Our research shows that good leadership can radically improve bottom line performance. This exercise shows leadership in action, really helping the message to hit home. It gives participants a chance to think about what makes a great leader – it provides rich data about leadership behavior and its impact.

Use the Tower Building Exercise to:

• Identify and address problem areas in a group that has recently gone through change
• Enhance management development programs
• Provide a bigger picture of managerial behavior and impact alongside other managerial style and organizational climate tools (our surveys or workbooks).

Why choose the Korn Ferry Tower Building Exercise (TBE)?

This exercise gives participants first-hand experience of how management style affects the performance of a team. It shows different styles in action, demonstrating, for example, that what managers intend is not always what comes across. It’s an engaging, enlightening exercise that has real impact and generates live, behavioral data you can work with.

The Tower Building Exercise asks you to divide your participants into groups of one manager and three team members. Then, as a group, they have to build a tower using different sized blocks. Sounds easy – until you tell them that team members must be blindfolded and use their non-dominant hand. Managers cannot touch either the blocks or their team members. There are three rounds, and the whole exercise can be done within two hours. 

The Tower Building Exercise set includes a set of blocks, 3 blindfolds, 3 participant booklets and a facilitator guide.