There are four different facilitation purposes, which I’ve designed to quickly guide you through the pre-planning experience. The four parts are: The Stated goal, The Stated Purpose, The Unstated Goal, and finally, the Unstated Purpose. Their power is to divide what is actually happening from the outcomes you wish to see. Keep these four concepts in mind as you setup your next team building event.

Stated Goal

This is what you directly tell the students the goal of the activity to be. Example, “To get all group members safely to the other island.” “To get all members of the group on the carpet square without touching the ground.” “To get all group members through the rope web without ever touching the web.”

Stated Purpose

This is what you tell your students the purpose is for doing the activity. Examples, “To create a better work environment in our class.” “So our small groups work better together.” “So the members of our class learn to have more respect for each other.”

Unstated Goal

The unstated purpose is, “To make natural leaders into good followers and to make natural followers into good leaders.” This unstated goal can be used every team building activity, along with the unstated purpose. Fostering new and positive leadership is the core reason for all your team building activities.

Unstated Purpose

One major theme can define the unstated purpose almost every time, unless another specific skill is being worked on. The unstated purpose is, “To create new leadership and new intra-student interactions that didn’t exist prior to the activity.” Again, this can be used virtually every time for a team building session. To collect useful data on your students’ leadership styles (more to come on this topic during this chapter).