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Both projects and sales teams from a telecom company attended a workshop on improving the interfaces between their two groups. The workshop started with mutual anger and accusations. The sales team blamed the projects team for not helping with keeping their promises to their customers, and the projects team claimed that the sales team’s exaggerated pricing prevents them from profiting: "you’re underpricing our projects".
Towards the end of the meeting, we spread the cards and decided to use them to allow participants to take a stand regarding the process currently taking place in the room. They were divided into sub-groups and each group had to choose the card that best described the "here and now". One of the teams chose a card showing one horse standing alone while defecating.
A mockery of embarrassment was suddenly heard. When the group members were asked to describe what they saw in the card, one said: "We came to this meeting with a full stomach, and now we are getting some relief". Someone else said: "The shit is out!"
When we took a break we thought to ourselves, the facilitators, how helpful the cards were in helping with lightening the mood in the room and how the metaphorical conversation allowed the participants an exterior point of view.