Effective communication exercises – Seeing, Thinking, Feeling

Created by:

Herman Otten
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This is one of our effective communication exercises in which learns about communication.

In the exercise the team makes pairs of three. Every participant in the pair gets a unique role. There is the observer, the observed and a person that checks if the exercise is done correctly. The observer looks at the person across from him and sums up what he sees, then what he thinks, and lastly what he feels. When a mistake is made during the exercise, for example speaking out feelings when it’s supposed to be thoughts, the third person may intervene and correct him. The participants learn to clearly distinguish seeing, thinking and feeling. This will help the team improve in giving each other feedback in future situations.

During the Effective communication exercises you can apply multiple variations:

1. The participant that is being observed can also repeat what the observer is saying.
   For example:
   The observer: “I see blue jeans.”
   The observed: “I am wearing blue jeans.”
   Even if the observed disagrees with the observer, he still has to say what is being said by the observer as if it were true.
2. The observer and the observed can also switch roles every time they exchange a sentence. So the observer and the observed switch roles every other sentence.
3. At the end of the exercise you can let the team form a circle and do it with everyone in the group together. One participant starts looking at another in the circle and sums up what he sees, what he thinks and what he feels. This person repeats the sentences out loud en proceeds to look at another participant and does the same. Do this until everyone has had a turn.

Do you know a good Effective communication exercises variation? Type it below this video as a comment.

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