Fun Observation Skills Game for Attention & Trust - The Rock
Fun Observation Skills Game for Attention & Trust - The Rock is a relationship mapping exercise that helps participants build useful connections and understand how people, roles, or ideas relate.
How to run it
- Form a circle, standing and facing into the centre.
- Everyone closes their eyes and clenches both of their hands behind their backs.
- If someone is willing to receive the ‘rock,’ they should open one of their hands in a receiving position.
- Walk around the group and secretly deposit a small stone into one person’s open hand.
- Next, everyone brings their clenched hands in front of them, opens their eyes, and quietly and comfortably sits down with their hands visible to all.
- Everyone starts observing others in the group (silently,) aiming to identify the person who is holding the ‘rock.’
- After 20 seconds of silent observation, invite one or more people to raise their hands, and nominate who they think is holding the rock.
- Each person gets one chance to make a nomination.
- The Rock Observation skills game to develop attention & trust-building.
Run this exercise live
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Materials:
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Prompts to use +
Form a circle, standing and facing into the centre.
Next, everyone brings their clenched hands in front of them, opens their eyes, and quietly and comfortably sits down with their hands visible to all.
Everyone starts observing others in the group (silently,) aiming to identify the person who is holding the ‘rock.’
After 20 seconds of silent observation, invite one or more people to raise their hands, and nominate who they think is holding the rock.
Run this with your AI assistant +
Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.
Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: Fun Observation Skills Game for Attention & Trust - The Rock. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: Form a circle, standing and facing into the centre.; Next, everyone brings their clenched hands in front of them, opens their eyes, and quietly and comfortably sits down with their hands visible to all.; Everyone starts observing others in the group (silently,) aiming to identify the person who is holding the ‘rock.’; After 20 seconds of silent observation, invite one or more people to raise their hands, and nominate who they think is holding the rock.. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.
Origin unverified
- Where we observed it: The strongest current observations come from Playmeo; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (1 source observed, including Playmeo.)
- What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
- No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
- Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.