Evaluating interpersonal behaviors is a difficult task. It becomes more difficult and uncomfortable if your evaluation has serious consequences.
In this reflective teamwork activity, the participants experience different aspects of deciding to fire a person for lack of contribution to a group discussion.
This activity is described below as a Live Online Learning Activity (LOLA). You can make suitable changes and conduct it as an in-person training activity.
Synopsis
The participants are assigned to be members of a discussion group and observers. The discussion group examines a relevant topic while the observers watch the behaviors of different discussants. The conversation is ended after 3 minutes and each participant secretly identifies a member of the group to be fired because of lack of contribution to the discussion.
Purpose
To explore the impact of selecting someone to be fired.
Participants
Minimum: 8
Maximum: Any number
Best: 10 to 15
Time
10 to 15 minutes
Supplies
Paper and pens or pencil
Flow
Organize a discussion group. Randomly select five participants to be the members of this group. Call them the discussants.
Appoint observers. Ask the other participants to individually observe the discussion. Ask them to shift their attention to different discussants from time to time.
Assign the task to the observers. Instruct the observers to listen to the discussion and watch how each person contributes to it. Encourage the observers to take notes on a piece of paper (but do not share these notes with anyone else).
Assign the task to the discussion group. Announce a suitable topic for discussion, making sure it is related to the training objective. Tell the discussants to talk about this topic and arrive at a joint conclusion.
Get the discussion started. Remind the discussants and the observers of their respective tasks. Start your stopwatch and time the discussion.
Stop the discussion. After 3 minutes (or some other convenient period), abruptly conclude the discussion. Reassure the discussants that it does not matter if they have not completed the discussion.
Assign the evaluation task. Ask all participants (both the discussants and the observers) to work secretly and independently. Ask them to think back on how each member of the discussion group contributed to the discussion.
Choose a member of the discussion group to be fired. Have everyone think of the discussant who contributed the least to the success of the discussion. Have the observers and the discussion group members to privately send a message to the facilitator identifying the least contributing person to be fired from the discussion group.
Announce the results. Identify the name of the fired person.
Debrief
Conduct a debriefing discussion. Use the following types of questions to structure the discussion:
• How do you think the person who was fired felt?
• How do you think the people who suggested the name of a person to be fired felt?
• Who do you think found this evaluation task easier: members of discussion group or the observers?
• Was it easy for you to objectively judge the value of different people’s contribution to the discussion?
• Did you confuse the amount of talking with the value of contribution to the discussion?
• Was it possible for a discussion group member to be silent most of the time and yet contribute to the discussion?
• What criteria did you use to evaluate the contribution of different members?
Continue the debriefing discussion by relating this activity to events in the workplace.