In this activity, each participant wears a sticky label with an adjective on it. Their attitudes and responses throughout the day should reflect their adjective. This activity highlights how different attitudes and behaviours can have an impact on workplace morale.
Resources:
Sticky labels (one for each participant)
A small box
Space Required: NA
Group Size: Minimum 4
Total Time: This activity can be conducted throughout the day.
- 10 minutes to brief and setup, at the beginning of the day
- 10 minutes to review and debrief, at the end of the day
Set-Up
- The sticky labels should have adjectives on them that represent typical attitudes/behaviours in the workplace. For example, “grumpy”, “encouraging”, “helpful”, “loves people”, “negative”, “class clown” etc. The adjectives should be a mix of positive, neutral and negative qualities.
- All the sticky labels are then placed in the box.
Running the Activity
- Explain the activity: Each team member will take on a new ‘identity’, based on the sticky label that they pick. Throughout the day, their responses and interactions with the rest of the group must be in the line with their new identity. For example, if someone gets the sticky label “grumpy”, they have to embody that attitude whenever interacting with others.
- Without looking, each participant picks a sticky label from the box.
- You can run this activity throughout the day. Alternatively, you could end the activity after half a day if a full day seems too long be “in character”.
- At the end of the activity, debrief and review how everyone felt about how the different labels affected the interactions and communication in the group.
Suggested Learning Outcomes
- Communication
Activity Guidance and Notes
This activity highlights how different attitudes and behaviours affect the work climate. Sometimes just using a negative word to describe someone’s behaviour can re-enforce it! The labels show that actions and behaviours often define feelings, and that we have the power to change our moods by acting differently and not allowing negative moods to dictate our behaviours.
Variations
- After half a day has passed, get participants to wear a different label.
- You can change the balance of negative and positive labels to highlight how individual attitudes can play a huge factor in determining the climate in the office — e.g. If there is a majority of people who tend to be negative, that would lead to a negative environment.
Review
Suggested questions to ask:
- How did it feel to embody your adjective?
- How were your interactions with others different because of your label?
- Did you find yourself interacting more with certain ‘labels’? Why?
- What did you learn from the activity?
