• Increasing participants’ capacity of active listening
• Increasing empathy
• Building trust and confidence among the participants

Duration: 30 minutes.

This exercise is about developing the active listening skills of the participants.

Invite the participants to create pairs for a 20 minutes walk, ideally with someone with whom they hadn't shared a lot yet. Propose a topic to develop during the walk. For example:

• How do you feel about the role you have in your organization today;
• What do you miss in your team? What do you enjoy?
• What would you like to say to your team-mates that you didn't manage to express yet?
• Share a moment when your own emotions or the emotions of someone in the group take the power over the situation.

Precise that there will be no restitution of what have been shared: What will be said will remain private.

For the first 10 minutes, only one of the 2 persons will talk, while the other will listen. The “listener” cannot ask questions or make any comment: he/she will only listen to the other. There might silences: this is OK. The listener has to respect them, the “talker” can take his/her time to think.

After 10 minutes, they will switch roles: the “talker” will become the “listener” and the “listener” the “talker”.

Close the session with a brief debriefing (5'-10'):
How did the participants feel with the exercise?
What did they like? What moved them? What was difficult?
What the exercise brought to light, that they would keep in mind?

None