Building a Fire and Water Transport System

Trust exercises produce trust that lasts as long as the exercise. Carrying water uphill in a container someone built badly produces something else.

How it runs

1. The brief, and nothing else. “By four o’clock, this group needs to be able to move fire from here to there, and water from there to here, without carrying either in your hands. Here is the site boundary. Here is where the tools are. Here is the person to ask about safety, and only about safety.”
2. Teams form themselves. Do not assign roles. How they organise is the data.
3. Facilitators observe and do not rescue. Write down what you see: who speaks, who is not asked, when the plan changes, what happens at the first failure.
4. The handover, at three o’clock. Each team must now teach its system to another team, who will operate it. This is where most of the learning is — systems that only their builders understand are revealed as systems that do not work.
5. Run it. Fire is lit, water arrives, or it does not.
6. Debrief around the fire you made, for at least forty-five minutes.

Facilitator notes

• Safety is non-negotiable and named up front: a designated fire site, water and a beater to hand, no fire in wind, closed shoes, tool briefing before tools are touched. In a wildfire region check local restrictions on the day.
• The failure is the curriculum. Protect it. Facilitators who step in at the ninety-minute slump destroy the session.
• Debrief in the order: what happened → what did you do → what did that do to the others → where else in your life does that happen.

Where this belongs on the wheel

Mid-week, mid-afternoon, once the group is safe enough to fail in front of each other. Running it on day one produces conflict without the container to hold it.