Human Knot
This activity is often used as an icebreaker to encourage team bonding in the group of participants. Great activity for when you are getting a new team together, or you think that collaboration could do with an improvement. You can observe and then highlight patterns in team communication during your debrief.
The goal of the game is for a group to untangle themselves without letting go of each other’s hands, and the extended hand-holding can increase oxytocin levels, which can lead to increased trust. Ideal group size is 8-12 people.
5-any
10-15 min
High
Steps
- Ask the participants to stand in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, facing inwards.
- Everyone reaches out their right hand and grabs someone else’s hand from across the circle (not next to them).
- Everyone repeats the same with their left hand.
- You now ask them to untangle themselves, but without letting go of each other’s hands at any point. The goal is to end up in a circle, by stepping over and under each other’s arms or legs.
If the chain is broken, they need to start over.
What you need
- No props, just a group of people willing to hold hands 🙂
Debrief
Ask the group questions to reflect and learn from the activity.
- What worked well for us in solving the knot?
- What made it more difficult than it had to be?
- How did communication affect the outcome?
- Did anyone step into a leadership role, and how did that help or hinder?
- What can we take from this game into how we work together every day?
Bonus tip
Not all knots are possible to resolve and that includes Human Knots. If the group gets stuck, you may need to start again from the beginning.
A variation of this exercise is to prohibit verbal communication and ask the group to solve it in total silence. Another option to make the activity a bit trickier is to blindfold a few of the participants.