This thread is going to take a slightly different turn and we’re going old school for a bit, but work with us here. Believe it or not, this post does have something to do with team building, and presents a fun little exercise in communication.
Check out this clip from 1983, and skip to about the 3:00 mark for the gameplay. It’s a little game show entitled GO, a word-association game where two teams of four work to describe a word or phrase to a fifth team member.
That fifth player (the “guesser”) listened as two teammates at a time built a sentence or question – one word at a time. For example, for “Giraffe” the clue was “What. Has. A. Long. Neck?” When the guesser got the word, he or she moved down the line for the next one. This process continued four more times, down the line and back (See below).
Line 1 (left-right) Giver 1 (WORD) Giver 2 | Giver 2 (WORD) Giver 3 | Giver 3 (WORD) Giver 4
Line 2 (right-left) Giver 3 (WORD) Giver 2 | Giver 2 (WORD) Giver 1
With the clock running, there is a bit of pressure to perform, but that’s the fun of it all, right? That being said, it is something you could try with your group, given you have enough players. Again, GO used five players per team – the guesser and the four clue-givers. Your local version of GO could play by the same rules: the first team plays against the clock ticking upward. The second team (using a different set of words) has to beat that time, with the clock counting down. Fastest time wins! You don’t have to tout the lavish cash and prizes the TV show offered, unless of course you have $20,000 lying around. But, gift cards or simply bragging rights are cool too.
The most important thing to take away from this is teamwork. Chemistry means a lot in this game, as does communication. Your team members have to know how to work well against the clock, without letting the pressure get to them. Someone might utter an illegal clue or mention the actual word. If so, don’t worry, just give them another one and keep it moving. Don’t worry about the question being grammatically correct – as you saw in the clip, plenty of clues sounded clunky. You want the guesser to get a good idea of what is being described.
You do not need the fancy Hollywood setup here. To display the words, just use a projector screen, keeping the guesser’s back to the screen (let the clue-givers see it though). Maybe even show the above clip on the screen to give the teams a better idea of how to play the game.
If nothing else, you can get a good laugh at how we used to dress back in the early-80s!