Handprints to embrace uniqueness in teams
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. ―Oscar Wilde
👥 Serves: 11-25 people, 2-10 people
🎚 Difficulty: Easy
⏳ Total time: 31-60 minutes
🥣 Ingredients: Sheets of paper (1 per participant), coloured pens/pencils or any art supplies you have available, calming music
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Community, Liberatory Learning, Positive Emotion, Radical Care
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Acknowledgement, Affirmation, Celebration, Check-in, Creativity, Diversity, Listening, Relating to Others
Handprints to embrace uniqueness in teams
📝 Description
A creative tool to map team uniqueness.
Just like our unique handprints, we also have unique personalities. This activity is a helpful tool for teams (whether they are newly formed or have been working for years together) to identify and acknowledge the unique contribution of each team member. It is a tool that allows team members to express their individuality independent of their work titles or roles. It is a useful add-on to this other recipe: “Exploring team strengths”.
This recipe has been kindly donated by Angela Mathew Verma, Simple Education Foundation.
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Check-in (5’)
Start the activity by inviting the team to check in to their feelings. Ask the team to choose a colour that best represents how they feel at this moment and share why.
For example, “I am feeling yellow because I’ve had a bright and happy day.”
If you are more than 5 people, form small groups so everyone has the chance to check in.
Step 2 – Draw the outline of your hand (5’)
Hand out a sheet of paper and a pen/pencil to each participant. Ask them to trace the outline of their hand on the paper by pressing it down firmly and drawing around it. Afterwards, ask them to lift their hand and darken the outline to ensure any gaps get filled.
Step 3 – Decorate your unique handprint (10’)
Invite participants to decorate their handprints to represent their unique self. Invite them to choose any colours and other crafty materials that represent them. To guide them while decorating, share the following 5 questions, one for each finger:
- What is your comfort food?
- What is something you like about yourself?
- What is something you want to share that most people don’t know about you?
- What is your quirk or a pet peeve?
- What’s one item you can’t leave home without?
Step 4 – Sharing (10’)
Divide participants into small groups and invite them to present their handprints and talk about at least 2 fingers.
Step 5 – What’s new? (5’)
Reconvene as a large group and invite a few reflections: What is something new you learnt about someone else today?