Let's Talk About Icebreakers
or: why imply there is ice in the first place?
Look, I get it. Icebreakers are no fun, everyone resents having to do them, and despite their purpose (and amaaaazing name) they often create more resentment in the room than doing anything useful to promote connection.
But let’s be honest, that’s because most of them have no relevance to the meeting and feel arbitrary.
People don’t like to perform arbitrary tasks. Especially not at meetings.
And please, this is a real challenge: find me a group of people who are excited to play two truths and a lie.
It’s clunky, it’s awkward, and it takes forever and reveals very little about everyone in the circle. At best you get two facts. I also just don’t think it’s a good idea to start a session off by…lying to each other. Unnecessary!
What icebreakers are supposed to do is orient your group to the session they’re about to attend. If you’ve got an hour of decision making to make happen, maybe getting people to make a choice right up top is helpful so you can see how people make decisions.
The designated purpose for icebreakers is just to get people comfortable speaking in front of the group. That’s it. Connection happens naturally when people share something about themselves, but it doesn’t have to be deep or intimate. In fact, it probably shouldn’t be!
“Where is your favorite place to sit after you get home from work?” is not a particularly revealing question but it’s something that the group probably haven’t been asked before, which means people are thinking of their responses instead of remembering.
Icebreakers are not a competition and there’s no prize for having the funniest answer. Tailoring your questions to the group and giving them clear paramaters for how to respond to the question keeps everyone’s answers to the point and ego’s in check.
So, now that we’ve covered my thoughts on why you should definitely still do an opening activity let’s get into some concrete suggestions for how to make them better.
Resolute, enthusiastic, not too ambitious
First, let’s determine the purpose of your icebreaker. Is it for everyone to:
1. Get comfortable saying things out loud in front of the entire group?
2. Get a read on how everyone is feeling entering the meeting?
3. Get a sense of what everyone knows about the subject of the meeting already?
Once we’ve determined that, we can mold the “icebreaker” to our needs.
One suggestion no matter what prompts you end up using: don’t call it an icebreaker. People will clam up. Even if 90% of your group are totally game, why risk losing the 10% by using the phrase?
Let’s break down what a “good” icebreaker looks like depending on it’s purpose.
1. Getting everyone comfortable with sharing with the entire group
Some people are going to be reticent to share all of their thoughts out loud with everyone, which means that the first actions they take in a meeting probably shouldn’t require them to do that. It’s not about “comfort zones” it’s about building up their psychological safety so that when their participation becomes crucial, they’re ready and willing to engage.
So, start by not talking! Have everyone *write* their response first.
Have everyone write for one minute about what they are hoping to get out of the meeting today. Then go around and have everyone share a one-sentence summary of what they wrote.
- By writing first, everyone will have something to share when it’s their turn
- Holding a piece of paper (or any prop) reduces vulnerability
- Hearing everyone’s hopes for the meeting will help align everyone’s purpose and create a new dynamic of understanding
2. Getting a read on how everyone is feeling entering the meeting
Go around the table/circle and have everyone fill in the blanks to this prompt:
“Today I am feeling ____, but also ____.”
It’s short, to the point, and you will have two data points from everyone by the time you’re done!
With open ended questions like, “How are you feeling coming in today?” everyone has to make individual judgements of how long their responses should be, leaving you with the responsibility of cutting them off if they start to ramble. The presence of a “blank” in the sentence communicates the brevity you’re hoping for from the responses without you having to specify.
Another general tip: model how you’d like people to respond! Humans are so quick at picking up on each others behavior and will mirror how you respond when they answer.
3. Getting the group to better understand where themselves & each other are
Have the entire group respond to a series of questions by physically placing themselves on a spectrum.
Make one side of the spectrum “strongly agree” and the other side “strongly disagree” then, ask your question and have people move to where they fall on the spectrum. You can ask follow-up questions once everyone is in place, or just allow them to get a sense of where each other is before asking your next question.
Sample prompts:
- I feel really hopeful about how much progress we’ve made so far
- I know how much work is left to do in this project
- Everyone on my team has an understanding of why they’re working on their component
The point of an icebreaker is to get things going. We can do that intetionally, promote group connection without creating individual resistance, and it doesn’t have to take more than five minutes.
In fact, it probably shouldn’t!
Let me know in the comments if you’ve got a go-to icebreaker OR tell me the absolute worst icebreaker you’ve ever had to do.
Email me anytime at themeetingmedic@gmail.com and sign up for a meeting consultation with me here!