“There’s no way you can solve this!” is probably what your participants will say when they are confronted with MagicNails. No wonder! Picture the following challenge: the task is to balance 17 nails on one nail. The 17 nails are not allowed to touch the base or the table. What a perfect metaphor for working with teams confronted with seemingly hopeless situations in their working life.
Facilitating the activity
Set up the exercise to give each small team it’s own set of Magic Nails. Insert one nail into the groove under the box such that it’s standing upright. Tell each each group they have 5 minutes (you can change it as per your circumstances) to balance all the other nails in their box on this one nail head without using any other structure for support. Debrief around how they worked as a team, how resilient they were, how they dealt with success/failure.
