Get It Together

See it in action

What it is

Get It Together drops a team into a large circle they aren’t allowed to walk into, then hands the actual work to the people who can’t see it. Partners pair off; one puts on a blindfold and steps inside to collect and reposition colored balls, while the sighted partner stays outside the circle and can only talk them through it. On paper it looks simple. Then every pair enters at once, the voices pile up, and a room full of capable adults discovers how quickly “just tell them where to go” falls apart.

The exercise is built to create a great deal of confusion — and, honestly, some frustration — because that is exactly the condition under which clear communication and trust either hold or collapse. It is a step beyond a basic trust walk: partners switch roles partway through, so everyone experiences both being led and doing the leading, and everyone feels what the other side’s job actually demands. It is also genuinely fun.

How it works

Pairs split into a coach (sighted, outside the circle) and a mover (blindfolded, inside). Coaches guide their partners to a specific colored ball, into the sack at the center, and back out again — all without anyone touching another person — and then the roles swap for a second round. That’s the whole shape of it: coach the blind, don’t cross the line, don’t collide. The difficulty comes from doing it alongside everyone else, live and out loud. (Full step-by-step setup, timings, the storyline and debrief questions are in the downloadable guide below.)

What it reveals: communication

Feedback — both giving it and receiving it — is the whole engine of this activity, and it has to be practiced in real time or the task simply doesn’t get done. The hardest lesson lands almost immediately: you have to communicate with someone the way they will hear it best, not the way that is easiest for you. A coach who keeps repeating the same instruction, the same way, louder each time, watches it fail the same way each time. Sound familiar? It is exactly what happens at work when a message isn’t landing and the instinct is to say it again rather than say it differently. The blindfold strips away every shortcut — gestures, pointing, shared eye contact — and leaves only the words, which is why the quality of those words suddenly matters so much.

What it reveals: coaching

Because partners swap roles, everyone spends time as both coach and coachee, and that role-switching is where the insight lives. Leading someone who can’t see is a coaching problem in miniature: you can only work with the information your person gives you back, you have to check what’s actually being understood, and you have to adjust on the fly. Then the blindfold comes off, the roles flip, and the person who was barking directions a moment ago is the one depending completely on somebody else. That reversal is the point — it reminds people in each position what the other role feels like and lends real insight into improving the relationship between coaches and the people they coach back at the office.

What it reveals: trust

When you’re blindfolded in a crowded circle, you are handing your success, and a little of your dignity, to your partner’s voice. There is no faking that; either you commit to trusting the person guiding you or you freeze. That is why this sits a level beyond simple ‘trust fall’ activities — the trust here is earned moment to moment through clear communication, not declared. Teams leave understanding that trust isn’t a nice-to-have on a poster; it is the thing that lets people move at all when they can’t see the whole picture, which describes most of real work.

Interesting things to watch for

• Noise level and tone of voice — as more voices crowd the circle, watch whose coaching stays calm and specific and whose just gets louder.
• Frustration and commitment — the confusion tests how committed people really are to the goal. How many members of a team quietly aren’t committed at work?
• The distinct styles each pair develops — some agree on a shared vocabulary and reference points, others improvise, and the difference in results is stark.
• Whether any coach ever tries the blindfold themselves — almost no one thinks to experience what their partner is dealing with before criticizing it.
• How pairs behave once their task is done — do they help others still working, or sit back and wait?
• Whether planning happens at all — teams that skip a quick strategy for such a “simple” task usually pay for it in the middle of the circle.

Variations

The activity flexes hard depending on what you want to surface:

• Competition: tell the group the clock stops when someone exits the circle, and each pair races to finish first — then watch them abandon everyone still inside.
• Collaboration: make the goal getting all the balls in and back out as fast as possible, with the clock stopping only when the last person is out. The trap is that pairs still compete and then wait; the win comes only when coaches start helping whoever is nearest.
• Feet planted: indoors, tell the coaches they may not move from their spot, forcing far more precise verbal direction.
• Turn away: for smaller groups, give coaches five seconds to memorize the layout, then have them turn their backs — now they must rely on the mover describing what’s around them.
• Scale and load: have each person place more than one ball, or each coach guide more than one mover; tie two circles together to make the space enormous.
• Background noise: add music — the louder it gets, the harder the communication becomes.

Who it's for

Best for groups of 8–16 who are ready to build trust beyond icebreaker-level activities by leaning on genuinely clear communication, and for teams wanting to sharpen coaching skills — the everyday act of directing, and being directed, well. It runs inside or outside, medium energy, in roughly 45–60 minutes including the debrief.

Questions to spark the debrief

The activity is the vehicle; the debrief is where the lesson lands. Questions we ask:

• What do you think was the most critical element to this experience?
• What made this event challenging, and how did you work around it?
• What worked when you were coaching, and what worked when you were being coached — were they the same things?
• Is there any learning here that could help you be a better team member, or improve the team itself?
• Do you see any correlations between this activity and what the group faces on a regular basis?

Frequently asked questions

How many people is Get It Together for?
Get It Together is built for 8–16 people. We can scale the setup up or down to fit your group.

How long does Get It Together take?
Allow about 45–60 min (incl. debrief). Most of the real value comes from the debrief that follows.

Can Get It Together be run indoors or outdoors?
Inside and Outside.

What does Get It Together teach a team?
It focuses on coaching, communication, competition vs collaboration and trust, and the debrief connects what happens in the activity directly to how your team works day to day.

Is there a free guide for Get It Together?
Yes. You can download a free step-by-step facilitation guide (PDF) for Get It Together from this page and run it yourself.

Want a facilitator to run Get It Together for your team? Explore our team building experiences and ongoing programs.