Rock, Paper, Scissors World Championship

I want to take a minute and give you a really easy way to energize your staff every morning if you need to. It’s called the Rock Paper, Scissors Championship. Whatever your company name is, you’re going to call it the rock, paper, scissors, [Company X] World Championship. If you want to give a prize at the end, that’s fine. But it’s not about the prize at the end. I want you to gather your staff all in one room and review the rules of Rock Paper, Scissors. Paper covers rock, scissors cuts paper and rock crushes scissors. So those are the rules. There’s nothing special about this.

Ask everyone in the room to find a partner, somebody that they don’t know very well, or somebody that they don’t email very often. When I say go, you’re going to do one round of rock, paper, scissors. Whoever is the winner goes off and finds another winner. If you did not win, you are now that person’s automatic cheering section. I want you to yell. I want you to holler, I want you to chant their name. I want you to jump up and down, cheering for them to continue to win. By the end of the session, you’re going to have half of the room cheering for this person and half of the room cheering for another person. This exercise allows adults 1) to play again, we don’t allow ourselves that enough 2) it breaks open those eggshells of creativity, and 3) it allows us to get into each other’s personal space. Lastly, it allows us to celebrate one another. We don’t do enough of that. We celebrate rock stars and football players that run all kinds of yards. I don’t know football. But we don’t celebrate one another in the workforce enough. Somebody that does something amazing, maybe they’re going to get a pat on the back. But I encourage you all to celebrate one another. More and more every day… more high fives in your world are needed. And yes generate more Rock, Paper, Scissors World Championships.

Easy Steps
  1. Gather your team in a room together. Doesn’t matter if your team is 10 or 250 – it’ll work, I promise!
  2. A recap of the basics: Rock crushes scissors, scissors cuts paper and paper covers rock.
  3. Next, have everyone find a partner. Start out with someone you really don’t know or don’t know well or email rarely.
  4. Play one round of the game with your partner.
  5. Whoever does not win is the cheerleader for the winner and must now chant their name, yell and enthusiastically applaud for that person to continue to win.
  6. The winner must locate another winner, taking their former partner with them as their cheerleading squad. It’s important that the cheering squad cheer on their partner.
  7. As this process continues, bigger cheerleading groups form to cheer the winners on. Quickly, you will find two players remaining and half the room is cheering for one person and the other half of the room is cheering for the other.
  8. Whoever wins the final battle becomes the world champion. What a title to hold!