According to an article on Scholastic.com, right brain activities are those that involve creativity, open expression and artistic effort. While it can be hard to get attendees at a business conference to embrace this kind of activity, career teacher Katherine Brick notes that it's all about your presentation. If you're excited and enthusiastic about the activity, the rest of your group will be as well.
Association Drills
Present the group with an everyday object or a common word written on a note card. With an object, give the group two to five minutes to come up with creative alternative uses for the item. With a word, ask the group to list different kinds or examples.
According to Odyssey of the Mind spontaneous problem solving guidelines, these drills work best if participants take turns giving answers in order. This ensures that a handful of strong candidates don't take over the activity. For this reason, it's also a good idea to subdivide larger groups into cells of five to eight people.
Freeze Scene
Get two volunteers to spontaneously act out a common scene from their life or job. For a business conference, customer interactions are a favorite. At any point during the scene, have a third participant shout "freeze." The actors freeze in position, and the third participant replaces one, assuming that actor's exact pose. The new actor then says something that changes the nature of the scene, and the two act it out until it's the next person's turn to shout "freeze."
Group Art
Choose a relatively simple picture, such as a still life or landscape. Scan it and project it onto a whiteboard or movie screen. The group then organizes to create the picture using their own bodies. For example, in a landscape three people could stand together and position their arms to form the shape of a house, while two others make a tree in the background. Teacher and conference leader Beverlee Brick notes that you can also play this game spelling out words.
Group Story
Seat participants in a circle. Have one begin telling a story. After an interval of 30 seconds, stop the participant in mid sentence. The person to that participant's right picks up the story from that point, steering it in the direction she wants to take it. Continue until you've completed the circle or finished the story or participants begin to get bored.
Party Games
Several popular party games can also engage the right side of the brain and are appropriate for small groups or subdivisions of a larger group. Some common examples include pictionary, charades, host a murder and taboo. Beverlee Brick advises that you can easily make home versions of most of these games without going out and buying a copy just for an event.
References
- Scholastic.com: Right Brain/Left Brain
- Katherine Brick; Classroom Teacher; Hillsboro, OR
- Odyssey of the Mind Resources
- Beverlee Brick; Language Conference Director; Hillsboro, OR
