ECCAY RESOURCES

The ECCAY resources can help professionals to use in practice the solution focused knowledge they have just acquired.

Exercise nr. 8

Yes vs No

Minimum number of participants	Average time length	Individual setting	Group setting	Special Equipment	Unit	Online	Challenge /competition
4	20'	no	yes	no	1, 5	yes	yes

A fun exercise to experience how easily we use negations in the way we communicate to others and to ourselves.

In this activity, participants are involved in a challenge where they are obliged to dialogue with each other trying to avoid the use of NO and other negations in the way they talk.

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Aim / Benefits

Aim of this activity are:

Enhancing participants' creativity. Being obliged to avoid negations in the way they talk and to answer questions only with expressions like “yes, and…”, participants need to use their creativity to maintain the conversation and win the challenge.
Experiencing a paradigm shift. The request of using positive statements alone obliges participants to experience new ways of talking about themselves and their personal experiences. In this way, they can experience that an alternative in how they think about themselves and the world around them is possible.

UNIT(s) related

Unit 1 and 5

Why?

This exercise can be related to Unit 1 as it is a way to experience the paradigm shift between the problem solving approach and the solution-oriented approach. In fact, by being forced to avoid negations in their narratives, participants need to focus on how they can manage this limit and how they can communicate their ideas.

Consequently, they can experience the idea that there is more than one way in managing obstacles and problems in their life.

This exercise can be related to Unit 5 as it helps participants reflect on the way they talk, what type of language they use in describing themselves and their experience and how it affects their approach to their life situations.

How to do the exercise

Step 1 / Preparation:
Split the group of participants into two teams.
Explain the rules of the exercise:

It is a contest where one person from a team plays against a person from the other team.
In turn, each player asks questions to the other, who can answer only using positive statements. All the answers must be explained: players cannot just answer “YES” to the questions, but have to provide explanations. For instance, they can say “Yes, and…”, “Yes, because…”, “Of course, because…”, etc.
If one of the two contestants answers using “NO” or some other negative affirmations, he/she is eliminated, while the other remains in the game and is challenged by a new member of the opposite team. The team that eliminates all opposing players wins.

In order to better explain the rules, you can use examples like the following:
If two players are competing against each other and one says to the other: "You are old aren't you?", the other cannot deny because he would lose, so he must begin the sentence with a "Yes, and…" continuing in a manner consistent with the answer.
He could answer for example: "Yes and this is what they tell me, maybe sometimes I feel old...but do I look that old?”
Set a time for each round of conversations (we suggest you 5-10 minutes each round).
You can also propose to play some warm-up rounds, in order to help participants get acquainted with the rules.

Step 2
Start the contest.
As soon as a player loses, the round is interrupted and the player who lost is eliminated from the game. If at the end of the round no one has lost, the round is tied and a new round starts with new players.

Final step / Conclusion:
The contest ends when a team has eliminated the opposing one.
At the end of the game the experience can be discussed within each team.
Alternatively, you can divide the group into subgroups, with people coming from both teams.
To facilitate the discussion among them, you can provide participants with questions like the following:
●       What did you enjoy the most of this activity?
●       What are the differences you noticed in your talk, when you tried to answer using only positive statements?
●       What did you do or see being done creatively?

(NOTE: In the Resources/Bibliography/Sitography section you can find several sites with also videos that can help develop the group discussion).

Debrief

The final discussion of the exercise can be done in plenary.

Here are some questions that might help participants to reflect on how this activity can help them in their everyday life:
●       What did you/we learn?
●       How could the experience you had in this activity affect your everyday life?
●       What would happen if you decided to use more “Yes, and…” in your everyday language? Bow would it change your approach to yourself/the others/your job/etc…?

Specific materials

None.

Tips and Tricks

Explain to the participants that the goal of this activity was not blaming the losers or celebrating the winners, but reflecting on how we communicate with ourselves and the others.

For this reason, be careful to keep a fun and serene atmosphere during this activity.