You

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Practice divided attention and shared group rhythm without losing track of personal commitments.

Use it when: Use as a physical warm-up before collaborative work to focus concentration and practice recovering from dropped cues.

Skip it when: Skip when participants cannot engage in rapid verbal-visual cueing, or when the team needs quiet analytical prep rather than active warm-ups.

Group arrangement: Single circle of 6 to 20 people

Timing: UWT suggested 10 minutes based on source 5-15 minute band.

Materials and tools

• No special materials.

Before participants arrive

1. Clear an open floor space where the whole group can stand or sit in an unobstructed circle with clear sightlines.

Say this to open

We are going to build an attention pattern across our circle. Raise one hand. I will point to someone with their hand up and say 'You.' That person lowers their hand, points to another person with a hand raised, and says 'You.' Remember exactly who you receive from and who you send to.

How to run it

1. Establish the first pattern 3 minutes

   Facilitator starts with everyone holding one hand up. The first person points across the circle to someone with a hand up, calls 'You', and lowers their hand. The recipient points to a new person with a hand up and says 'You'. Continue until every person has received the cue once and the last person points back to the starter. Run this established sequence continuously two or three times until the order is familiar.

2. Establish a second pattern 3 minutes

   Pause the 'You' pattern. Everyone raises their hand again. The same starter establishes a completely different order across the circle using a category word, such as favorite foods. For example, the starter points to a different person and says 'Pizza', that person points to someone new and says 'Tacos', continuing until the last person loops back to the starter. Run this second pattern twice on its own.

3. Run both patterns concurrently 2 minutes

   The starter launches pattern one by pointing and saying 'You'. Once it travels through three people, the starter launches pattern two with their category word. Both patterns now travel around the circle simultaneously. If a pattern drops or stalls, the nearest person simply calls out their word and restarts their handoff.

4. Debrief the coordination 2 minutes

   Gather the group and ask two brief questions. Hear 2 to 3 voluntary responses from the room before transitioning to the main agenda.

Debrief questions

• What helped you stay aware of your turn while another pattern crossed the circle?
• What happened when two cues arrived at the same person at the same time, and how did you resolve it?

Finished output: Completion of at least one multi-layered round where two concurrent cue patterns travel across the whole group.

Remote

In a video call, pointing across a circle does not work because gallery views differ. Use names instead. Everyone turns their camera on. For pattern one, call a name and say 'You'; the recipient turns off their camera until everyone has been called and the starter is reached. Turn cameras back on. Run pattern one by memory using names. Repeat with a second category pattern in a different name order. Then run both concurrently.

Hybrid

Split into two separate parallel groups (one purely remote using the camera-drop method, one purely in-person), or have in-person participants face a shared monitor where remote participants take turns by speaking names while in-person participants point and speak names.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may sit or stand.
• Participants can hold up a thumbs-up or small object instead of a raised hand.
• Anyone may opt out of active cue-passing and act as pattern tracker or referee to restart dropped cues.

If the session gets stuck

Participants keep forgetting who sends to them or who they pass to.

Pause both patterns. Re-run pattern one slowly once through, having each person verbally confirm 'I get it from Sam, I give it to Maya', then resume.

Both patterns hit the same participant at the exact same second, causing a freeze.

Remind the group that bottlenecks are normal. Deliver one cue first, take a breath, and immediately send the second cue.

Terms used here

• Pattern: A fixed sequence of handoffs between participants that repeats in the exact same order each round.