Here is a fun simple game that will help you improve performance at work. It takes about 10-15 minutes.

1. In your next team meeting, ask everyone what the company strategy is.
2. Let everyone write down their answer.
3. Then share all the answers in the group.

Chances are high that you will get back a lot of different answers.

With different opinions on key facts for the company, such as “what is our strategy”, it is difficult to collaborate smoothly in the organisation. With different views of reality in the heads, people pull silently in different directions, there is friction and misunderstandings.

There an element of catching yourself with the pants down with this game. Some people enjoy that as good fun, others may be a bit embarrassed. The objective is not for you to point out that your colleagues are ignorant though, it is both normal and good that there are different perspectives.

The real value with this exercise is that you can discuss the different points of views and perspectives very quickly, and by finding common ground you improve the collaboration.

You can take the follow up conversation in 3 directions:

1. What does the differences tell us about how we work, communicate, and collaborate in the organisation?
2. How does this affect the work done, and perception created from the outside, by the customers for example?
3. What are the intersections of different viewpoints (building common ground)?

You can of course play this game with any topic. Pick the one that is the most relevant for your situation, or, if you like the game, pick a new topic every week:

1. What is our purpose?
2. What are the top 3 key priorities for the team?
3. Why did we buy that other company?
4. Why should anyone buy that product?
5. And so on.

You can also use it as an icebreaker, by picking lighter topics:

1. What is the best thing about our team?
2. Why do we have this meeting?
3. If our team was an animal, which one would it be
4. And so on.

If you have questions about how to run this game, or if you would like to exchange about collaboration, send me a message, I will be happy to engage. And if you do try it out, please let me know how it went, I would love to hear about it.

Victor