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You will need: sheets of unlined paper; packets each of little green stickers and little red stickers (or any two colours you like) (optional); bluetack, sellotape or drawing pins, depending on your walls.

1. Decide beforehand what you want to explore and list the words or phrases you will use

2. Write each word or phrase on the top of its own sheet of paper.

3. Stick them up around the room or lay them all out on a table.

4. Give each person a number of green stickers and of red stickers. The green stickers represent a positive reaction or a ‘yes’ vote. The red stickers are negative or ‘no’. (If you don’t have stickers, people can write + and x to indicate positive and negative.)

5. Each person now sticks the appropriate colour of stickers on the pieces of paper to indicate their responses to what is written on it: positive or negative. They can do this any way they want. They can ignore some sheets and not react. They can put both red and green on a sheet to show mixed feelings. They can put all their votes on a single thing if they want. It is entirely up to them how they allocate their stickers.

6. Now tally up the number of green and red stickers on each sheet. This will show you the consensus view before the discussion.

7. Then sit back and look at the sheets and discuss the results.

What to use this exercise for

- To test people’s reactions to a number of different possibilities
- To help select from a wide variety of options
- To set priorities
- To reach a consensus or get a group to make a decision democratically, in a way that does not allow some to dominate while others remain silent but unhappy
- To explore words, concepts, ideas – the stickers are just a way of opening up discussion about them. ‘I see someone put up lots of red, negative stickers on “FAITH”. Would that person like to share anything about why they did that?’
- To get people to step back from a problem or situation and see it from a more objective perspective – almost literally, as they walk around and see it from the outside
- To lower the emotional temperature and encourage a more thoughtful, reflective attitude
- To get people to get up and mingle, engage in conversation as they walk around sticking their stickers

Situations where you might use it:

- To decide on what activities you might use in a day-long conference
- As the first step in creating a vision or mission statement
- To choose which projects will be the priority for the next year
- To open up a discussion of principles or concepts in a less abstract way by exploring people’s reactions to them
- To reach a consensus on what values are shared by the members of the group
- To break the ice in a new group by getting people discussing something outside themselves, but which reveals how they think and feel about things
- To consider a wide variety of solutions to a thorny problem – you can include some dud ones or crazy ones for variety or humour

Case study: dreaming up the Lokahi Foundation

When we were first developing the ideas that led to the creation of the Lokahi Foundation, we gathered core people together to think and dream and plan. We wrote down everything that such an organisation might do or be, descriptions or activities, on sheets of paper and stuck them up on the wall. We all went around putting our stickers up. Afterwards we sat and looked at the collection of papers with their stickers. It was immediately obvious where there was a consensus and where there was a division of opinion. It also was instantly clear which areas were the most important, because they had the most green stickers. It proved to be a brilliant way of focusing our ideas and dreams and seeing our deepest intuitions about priorities without having a debate. But it also opened the way to a really fruitful, deep discussion about what to do and be.