Day 1 of the Facilitation course at British Council, as icebreaker, the trainer asked us to think of an animal that best described ourselves and why (the activity was called “Animal Magic” by the way). So, some said dog, cat, lamb, hamster, cow, and some said lion, tiger, and eagle (I chose eagle because of the sense of freedom and the love for bird-eye views). And we were divided into two groups – the wild animals and the domesticated ones.
Then we were given the exercise of choosing an animal that best described our own company and some other questions such as the animal’s habitat, what this animal needs in order to survive and so on. Our group – the wild animal group – almost immediately associated our company to the most ancient animal on Earth (due to our company’s size and its legacy). We chose an elephant in the end and talked about how elephants left the footprints on all corners of Earth (well we did have some dispute with someone who think of himself as a lamb to start with and how the lamb ended up in the wild animal group was due to number imbalance).
The domesticated animal group, on the other hand, chose a duck to represent our company and talked about how ducks survive by keep peddling and feeding on small fish.
It did hit me at that moment through “Animal Magic”, perhaps how we see the world begins with how we see our own self.
One reply on “Of Elephant and Duck”
interesting icebreaker. the lamb must have felt terribly uneasy in your wild animal group, hehe. btw, that sure is a nice doodling you have there man!