Separating a room in to Sensers and iNtuitors

Senser or iNtuitor

A few people have asked me how you can quickly form two groups in a room, one with a preference for being a Senser (S-type) and another with a preference for being and iNtuitor (N-type).

This connects with a previous post for a group activity to show how people see things differently

Ask the people in the room to identify with one of two statements (mention that they will be able to identify with both but you are asking them to think about their preference, the one that they feel most comfortable with) :

(S) I Like having a well-established way of doing things and like applying existing knowledge.    I tend to focus on the realities of a situation and the practicalities of how to move forward.

• I trust my 5 senses
• I like what is real, experiential
• Practical
• Facts and figures
• Traditional

And the other group….

(N) I prefer to go with my intuition and flashes of insight, rather than by linear step-by-step reasoning  I tend to be open-minded about new ways of thinking and new ways of doing things.

• 6^th sense, hunches
• What could be, potential
• Theoretical
• Visions and insights
• Innovative

Ask the people in the room to stand and walk to one or the other side of the room If you have pre-prepared this  with a sheet of paper stuck to the wall with an S or an N so much the better.

(?) You may get some people who honestly cannot make up their minds which they prefer.

In this case don’t challenge them, just ask them to join one or the other group and see how it goes, if they feel uncomfortable in the group activity they can always change.

Showing groups how we all see things differently

You see the same reality as me… don’t you?

One of the most fundamental assumptions we make when working together is that we all perceive the same things in the same way.

We do not.

Recognising this can create breakthroughs in otherwise locked situations

• This is a surprise to lots of people, we do in fact all have our own version of objective reality
• Proving it is another matter
• But it can be done

Proving it to a group

I started using this method with groups when introduced to it by a good friend of mine, David Smith.

This works well if you have done a Myers Briggs (MBTI) session with the group but it can be adapted to work well without (This post explains how)

• Split the room into two groups of MBTI preferences – one with S types the other with N types
• tell them you are going to show them a picture for 10 seconds after which you’ll ask them to write down what they saw.
• This is not a memory test just write down what you see that’s it.

The picture, have a good look at it:

Why not write down what you see before reading on

( you can click on the picture to magnify it )

there are no right or wrong answers

 

 

 

The interesting results that get written down tend to fall into roughly two categories

People who list the facts and count the objects, state the age of things

People who interpret the picture in the form of stories and assign emotional content

The really interesting thing happens when you get the two groups to present back to one another.

“Where did you get that from?”……  “I can’t see that!” …….  “ohh I see!”

these are some of the comments that emerge.

As a facililitator you have pure gold to work with because you have different groups of people who now have proved to one another that when presented with exactly the same information at the same time they see diffrent things.

This can result in some quietly profound experiences for the group

Let me know what you think.