Organizational Learning Tools Inc.

Earthquake! by D. Joseph Fisher, Ph.D. and Dawn Peters Earthquake is designed to promote group problem-solving, consensus decision-making, and an understanding of group dynamics. It is a simulation exercise that asks participants to first solve the problem individually and then as a group making consensus decisions. The scores are then compared against an expert ranking and demonstrate that effective teams generally produce better outcomes than individuals alone. Includes normative data and background information on earthquakes. A PowerPoint presentation is now available to support the facilitation process. Applications: provide non-threatening stand-alone team-building training use as warm-up activity in larger training designs assessment centers evaluating the success of team development processes an on-the-job team skills refresher. Participants respond to the following story-line: You and five co-workers are in the basement library of your downtown office building finishing a presentation for a meeting the next morning. The building shakes violently. There has been a major earthquake. You begin to pick yourselves up and assess the damage. Participants determine appropriate steps to ensure their survival in order of importance, as well as those that should be avoided. There are breaks between each section to allow the facilitator the flexibility to use only those sections that would be helpful to his/her facilitation process. The Earthquake Video is a powerful tool that helps participants understand and apply the individual and team development concepts learned during the simulation activity. It helps to actively and emotionally engage participants into the story-line, simplify the facilitation process, and enhance the overall learning from the activity. The video is broken into three sections that follow the course of the entire simulation activity: The Scenario uses a realistic re-enactment of the story-line to enhance believability of the simulation. The Expert Rationale is presented in a clear and convincing method using graphic elements to highlight key learning points. Debriefing the Simulation provides easy to understand explanations of what each score means and the significance to group dynamics and performance. This section offers discussion questions to bring the learning back to the workplace. Note: The video does not add to the overall completion time of the simulation. It simply changes the manner in which the various sections can be facilitated.