Bull Ring

What happens

Moving a ball from one spot to another using a ring and some rope is the object of Bull Ring. Although initially quite easy, we have provided instructions and materials to help increase the difficulty on a whim.

Typically, we run each group through several times with increasing difficulty and continually changing the rules during each run, simulating the effect of the constant changing business environment and the need to continually adapt to change.

Who it's for

When your goal is to train participants to cultivate a yen for learning and appreciate its importance in the ever changing business arena, then choosing Bull Ring will most certainly transform the mindset of your group.

What may the group learn from Bull Ring?

Frequently, when we feel a task is easily accomplished, we do not take the time to strategize about how it will be accomplished.

The art of cooperation is something we are taught as children. For some reason, many of us forget that lesson when we enter the front door of work. This exercise is designed to let participants experience how fun cooperation and teamwork can be.

As with many of our exercises, the exercise simply cannot be accomplished without the effort of every person on the team or group. The same is true at work, although we all want to think we can do everything ourselves. Only the single entrepreneur actually does everything themselves. The rest of us depend upon other people to take care of certain tasks, sometimes incredibly important tasks.

However, we often don't try to work as a team unless we have to. This exercise lets participants experience what can be done as a team and how much fun it can be.

Clear communication is required as well as the passing of critical information from person to person in order to accomplish the task. This event will show what happens when there are gaps in communication and the resulting frustration will be a source of long dialogue.

This is best outside, but can be run very well indoors with some room.

This is a fun activity that your group will not forget and relates easily back to work.

What to watch for

• Did the group have a single leader or was everyone part of the decision-making?

Variations

• Set up only the start and finish and leave the rope and selected ball near the start.
• Make the group figure out how to put the ring together before they begin.
• Surprisingly, this creates some interesting discussion about how to put the props together to best transport the ball.
• If the group decides to tie the end of the ropes on the ring, there will only be six people holding the ropes.
• You might want to suddenly impose the rule below for larger groups.
• For larger groups – any person touching the rope must be blindfolded.