Thought Leadership sessions

Paul Nunesdea | CEO groupVision | Optimizing group collaboration

The Radio Station is a group activity where you get people to think about group criteria instead of personal interests.

The Radio Station

Objectives

• To get people to think about group criteria

instead of personal interests.

• To have the group reflect on the difference

between ‘preferences’ and ‘interests’,

these being the fundamentals on which we

build group agreement.

Process (Part I)

The exercise comprises of two parts and it’s important each set of instructions for both parts is handed to the Participants separately.

1.The Facilitator divides the Participants into pairs or trios and says to them,

“You and your colleague are now members of the production team in a Radio station and you have to decide on a set of music sound tracks to be broadcasted in a morning program.

Use your own music preferences and establish a list with 5 tunes that you both like most for the start of the program tomorrow at 7 AM.”

2.Start to work for 5 minutes and stop.

3.To debrief the Facilitator asks the Participants,

“What did you notice about the way you decided the 5 tunes list? Did you easily agreed on a joint list of preferences? Are they really your preferences or did you compromise?”

Process (Part II) 4. The Participants reconvene in their pairs or trios and the Facilitator hands

them each a card with a radio station profile (e.g. youth, urban, nationwide, pop, country)

5. The Facilitator asks the Participants to think about their audience and start to work for 5 minutes with this sentence,

“However we end up allocating sound tracks for the program we need to do it in a way that…”

6. After 5 minutes the Facilitator asks,

“What did you notice in the way the pairs decided the joint “objectives” for the Radio Station? Did you easily reach agreement or did you compromise?”

7. The Facilitator asks the Participants to start with the previous song list and decide which songs will be kept and which songs will be discarded. New extra songs can be added to complete the list of 5.

8. After 5 more minutes the Facilitator debriefs the Participants with,

“How many preferences did you have to discard? How many additions? What was the impact of defining the Radio Stations’ objectives in the way you select the tunes?”

Resources required

• A willing group of people.

• Marker pens and index cards.

• Enough tables and chairs for all the pairs.

• 1 index card for each group with a

different radio station profile on each (e.g.

youth, urban, nationwide, pop, country).

Secret Sauce • Focusing on individual preferences leads us into difficulties since each member

normally has a fixed set of preferences.

• When we focus on ‘interests’ or criteria for a decision then we can work to find

agreement on something that could meet as much of the groups’ interests as

possible.

• This exercise also assists the group to establish expectations on the group norms

and roles (participant, group leader, and facilitator).

• 30 - 45 minutes should be fine for a group of 10-12 people (3 to 4 trios) but if you

have larger groups you will need more time for this “starter activity” as the large group

discussion can take longer.

• Some people are anxious to proceed without knowing or understanding the 2nd part of

the exercise beforehand; in that case acknowledge the concern and explain them that

you cannot provide the 2nd part instructions until the group completes the first part. In

that case you can invite her/him to participate as observers and use their records for

extra input in the group discussion.

• Paul Nunesdea is the English author name of Paulo Manuel Coimbra Nunes de Abreu an organizational psychologist, MSc in Information Management and PhD in Management Science.

• Paul has conducted research work and external consultancy in a varied number of organizations including National and Regional Governments.

• In 2003 he started the "Forum Hospital do Futuro" a not for profit initiative that convened a national Think Thank in Portugal.

• In 2009 he founded the Iberian Healthcare Leaders Forum that has convened several Thought Leaders summits in Spain and Portugal.

About the author