In a company with 24 people, 2 owners, 2 teamleads

traditional leadership 1

1. participants formed 4 groups & were being blindfolded
2. leaders (4) were guiding the 4 groups by different means (voice, touch) - as collective & individually
   participants supporting each other via holding & touch

competition 1

1. participants formed 4 groups & lined up at different ends of two ropes
2. participants start pulling trying to get each other over the middle

competition 2

1. participants form pairs & stand facing each other, arms length apart
2. participants push into each others hands trying to bring each other out of balance

reflection

1. brief sharing of experiences in the pairs
2. brief sharing of experiences in the whole group (what is the atmosphere in the room, how do we feel,...)

collaboration 1

1. participants stand side to side
2. participants lean against each other – sholder to sholder – sharing one center

collaboration 2

1. participants walks, slightly falling to the side
2. partner pushes back into horizontal
3. participant slowly falls to other side
4. partner pushes back into horizontal
5. .....

collaboration 3

1. participants jointly walk through the room - one is leading, the othere is following
2. as 1 – with changed roles
3. as 1 & 2 walking through the room without anybody leading

Collaboration 4

1. pairs are being asigned numbers
   - participants are being made aware of the other pairs in the room
   - pairs are being made addressable
2. numbers are being called out with the "mandate" to "lead by example"
3. other pairs are being invited to follow the example
4. 1phase only one pair, over time 2,3,4 until all pairs were "leading by example" hence falling into group-score of distributed leadership

reflection with group

1. participants part & share their experience
2. group-exchange on experience (what is the atmosphere in the room, how do we feel,...)
3. Overall reflection: what is the difference between the 2 modes? what does it require? what does it produce?

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my own reflection:

I have used this exercise in a leadership-training / a consultatin with a Software-Company aiming to evolve a more collaborative, cocreative distributed leadership. The aim of the exercise was to embody the differences between competition, traditional leadership, supportive leadership & distributed cocreation. It worked surprisingly well provided a lot of food for reflectionand opened up good discussion.