20 minutes (2 minutes to set up; 3 minutes for the activity; 15 minutes for debriefing)
General L P, T
1. To experience leader and follower patterns
2. To demonstrate relational and task-oriented perspectives
3. To discuss personal and cultural influences on behavior
• Blank paper
• A pen or pencil for each pair
1. Ask participants to find a partner. Explain that this activity works best if their partners are people they don’t know. Give each pair one sheet of paper and one pencil.
2. Inform participants that, without talking, each two-person team is to cooperatively draw a house. Both people on each team must hold the pencil during the entire activity. After two or three minutes, ask the teams to stop. They can show their house to those near them or hold them up for the group to see.
There are usually three types of houses that are drawn:
1. “Primary school” houses, where either both people visualized the house in the same way or one person drew and the other was a “hitchhiker”
2. Houses that look like two houses, where one person started to feel guilty about taking control and let the other person complete the drawing
3. Drawings that don’t resemble houses at all but rather aimlessly wandering lines, where each person tried to help the other; either no one took control or both people were competing and neither would give up control
3. Encourage different teams to share what the experience was like for them.
4. Explore the individualism/group and hierarchy/equity value orientations.
1. What values might influence the different experiences?
2. What differences in task and relationship orientations did you discover?
3. How might the spirit of cooperation or competition affect performance?
4. How might misunderstandings arise between those having the individualist and group orientations? Between the hierarchy and equity orientations?
5. How might this apply to real-life situations?
6. How might culture influence behavior (visualization of “house,” task/relationship orientation, etc.)?
Adapted from an activity by Paul B. Pedersen in Intercultural Sourcebook: Cross-Cultural Training Methods, vol. 2, edited by Sandra M. Fowler and Monica G. Mumford.