Colourblind®

COLOURBLIND® is probably the world's most successful commercial experiential learning activity.
It develops communication skills required by every individual in a business. As participants work through this activity-based learning tool they refine skills that will help them to save time, effort and money by ensuring common understanding between people involved in projects. The emphasis on checking and feedback are vital to those involved in teaching, instructing or delegating responsibility. The exercise also demonstrates how communication breaks down in particular groups or teams, enabling them to identify their own specific problems so that they can correct them together.

COLOURBLIND® is a team-based experiential communication and problem-solving exercise in which the objective is to use verbal communication only to ensure that all team members reach a common understanding of meaning. Individuals draw on their experience and descriptive skills to explain to each other the complexities of abstract shapes. They use feedback and the skills of clarification to ensure that their understanding is accurate.
The exercise itself is simple: pool knowledge to identify the coloured shapes which are missing from a complete set. The communication processes involved are much more complex and take participants through increasingly sophisticated patterns of communication until the task is achieved.

COLOURBLIND® can be used most effectively with groups ranging ideally from 6-14, although in theory could be used with groups from 4 to 28 (trying to run a meeting with 28 people is very difficult and is not really recommended for Colorblind either!). The issues raised by the exercise will vary with group size.  The exercise is designed to run without observers (other than the facilitator) but if people choose to observe then the facilitator should create an observer role for them. Group members need to be positioned where they can hear each other clearly and have some working space, e.g. table, or floor, in front of them.Typically the exercise can take between 20 and 45 minutes to complete, depending on the ability of the Group!

COLOURBLIND® was developed in 1991 when Geoff Cox was asked to design and deliver the first week of an induction training programme for Air Traffic Control cadets. The young people involved came from a range of backgrounds: direct from school or university, from business and industry, from air traffic control in the Armed Forces. Each had to face an intensive, demanding training programme in which teamwork and communication would be fundamental to success. Each, ultimately, would accept professional responsibilities which allow absolutely no margin for communication error, misunderstanding or ambiguity.

COLOURBLIND® enabled participants to rehearse every communication skill which Air Traffic Controllers need and to highlight the problems and pitfalls which communication breakdown inevitably brings.

Consider Simbols as an excellent follow-up activity to Colourblind®.

COLOURBLIND® has been purchased by hundreds of customers across the world including:

Abetas, Spain; Action Learning Associates, USA; Axia Value Solutions; Biotronik, Germany; Booz Allen Hamilton, USA; Brathay Hall Trust,UK; Canada School of Public Service, Canada; Dale Carnegie, Saudi Arabia; DOOR Consulting & Training, India; Du Pont, Turkey; Glaxo Smith Kline, UK; Harvard Business School, USA; IMD, Switzerland; International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO, Switzerland; Lab SSJ, Brazil; Office Depot, Romania;  RWE Supply & Trading, UK.

 Colourblind® Case Study