While the strategy discussion we had within our management team yesterday the real genius of or groups realized during the evening activities. I thought it would perhaps be a good idea to bring along a boardgame to build up some team spirit, learn to better work together and also have fun.
The game I chose was the Mind. It's an extremely simple game: there is a deck of hundred cards numbered from 1 to 100. Everybody is dealt an increasing number of cards as the rounds progress. During each round the goal is to play all the cards in our hands collectively in numerical order. The catch is there is no communication allowed between the players about the cards they have!
There were many reasons for my choice. First of all it's super easy to teach. It takes one minute to explain the rules and a round or two to grasp the game. We have only one other avid boardgamer in our team and a couple of casual ones, so it had to be something simple to get everybody on board. It's also a small game. A deck of cards is easy to carry around so I was able to travel light. It's also an easy going game where, while you are not allowed to talk about the game, it's easy to keep the discussion ongoing about any other topics. So perfect company for spending an evening.
But the main reason was the need in this game to learn to read your co-players mind. Interpret all those small non-verbal cues they send out unconsciously can tell a lot if you know the person. I'm sure knowing each other in this level could help us also communicate better in other settings.
Despite being relatively simple game it's not that easy to "win" it. In order to win you need to pass 12 rounds (meaning everybody starts with 12 cards in hand on the last round!). In the end of the evening we were able to get half way through the 12th round! So close, but I think that's still a great achievement.