Give and Take

Last week, we described an exercise where anchor teams practiced their skills
“taking” focus, but describing an image. Each anchor waited attentively for
an appropriate opening, and jumped in with his or her description. This week, we continue that process with the flip side of the exercise. In fact, “giving focus”,
which sounds easy, but in fact is even harder than “taking focus”. Here are the rules:

1. As in the previous round, the anchors each have an image they don’t reveal
to the other. The image may be a drawing, a photo, an advertising
illustration. It should be bold and strong, making the description is fairly
easy.

2. On anchor begins to describe his or her image, and signals to the partner
that the other should take over the performance describing their own image.
The transition should acknowledge the other’s description, but continue by modifying that
description and transforming it into her own description.

3. The partner should not take up their own description unless the opening in
the other’s description is clearly suggesting the other should take up the
description. If it is clear that the opening is given, the partner is obliged to pick up the
description, transform the description and continue with his own, until he
can present an opening to the other anchor.

Oddly enough, it is very hard for one anchor to pick up the description,
accomplish the details of that description, always with an eye to turning the
description over to his partner. The conflict is that the anchor wants to complete her own
description, but is always looking for a way to ‘toss’ the focus to the
partner.

The anchor team should continue playing this game until the tosses seem
natural and smooth. The awkward way to toss is to simply say “Well, what do
you think Bob?” More elegantly, the anchors would begin to suggest gaps or missing information in their image that their partner could fill in. What does this all total up to? We’ll get to that next week.

In the meantime, keep breathing!