There's a reason they make us play the telephone game in kindergarten. I'd like to think it's more than just that it's an interesting effect you can demonstrate in a small classroom.
I think that, on some level, it's an attempt to demonstrate one of the most fundamental problems faced by mankind, today. Maybe not consciously by the teachers, but I suspect somewhere in its origins lies a motivation along those lines.
For those of you unfamiliar with the telephone game, the classic version goes like this:
- The teacher arranges the children in the circle, with herself as part of the circle.
- The teacher whispers something to one of the children next to her. It's usually something simple and factual, like "There's a bow in Jennifer's hair, today."
- Each student whispers what they heard from the student next to them to the other adjacent student.
- The message travels around the circle, changing hands once for each student until it reaches the teacher.
- The teacher compares what the final message was with the initial version for the whole class.
Invariably, the message is mangled. Often, it is distorted beyond recognition. If you play the same game without whispering, the message keeps its original form, more or less.
The point of the game is to show that communicating via numerous intermediaries introduces error into the flow of information.
It rings true in business as well. Without a means of combating communication-error, you can be more or less certain that someone won't get what they want if they are asking someone to ask someone to ask someone for it.
