Give One, Get One, Move On (Go, Go, Mo)

When and Why

Can be used to introduce a topic where the facilitator anticipates that there will be different levels of knowledge and/or divergent opinions in the group. Everyone gets a chance to think, talk about the topic and listen to what others are thinking. This protocol encourages equity of voice and the importance of active listening. Can also be a great opportunity as a pause midway during an engagement and have participants reflect on what they are learning and what questions are emerging. Encourages curiosity while maintaining a sense of community.

How to Facilitate

1. Reflect on the current context, the demographics of participants, and the purpose of this engagement.
2. Ask participants to write down 3 to 5 key learnings or important ideas about the topic at hand. Each idea or key learning should be written down on a separate index card or sticky note.
3. Explain the activity, reinforce your attention signal, and then invite the group to get up and mingle until you let them know it’s time to pair up and exchange their ideas. Play music to create more energy.
4. After 30 seconds, bring the room to silence with your attention signal.
5. Instruct participants to form pairs and each “gives” (hands) one of their key learnings or important ideas about the topic to their partner while explaining what they wrote. The first speaker then listens so that each person “gives one” and “gets one” that they take with them to their next partner. 
6. Keep time for the pairs and when time is up, signal for attention and when the room is quiet instruct the partners to thank one another mingle again.
7. Repeat the sharing process. This time, participants can share their own card or the new idea they received from a previous partner. 
8. Debrief: Invite a few participants to share a valuable new learning that was shared with them. Ask the group to reflect on the process of giving one of their ideas to someone else to share. Ask how it felt to share someone else’s idea.

Modification

• Instead of random mingling, have people gather in clusters, such as by birth month, by designated categories of shared interests, by role, etc.
• Facilitator can give participants a prompt on a slip of paper to respond to and participants write on the prompt. Each person shares and exchanges their response during the first cycle. With their next partner, participants are sharing their first partner’s ideas with their second partner. This is a powerful practice to create awareness of being part of a community with differing ideas about a topic.
• In a virtual environment, use breakout rooms with random partners or small affinity groups.

Example

A facilitator offered the prompt “What is SEL for?” Participants wrote one sentence responses and exchanged responses with others during three rounds. Everyone had read aloud two other people’s responses and heard two more responses read to them. The group reflected on common themes and divergent thinking.