In the book Expedition Agility, you’ll find a variety of exercises designed to make the journey toward agility lighthearted and engaging. In each blog post, we highlight one of these practices to inspire you and invite you to experiment with it.
This time, we’re exploring the exercise “Change Also Brings Opportunities.”

Discover New Possibilities

Change often triggers resistance because it challenges us to let go of what feels familiar.
But what if we approached change as an opportunity — a chance to discover and add something new?

The exercise “Change Also Brings Opportunities” offers a playful and interactive way to explore this idea. By asking team members to make three small changes to their appearance — three times in a row — it becomes clear that change doesn’t just mean losing something, but also creating or adding something new.

This fun activity demonstrates that change isn’t only necessary; it can also be enjoyable and full of surprises. It’s a wonderful metaphor for change within teams and organizations: sometimes you discover far more possibilities than you first imagined.

The Exercise: Change also brings opportunities

1. Ask team members to pair up and stand facing each other. Look at each other for a moment, then turn around so you’re standing back to back.
2. Each person changes three things about their appearance. Wait until the signal is given, then turn around at the same time.
3. Tell your partner what you notice has changed about their appearance.
4. Repeat the exercise twice more. Each time, participants must change three different things about themselves. You’ll notice it gets harder with each round — until people realize they can also remove or add things (for example, take off a watch, add a post-it, or borrow a colleague’s glasses).
5. During the reflection, ask what insights this exercise brought up. Usually, people realize they can change much more than they thought. Point out that change isn’t just about loss — it’s also about adding new elements, opportunities, and perspectives.
6. Observe what happens next: right before and during the reflection, many participants start putting everything back the way it was. You can share this observation with the group — it shows how strong our tendency is to return to the old state. But why should we? Change can actually be fun! Invite people to keep their new look as it is for a while — which often leads to some good laughter!

After completing the exercise, it becomes clear that change has much more to offer than we often realize.
The laughter and lighthearted moments during the activity reveal an important lesson: you can change more than you think, and it doesn’t have to be complicated or heavy. Adding new elements — instead of just removing old ones — opens the door to fresh possibilities and opportunities.

You may notice that many people quickly try to undo their changes afterward. This shows our natural tendency to return to what’s familiar. But why not embrace the new instead? Change can be refreshing — even fun!

Let this exercise be an invitation to look beyond what you might lose and focus on what you can gain through change. Who knows — it might just be the beginning of something even better.

Source: Expedition Agility
By: Els Verkaik, Edwin Clerkx & Jeroen Venneman

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The book Expedition Agility includes various exercises to approach the transition to agility in a playful and lighthearted way. In each blog article, we highlight one of these exercises to inspire you and encourage experimentation. This time, we explore the exercise “Take a moment to be amazed today.”

Rekindle your curiosity

In the hustle and bustle of daily work, we often lose the ability to see our own organization with fresh eyes. What once seemed unusual or impractical has now become the norm. The way we work, the rules we follow, and the habits we have are rarely questioned. But what if we take a moment to consciously marvel at our surroundings?

The exercise “Take a moment to be amazed today” invites teams to look at their organization with a curious and critical perspective, as if stepping inside for the first time. By asking yourself and each other questions about why things happen the way they do, you can uncover hidden inefficiencies as well as creative solutions that often go unnoticed.

Exercise: Take a moment to be amazed today

• Try looking at your organization as if you were seeing it for the first time. Ask yourself why things are done the way they are.

• Investigate and discover the oddities in your organization—things that have become normal but might not be normal at all. For example: always needing consensus for every decision, consistently missing deadlines, or accepting that agreements are not followed (because, well, it happens, right?). Or the unquestioned acceptance of fixed remote workdays where someone never comes to the office.

• Pay special attention to the “desire paths” in your organization—the unofficial shortcuts people take that aren’t documented in processes and procedures. What detours are being made to speed things up or bypass obstacles?

• Ask yourself a different kind of question: What isn’t being talked about? What are the recurring topics in your organization, and what stays out of sight? Consider aspects like customers, employees, budgets, results, satisfaction, culture, and behavior. What does this say about your organization? Why might this be the case? And what could change if these topics received more attention?

• Dive into your colleagues’ needs. Are they openly expressed? Do these needs align with the organization’s agility goals, or are they in conflict? How could you bridge that gap?

• Examine your work processes. What causes slow decision-making, delayed delivery, and resistance to change? Why is it so hard to improve?

After a day of curiosity, you’ll often come away with surprising insights. By investigating strange habits and illogical workflows with your colleagues, you’ll realize that much of what is considered “normal” is anything but. What starts as a playful exercise can spark valuable discussions about what is truly needed for your organization to become more agile and effective.

By using humor and laughing at quirks, you lower the threshold for change and create a safe space for transformation. The insights you gain can ultimately lead to concrete improvements, helping you make faster decisions, deliver results more efficiently, and adapt more easily to change. This exercise not only fosters a sense of wonder but also paves the way for growth and innovation.

Source: Expedition Agility
By: Els Verkaik, Edwin Clerkx, and Jeroen Venneman

Ontvang onze updates

Vul je e-mailadres in en ontvang 1x per maand een update in je mail met alle blogs die geplaatst zijn op onze site.