Four Corners: Pick a Side
Four answers, four corners. Move to the one that's yours.
You ask a question with four possible answers and people walk to the corner that matches. The room sorts itself into visible groups, everyone ends up standing next to somebody new, and they have something to talk about before they have to introduce themselves. Three or four questions is a whole warm-up.
There's a letter in each corner. I'll read a question with four answers — walk to the corner that's yours. When you get there, tell someone standing near you why you picked it.
You want movement, a choice and a conversation from the same five minutes — and you want people standing next to somebody they did not arrive with.
Props: 4 paper signs (A, B, C, D)
Run this when…
If none of these is your room, pick another.A group that needs to move, choose and start talking
Mixing people who arrived with their own team
Opening a session on preferences, working styles or decisions
How to run it
Written to be glanced at mid-room, not memorised.
- Put a sign in each corner: A, B, C, D.
- Read a question with four options and say which option is which corner.
- "Go to your corner. No conferring on the way."
- Once they have arrived, give them sixty seconds: "Tell someone in your corner why you're here."
- Take one answer from two different corners. Not all four — it drags.
- Go straight into the next question from where they are standing.
- Run three to five questions, getting lighter or heavier as the session needs.
Running it well
Only the host sees these. Participants never do.
- Write the questions to split the room. A question where thirty people go to corner A and nobody goes to D is a question you should cut.
- Start with something with no stakes — time of day, holiday preference — and only then ask anything about how they work.
- Do not let it become a panel. Two voices per question, then move.
- The empty corner is worth naming out loud. "Nobody at D — what does D know that we don't?" usually gets the best answer of the round.
- Example questions to start with: Morning / Afternoon / Evening / Late night; Beach / Mountains / City / Countryside; Plan everything / Go with the flow / Ask around / Decide at the last minute.
Watch out for
Space, safety and the traps worth knowing before you start.
- Four genuinely reachable corners. In a room full of tables, use four walls or four raised signs instead.
- Anyone who cannot cross the room easily can point or raise the matching number of fingers instead.
Seated version
“Everybody stand up” is not a neutral instruction. Offer this alongside, not instead.
Hold up one to four fingers instead of walking, and turn to a neighbour for the conversation. Slower to read as a group but the discussion is identical.
Variations
For the second time you run it with the same group.
- Ask the question, then have people guess where the majority went before revealing it.
- Final round: let a participant set the question.
- Ask people to move to the corner they think their team would choose, rather than their own.
Run it yourself
Free for thirty days, no card. Put it on the projector and step through it — nobody in the room needs a phone.
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- Where
- Needs a room
- Props
- 4 paper signs (A, B, C, D)
- Big screen
- Required
- Teams
- Individual only