Exercise makes us stronger

We do our best work and growth when collaborating with others. I love building community, and have been doing so professionally and recreationally for years – sports teams, LGBT spaces, networking groups, design teams. These are a few of my favorite exercises for team-building and self-awareness.

Prerequisites

  1. Psychological safety. We can take risks without negative consequences on this team.
  2. Vulnerability. The more you open up, the more you'll gain.
  3. Space. These exercises work best away from the office.

Personal values card sort

Our personal values and motivations underpin everything we do at work, but they're not always apparent to our coworkers – especially when we disagree. This exercise helps you identify your own values so that you can act with integrity and better understand your peers.
This is a popular therapy exercise that I adapted to be more work-oriented. The list is not design-specific, so you can do this exercise with other (cross)functional teams, too.
About the exercise

Duration: 15 minutes heads-down, 45 minutes for discussion
Participants: 1-15
Needs facilitator: Yes

Personal values card sort

Preparation
Gather your materials

For each participant, set out the following:

  1. Print out this list of values (Personal values PDF) and cut them up.
  2. Notecard (to write their chosen values)
  3. Pens 

Step 1
Sort the values (15 min)

By yourself, sort the stack of values into three columns:

  • Very Important: You can put a maximum of 10 values here
  • Important: Everything else will go into this column by default.
  • Not Important: You must put a minimum of 5 values here.

When you are finished, write your Very Important and Not Important values on your notecard to save for later.

Step 2
Discuss (45 min)

Each person should share what they wrote on their notecard, and why.

  1. What does [value] mean to you?
  2. Why did you choose [value] instead of [similar value]?
  3. What trends do you notice in this group?
  4. How are you practicing your values every day at work?

 

 

Johari Window

The Johari Window is an exercise to improve self-awareness and help people understand their relationship to a group. Typically, participants select adjectives that represent their personality and their peers' personality.
I adapted this exercise to focus on hard and soft skills that are useful to designers. This exercise should be done in a group that already has a degree of familiarity and psychological safety. You will become more aware of your strengths and growth areas as you and your peers perceive them, and you can use this exercise as a foundation for your individual goal setting.
 About the exercise

Duration: 10 minutes per person, 20 minutes for discussion
Participants: 4-10
Needs facilitator: Yes

Johari Window

Courtesy of Dave Gray

Preparation
Set up each station

Each participant will have a station, so that people will move around the room as they assess each of their peers. At each station, please include:

  1. Print as many copies of this list (Johari Window Skills PDF) as there are participants.
  2. Two markers or highlighters, different colors. One for strengths, one for growth areas.
  3. A label with the participant's name
  4. A blank sheet of paper for the four quadrants 
Johari Window station setup

Step 1
Assess yourself (10 min)

Starting at your own station, check the box underneath your name at the top so that you know this was your self-assessment. Pick up to 5 skills you consider your strengths, and up to 5 skills you consider growth areas. 

Note: Growth areas are not necessarily weaknesses. These are skills that you'd like to build upon given your role, career trajectory, and interests.

Step 2
Assess your peers (10 min)

For each of your peers, pick up to 5 strengths and up to 5 growth areas. 

Step 3
Synthesize answers (10 min)

Now sort the answers into the following four quadrants:

Q1: Skills chosen by you AND your peers
Q2: Skills chosen by your peers but not by you
Q3: Skills chosen by you but not your peers

You should also note the number of times a skill was mentioned.

 

Johari window quadrants

Step 4
Reflect and discuss (10 min)

Here are some questions to help you get started:

  1. What was easy or difficult about this exercise? Why?
  2. What trends do you notice?
  3. What surprises you about these answers?
  4. Do you see any contradictions? (e.g. a skill listed as both a strength and a growth area)
  5. Let's focus on Q2. This quadrant represents your blind spots – things you peers perceive about you, but you didn't identify for yourself. What surprises you about what you see here? What questions do you have?
  6. Let's focus on Q3. This quadrant represents what you perceive about yourself, but your peers didn't identify for you. Why do you think your peers don't know this about you?

Step 5
Create a plan

By yourself, answer the following questions to set goals to improve your chosen skill. You can follow this format for other growth areas you want to work on.

  1. Why do you want to improve this skill?
  2. What are three concrete actions you could take to improve this skill?
  3. How will you know whether those actions have succeeded?
  4. When do you want to achieve this goal by?
  5. Who on the team has a strength in this skill and can help you?


© 2024 Lauren Jow