Sports That Take You Backwards:

Challenge your class to list three sports which the winning player goes
backward They are Rowing, backstroke, swimming and tug-of-war.
The Taxi Driver:
The amount of information we give others while communicating with them,
can really have an impact on the result of the communication. This quick
fun energizer can make that point crystal clear.
Tell your class that you will tell them a short story and then ask them one
question to see how good they were paying attention.
Start off your story by telling your class participants “Imagine you are a taxi
driver” This is crucial to make this icebreaker work.

Continue the story as follows:

You are driving downtown and suddenly you get a call to go pick up a
customer from one of the big hotels in the middle of the city. You were only
two blocks away so you get there very quickly and picked up the customer
who was standing in front of the hotel. You ask the customer where he
wants to go and he tells you that he is a foreigner, he is attending a
conference here in town and it’s his first time to visit your country. He wants
to do some sightseeing today and asks you to recommend places he can
go to. You recommend a few places and recommended to start with the
museum downtown first and he asked you to take him there. He also asked
if you were available to show him around town for the rest of the day.
On the way to the museum, your customer receives a call on his cell
phone. It’s one of his colleagues attending the convention with him and is
staying at the same hotel and he wants to join, so you go back to the hotel
to pick up his colleague and drove them both to the museum. After the
museum, your two passengers asked you to recommend a place where
they can try the local food. You recommended a great local food restaurant
that’s famous for local authentic cuisine. They loved the food and after
the meal they said they actually ate too much and both agreed that they
were too tired now and would prefer to go back to the hotel and probably
continue sightseeing tomorrow. You took them back to the hotel and gave
them your direct cell phone number to call you directly tomorrow if they
decide to continue with the sightseeing tour.
When you have finished the story ask participants this one
question: what was the name of the taxi driver?
Did any of your participants get the right answer? Probably not
Why didn’t they know the answer, even though you told them what it was at
the very beginning? (The first thing you said was “Imagine you are a taxi
driver” so whatever your name is, that’s the name of the taxi driver)
They didn’t know the answer because the story overloaded them with
information. If we give out too much irrelevant information, the real
message gets buried and our colleague/customer/boss/Friend or whoever
we are communicating with will probably miss the point. To ensure your
message is communicated clearly, stick to the essential facts.
Spell Energizer
"You may not belief that there are six errers in this short paragraph.
Studi the paragraph carefuly. You can reed it as many times as
necessary. Don't give up too easily. See if you can find all of them."
Write the previous paragraph on a slide or a flip chart and challenge
participants to find all 6. Most participants will find five but few will ever find
the sixth. The sixth is simply that there are only five errors (so it’s an error
to say there are six). The exercise points out how we often think inflexibly
and fail to consider all the options when problem solving.
45 second countdown - A snappy review exercise
Two teams/two flipcharts, one participant form each team goes to one flip
chart. The teams compete by remembering words/key concepts that were
discussed in class today. The team that comes up with the longer list in 45
seconds wins.
Snowball fight evaluations
Getting participants honest feedback is a challenge for every trainer, add a
twist of fun by turning it into a snowball fight by following these instructions:
Tell participants that it’s time for evaluations, but rather than filling the old
style evaluation sheets, we will do it in a much more fun way. Also confirm
that input from all participants will remain anonymous so they can write
whatever they wish.
Ask each participant to list two columns on a sheet of paper one represents
the positive things about the training and the other for things that need
improvement. Participants are given 3 minutes to do this, then after they
finish, instruct everyone to wad their papers into balls and start a “snowball
fight.” Wait a couple of minutes till the papers are thoroughly randomized
then ask each participant to pick up one paper and read it out to the group.