All Change

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Observe personal defaults and reactions when instructed to make rapid personal changes.

Use it when: Use at the start of a workshop on organizational change, process redesign, or habit formation to ground discussion in direct physical behavior.

Skip it when: Skip when participants wear uniform protective gear, have mobility or vision constraints that make visual spot-the-difference uncomfortable, or when physical self-consciousness is high.

Group arrangement: Pairs facing each other; an extra participant forms a triad where two change and one guesses, or acts as timekeeper.

Timing: UWT suggested 10-minute plan expanded from the under-5-minute source prompt to allow for setup, guessing, and structured reflection.

Materials and tools

• Bell or chime (optional, for timing enforcement)

Before participants arrive

1. Ensure room layout allows pairs to stand or sit facing each other with enough clear floor space to turn around safely.

Say this to open

Find a partner and stand facing them. Look carefully at your partner from head to toe for thirty seconds. Memorize what they look like, including clothes, jewelry, hair, posture, and items they carry.

How to run it

1. Memorize partner details 2 minutes

   Partners face each other in silence. Allow 30 seconds of quiet observation. Deliver the opening script. Explain that nobody should touch their partner or comment yet.

2. Turn away and alter five things 3 minutes

   Instruct everyone to turn their backs to their partner. Give them 90 seconds to change exactly five things about their own appearance. For example, roll up a sleeve, take off a ring, unbutton a collar, swap a watch to the other wrist, or pick up a notebook. Emphasize that changes can involve adding, removing, or adjusting items.

3. Face partner and detect changes 2 minutes

   Call time. Ask partners to turn back around to face each other. Partner A has one minute to spot all five changes made by Partner B. Then swap roles so Partner B has one minute to spot Partner A's changes.

4. Debrief assumptions and tendencies 3 minutes

   Bring the whole group together while people are still standing. Ask for hands on the debrief questions and take 2 or 3 quick open comments from the floor. Observe whether participants immediately start undoing their changes.

Debrief questions

• Raise your hand if your first instinct was to take something off rather than add or modify something. Why do we default to change as a loss?
• Did anyone add something new, such as holding a pen or putting on an extra layer?
• Look down right now: have you already put your clothing and items back to how they were before the exercise started?

Finished output: A shared group baseline identifying how people naturally handle change, specifically the bias toward subtraction and the impulse to revert to prior states.

Remote

Run in one-on-one breakout rooms. Each person studies their partner's video frame for 30 seconds. Both turn off their webcams for 90 seconds, change five visible things (including posture, accessories, or visible background items), then turn cameras back on and take turns guessing.

Hybrid

Pair in-person participants with in-person partners and remote participants with remote partners in video breakout rooms. Avoid mixing across room boundaries so visual conditions and audio channels remain equal.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may alter subtle posture or desk items instead of clothing if changing apparel is uncomfortable or impractical.
• Participants who prefer not to be visually examined can opt to act as the official observer or timekeeper for a pair.

If the session gets stuck

A participant cannot find five separate things to alter about their outfit.

Remind the room that changes include posture, hair placement, facial expressions, holding an object, or tucking in a shirt tail.

Partners shout out guesses at the same time and run out of time.

Enforce strict turns: give Partner A 45 seconds to guess exclusively, then ring a bell and give Partner B 45 seconds.