Back-to-Back Drawing: one describes, one draws. Same picture?
Sit back-to-back with a partner. One gets paper and pen, the other gets a secret drawing: keep it simple — 5 shapes on one sheet.
The describer talks, but there's a hard rule: no looking over the shoulder, no shape names. Say position and edges only: "medium circle, top middle of the page."
The drawer may ask questions. The describer may not grab the pen or peek — words only, both ways.
Two minutes on the timer. When it rings, turn around and hold the sheets side by side.
Score it: same shapes in the right places? Near-identical wins the round. Then swap roles and draw a new one.
The drawer can't read minds — clear words are the whole tool
Look at the two sheets side by side. Every gap between them, a missing moon, a circle sitting in the wrong corner, is a moment where the instructions were fuzzy — not where the drawer was careless. "Put it there" is not an instruction; "in the middle of the page" is.
Here's the sneaky trap that makes this game hard: the describer sees the drawing in their head and forgets the drawer can't. Psychologists call it the curse of knowledge — one-line explainer: once you know a thing, it feels impossible to imagine not knowing it. Testers, teachers and software writers hit it every day, and the fix they use is what your drawer's questions did tonight: check early, check small, fix it while it's cheap.
That's the whole secret of the last five Teamwork Tuesdays too — the birthday line-up ran on watching, the compliment chain ran on noticing, and tonight's ran on asking instead of assuming. Teams don't run on effort. They run on shared pictures.
Today's 1%: next time you explain anything today — homework, a game plan, a chore — end with one question: "What did you hear me say?" Then fix the gap, before it grows.
Today's 1%: "Put it there" is not instructions — good directions say position and edges, and good teams check what landed. Ask "what did you hear?" once today.