Was that the only take away?

Yesterday, I was at the induction course together with 36 other newbies. There was an activity during one of the workshops where everyone was all given a number and we were not allowed to reveal the number that we are given.

The game masters asked us, "Do you have any questions?" We will not be allowed to ask any questions after this Q &A session before the game.

One asked, "Where do we start from?"

The Game Master answered, "We cannot answer this question."

Then, I decided to ask for the objective of this activity.

The Game Master said that we will know it after the activity.

...and the activity started after the Game Master told us to take our position in ascending order, without stating which side we should start from.

I was holding number 2, so it was pretty easy for me. I went to the projector screen and took my position, assuming that the first person will probably take position from the screen. After awhile, everyone were in place. We started saying out the numbers that we were holding. It went on fine until 11 and someone suddenly said "22"! Ok, so everyone down the line will probably get it wrong.

So, the Game Masters were kinda happy, since we achieved their objective of showing us communication is very important and that was their takeaway for us after the activity.

However, I had some other takeaways from this activity - While communication is important, clear instructions are equally important.

1. If the people in power never give clear instructions, even if the rest are allowed to communicate, they may still get it wrong as no direction was given. 

2. If people in power refuse to provide enough information for the rest to know in order to perform the given task, the outcome may not be positive too.