How Can A Giraffe Connect People In A Session?

Invented activity to create psychologically safe environments for teams

How did I invent this activity?

I had once a workshop to facilitate with a team of 14 persons.

The challenge was that they had an environment with no trust, and big fluctuations, conflicts, but they were fun people and open to trying new things.

So I was looping on an exercise that had the following criteria in my head: to be fun, fast, easy to apply with 14 persons, connect people deeply, bring positive vibes, start from it building a psychologically safe environment through play, kinesthetic one so that they can create the mind-hands connection, help people realize that they all have different perspectives that need to be heard and seen.

Wow, so many criteria? Was this an “all in one” activity I wanted?

During that period I applied a lot the non-violent communication but also was reading children's books on this topic and combining it with Lego while going deep dive into my daughter’s world. So somehow, after some iterations, while playing with my daughter, the invention was born :)

I will clarify the activity first, then where you could use it and why it works so well.

Are you curious? Where is the giraffe?

Here are the steps on how I designed this activity, feel free to take them and modify them as you wish:

• give your participants 7 bricks from the Lego Serious Play Exploration Kit - in some new kits the eyes are replaced with 2 white bricks so you can use those if you have new kits - I use little materials bags or paper small boxes for them - the pen is not mandatory:) it is just for fun if you want to have the Giragge “theme” everywhere

• invite to play, experiment - invite your participants to build a giraffe in 1 minute out of the 7 bricks - tell them any giraffe is ok, their imagination is there and invite them to think with their hands and get into the flow (you can also add some funny instrumental music in the background - for example this song for the first 1 minute)

• when the time is up, invite the participants to place their models in one place and ask them which giraffes are exactly the same. Of course, there are similar ones, and in very few cases exactly 2 the same. The idea here is that we all create our own reality and this is why it is important to share our perspectives and visualize them - some debriefing on this is also helpful in some cases

  

• Depending on the scope of your session, the next step can be: to invite the participants to unmount their bricks and build another giraffe, this time having in their mind what is their strengths, and what is something unique about them and be ready to share this

• You can explain that the giraffe as an animal has a unique pattern on their neck and this is the relation to why they built a giraffe and the idea of the exercise. Invite them to pair up with someone and share their model.

• Then you can invite them to share what the other person said in the big group and present each other in this way or bring awareness upon their strengths all together as a group

Variations:

• if the group has difficult conversations or even conflicts, it would be useful to take a further step and invite them in pairs of two to share how their giraffe is feeling today (help them with a drawing of different feelings as the vocabulary of feelings is not well developed everywhere).

• if you think the group is open enough to try this, use the cube paper on page 11 of this children's book to make a game related to feelings and exemplify it with their giraffe.

• you can prepare upfront a visualization of a specific question and answer (like a visual survey) and invite the participants to place their giraffe on the part of the drawing where they can relate most (i.e. “How safe do you feel in your team to express your opinion?”). Invite for anonymous “voting”, without discussions or sharing but only for bringing awareness upon the actual moment, a snapshot of how they are in that moment (this can be used after working some sessions with them and improving this aspect, inviting them again to “vote” and see how the things changed):

• you can also come back at the end of the session, inviting them to build a giraffe that stands for what they learned in this session and invite them to share their thoughts to take with them (and the giraffe if this works for you as a gift to remember) - it is a very strong closer that helps people to reflect and learn from each other

Where could you use this activity?

It is very versatile, I will give you some examples of where I have used it and you can, of course, create your own variation of it:

• for teams who did not know each other, I used the version mentioned above, sharing the strengths and their unique contribution to the team/project

• for the teams who know each other well, I used it with a powerful question related to the specific session they were participating in - for example, in a training, as sharing which unique skill they want to learn out of the session (as an expectation part) and at the end as the biggest value the giraffe takes it home :) and I gave them the set with them

• for teams that had communication issues, used it together with the compassionate communication reflection and supported them in practice and reflecting upon the way they expressed their feelings and communicated about the situations that bothered them - if the session was online I was sending upfront the kit to the participants and use the Miro template I have created in Miroverse for it

Why does this activity work? The neuroscience of it!

• it is fun; fun helps our brain release dopamine and endorphins, the neurochemicals of happiness; when the body gets good vibes, the fear and stress get low, helping us to get into a state of mind where we are able to communicate and create better.

• when fear and stress are lower or not present, the brain believes it is safe to express feelings, opinions, and so on; a psychologically safe environment is created, also with the help of pairs sharing

• Lego helps create the hand-brain connection, it is a kinesthetic activity that facilitates an environment where creativity is highly welcomed by our brain

• while observing different models of a giraffe while the invitation was the same for everyone the outcome was different, people became aware of the importance of realizing our perspectives are different; only while doing this, a lot of tension and conflicts are dissolved; one of the most powerful ways of reappraisal is repositioning, which is exactly using the power of different perceptions.

Suggestions on how NOT to use this activity

You can use this activity in many ways and for different reasons.

There are two suggestions I would like to add on what NOT to do and why:

• the activity is an invitation to play, it is not a mandatory step, so give the right to pass to the people you have in your session, they can observe and share if they want their insights

• the Lego Serious Play is not intended to be a competition or a game to win something because putting pressure on someone to show how good they are is bringing stress to them and you want I am sure to avoid this

Both suggestions have deep explanations on the way in this podcast I recorded some time ago.

Bottom lines:

This is a type of activity where the clicks, stay with the participants for a longer time and therefore the outcome they create is also deeper. If you want a strong start or end or something fast but deep, this might be a good activity to take into consideration in your next session designed.

Resources:

• Book “Non-violent Communication” by M. Rosenberg

• Book “Giraffe Juice Workbook: A Nonviolent Communication Games Book ... To Play With”

• Book “The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth” by E. Edmondson

• Compassionate Communication Reflection Miroverse Template