In a Nutshell
Participants use FEEDBACK to try to get a volunteer to move his or her hands, while the leader uses INSTRUCTIONS to try to get the volunteer to move his or her legs.

Objective
This game is used to improve your management skills; help managers improve their management skills; motivate sales people; use competition as a motivation tool.

Time
15 minutes

Learning Point
FEEDBACK is often a much more powerful motivator than rules or instructions - even instructions from an authority figure.

What To Do
Pick a volunteer, then ask him or her to leave the room.
Have the group pick a target behavior that uses hands, such as clapping over the head.
Bring the volunteer back, and explain that the group is going to try to get him or her to do something that involves the legs.
The group will shout "YES" whenever he or she does something close to the desired target. (This is called "shaping" task, in which closer and closer approximations to a target behavior are reinforced, in this case with the word "YES")

Because of the leader's instructions, the volunteer will keep moving his or her legs, but the group will shout "YES" only when he or she moves his or her hands.
The feedback from the group will usually overwhelm the leader's instructions.
The leader can interrupt at various points, insisting in increasingly stronger language that the group really wants the volunteer to move his or her legs and that he or she must not move his or her hands.

This game produces lots of tension and laughter, as the leader's instruction compete with the audience's feedback - with the feedback usually winning.

Discussion Questions
1. What happens when feedback competes with instruction? Which one usually wins?
2. What are examples from everyday life in which feedback is in competition with instructions?
3. What was the outcome of the game? What did it show about the power of feedback?
4. Why is it not enough for supervisors to ask people to get motivated? What else must they do to encourage motivation?
How can feedback be used for this purpose?