Junkyard Golf

I spent Tuesday night playing, laughing, and most importantly, learning with about 130 people. I was the "speaker" at the Rainmakers Main Event. Rainmakers is networking group started in Indianapolis that is growing very rapidly. I proudly sit on the Board of Directors and was pleased to be asked to speak.

Which is fine, except that I didn't really speak.

Instead I was the "Club Pro" as I had 130 people playing Junkyard Golf.

Junkyard Golf was invented in its original form by Bernie DeKoven - a very bright friend and colleague of mine who is committed to fun (one of his websites is deepfun.com). I had played the game and for a variety of reasons decided to make it my Rainmakers "speech." This is fine except that rather than the typically allotted 15 minutes, I would need an hour. With some persuasion and a lot of mystery (which could probably be another blog post), I convinced the leadership group to trust me.

When we walked in about an hour before the event was to start, toting all manner of junk (from boxes, to computer equipment to rope to plastic to used satellite dishes to toilet seats), I suspect the trust level dropped a little bit.

The game is played by people in small teams (we split them into teams in a fun way - though it was a bit of a logistical challenge with so many people and limited time). Their task? To take the pile of junk as resources (and anything else they can find) and create a miniature golf hole and test it to set "par."

Once the holes have been created and tested, round two consists of teams moving around and playing the various holes (we had 21 of them).

In the final round, the small teams debriefed their experience, using questions I provided them. The questions I created specifically for this group and situation include:

• What did you observe about how your team formed?
• Did leaders emerge?
• How would you characterize your teamwork?
• What was the experience like from an interpersonal perspective?
• Think about your team's and your personal creative process. What made you feel successful? What was easy? What was the hardest part?
• What was the most fun about this exercise? Why?
• While you'd never play Junkyard Golf in "real" life, what about this experience reminds you of real life and real work?
• What will you do differently now that you have had this experience?

Hopefully my brief description helps you see that in fact, there was fun, laughter and learning. And hopefully you'll never see a pile of junk quite the same way again.

If you are intrigued by this short description of my version of Junkyard Golf, you can learn more from Bernie's other site - Junkyard Sports. If you ask him questions, tell him I said hello.

If you want someone to facilitate this kind of event for you and your organization, contact either Bernie or myself. Either of us would be excited to be your "Club Pro."

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