Are You Playing With a Full Deck ?

Diversity is an entertaining, informative game designed to present a picture of your group's thinking style preferences and helps point the way towards working together more effectively and productively.

Recent workshop participants said:

"I never had such a vivid sense of my 'strong suit'."

"It made me see everyone in the room differently -- and they all seemed more interesting."

and "I could see how I can use it to set up better-functioning teams in my organization."

To start off, each player receives five random cards that represent particular thinking styles, such as:

• CREATIVE: Able to make unique connections and put things together in a new way
• INDUSTRIOUS: Hard working and dilligent
• ENTHUSIASTIC: Giving yourself completely to whatever engages you
• EXPLORATORY: Investigate new arenas, concepts, ideas, and point of view
• LOGICAL: Able to reason deductively from what has gone before

You arrange your five cards in order, starting with the card that best describes you, and ending with the one that is least like you. Now, you get a chance to discuss your immediate response to the cards you were dealt. Were there any you wanted to get rid of immediately? Any you weren't willing to part with? Would you be comfortable living your life out with the hand you were dealt?

The game continues with choices and bettering your hand, all the while discussing the choices you've made, how you felt about losing some of the cards you'd acquired, and how you feel about the hand you have now assembled.

Each player then shares a personal story that illustrates a time when these qualities came into play.

The final phase of the game focuses on the whole group. All players display their color-coded cards. Each of these colors represents one large category of mental "style". When the cards are displayed, we get an instant read-out of the "brain dominance" direction of the group as a whole. The game is based on Ned Herrmann's Whole Brain Model and the instrument, the HBDI™, which measures each person's preference in 4 areas ("left-right", "cerebral-limbic").

You can see instantly which way the group as a whole leans; towards "left-brain" sequential logic, or "right-brain" holistic intuitiveness.

The final rounds of discussion focus on what the group has learned about individual and group preferences, plus such issues as what type of work the group would do well, and how the group might compensate for any "weak" areas, etc.

Among it's prime uses, Diversity can be an "icebreaker" for meetings or workshops to reveal the similarities and differences in thinking style preferences in the group and to facilitate a discussion of individual and group strengths and potential blind spots. It also builds an understanding and appreciation of those with different preferences and introduces the concept of diversity in an interesting and non-threatening way.

You can order The Diversity Game through our order form.