Toys of the Trade

Monday, 04 October 2010
Meetings are boring, right? Talk, talk, talk and no action? If that’s your experience, then someone has fallen down on the job. Perhaps the design was not carried out well. More likely, the default option just happened.
Well, who-ever said meetings had to be boring?
Great meetings, conversations and workshops happen first by design and then by implementation. If you are not planning for eventfulness and engagement, then in effect you are planning for it not to happen. Trying adding some toys!

So, what counts as a toy? To my way of thinking, toys are objects that help take participants out of their heads and into a different space. They are not just for kids!

There are lots of possibilities. Balls, eg: koosh, squeeze/stress, juggling. Craft items, eg: pipe cleaners (chenille sticks/stems or fuzzy wires), paper & cardboard, felt, glue/s, paints/markers/crayons/pastels, modelling materials (clay, Play-Doh™, Plasticine™, wax). Construction, eg: Lego™, Magnetix™, drinking straws & tape.

For me, there are two main reasons why would you use toys:
  • They help set up a relaxed working environment. I generally leave them lying around next to where people are sitting. I tell them that stuff is there for them to use informally, or not, as they like. Conversely, toys can be used in a variety of structured games to lift the energy of a group. Be aware though that for some groups, games are still uncomfortably “touchy-feely”.
  • Toys engage a different type of “smart” or intelligence. Many people perceive and understand the world best through hands on activity (body-smart) or through visualised objects and spatial dimensions (image-smart). As such, toys help stimulate the creativity and engagement of a wider range of participants.
Taken together, these reasons contribute at each stage of a meeting or workshop. Your choice of toys and how you context their use helps focus the group on the topic at hand. By engaging extra smarts, they stimulate new & divergent thinking. Similarly, toys help people build shared understanding and converge on agreed outcomes. Finally, they can open up different ways of telling a common story about those outcomes and hence a commitment to action.

So, what’s your experience of choosing and using toys in working groups and situations? Please, share your thoughts below.

Go well!

David Jago