Get into groups of 5-10 people.
Each group gets a tennis ball (or hacky sack, etc).
The group needs to elect one person the “timer” — this person steps out of the circle.
Tell the group to toss the ball from one person to the next, but not to the person directly to either side.
By the end, each person has received the ball exactly once, and it will return to the first person.
Continue tossing this pattern a few times until the pattern is learned.
Now time how long it takes to complete the pattern.
Once times have been recorded, ask the group to cut the time in half. The only thing that has to remain constant is that the ball has to physically touch each member of the group in the same pattern/order as originally established.
Repeat the exercise, each time, indicating the group needs to cut the times in half.
Principle: Re-organization takes place, yet the fundamental pattern remains intact.
In our groups, first we re-arranged so that we were in a re-ordered circle… the people-pattern remained constant, but we passed in a circle rather than across now.
Next, we put hands in, and one person simply rubbed it around the pattern.
We got down to less than 1 second to make the cycle.
The “Story” told was that each person was part of a chain in a hospital, and the ball was the patient. The patient needed some contact with every member of the team, in that fixed order. We needed to increase the efficiency with which we passed the patient through the system while maintaining the required standard of care (each person involved).