As professional trainers and meeting facilitators we often begin with an ice-breaker. If all goes well, participants become more relaxed and more focused on the topics at hand. A good ice-breaker can set a solid foundation for team building. Participants get to know you and each other better and, hopefully, warm up to the topic!
Unfortunately, it does not always work that way. Sometimes ice-breakers fall flat. For example, when the participants know each other very well, they may think it’s a waste of time. Especially when the ice-breaker is familiar. As participants sink into their chairs and think, “same old, same old,” the ice grows stronger. Yikes!
Borg (ice) cube
Here’s my simple recipe to get started on a high note:
- Keep the ice-breakers short.
- Prepare and practice so you can execute confidently
- Surprise your participants.
- Have fun!
After a series of training sessions, I realized that the participants had enjoyed our ice-breakers so much they had incorporated them into their internal meetings. I now had waves of new trainees who were already familiar with these ice-breakers. With familiarity came lower engagement, and their participation was becoming rote, predictable, stifled. So I decided to shake things up a bit and make up something new. You might want to try one of these three. They fit so well with introductions, you do not need to announce them as ice-breakers.
#1 Made-up word moniker
Make up a new description of yourself by combining two or three words.
Mine is Resolutionary—from Resolving and Solution with a dash of Revolutionary. It expresses my Resolve to bring Revolutionary Solutions to business problems. Easy, right? Someone else said “Data-Ninja”. in other words, “Quantoid and proud of it!”. Now that’s information you can use when you are building your team, isn’t it? The participants loved their made-up monikers so much they amended their name tents to include their new descriptions as middle names. By the end of the session, we were referring to them as super powers from their not-so-secret identities. Fortunately, no one graduated to costumes…
Speaking of costumes….
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