Icebreakers that won’t make you roll your eyes
“Let’s start with an icebreaker!”
Did your stomach drop? Are you getting sweaty? Are you considering switching off the camera and pretending you have an unstable internet connection? Are you ready to excuse yourself to the restroom to avoid what’s about to come next?
Icebreakers don’t have to be anxiety-inducing or cringe-worthy. In fact, icebreakers play a big role in building successful communities where teams can learn and grow together in meaningful ways.
I’ve been working in the field of learning and education for a decade and it’s abundantly clear to me that learning is a vulnerable process. As we learn and grow we must also shed beliefs that once defined our identities and let go of mindsets that were profoundly connected to the way we wanted to be seen in the world. Learning requires us to live into the discomfort of being wrong and the ambiguity of not knowing. Learning is hard and it requires us to be humble and open to making mistakes.
Any team working together on a project or toward a goal is inherently a community of learners. We learn something from every individual we work with and from every project we work on–and looking at ourselves as learners gives us the space to make some mistakes, develop new skills, and lean on a community of individuals with different experiences and perspectives than we have.
Establishing trust among a team of learners early sets the foundation for deep learning and development later on. Icebreakers serve an important purpose in opening people up, inviting them to engage in a growth mindset, and disarming them just enough to tap into some vulnerability that is so important for growth and learning.
Here are some of my favorite icebreakers that won’t make you want to self-eject from Zoom:
Commonalities
Form small groups (3-4 people) and ask the group to find as many commonalities as possible in 4 minutes. Instruct them to skip over the most obvious ones (“we are all working on this project together”) and branch out into things they don’t already know about each other.
Variation: Next ask them to find differences. The differences must be something that everyone in the group has a different answer. It might be a different favorite type of pizza, different astrological signs, or different hometowns.
Why it works: It’s a low-stakes challenge that will get the groups working together right away. It also gives an opportunity to make immediate connections (“What?! You also studied abroad in Sweden?!”) that may otherwise take a while to surface.
Share an Object
Invite everyone to look around their space for an object that speaks to them emotionally in the moment. Then ask them to share the object they chose and have them explain why it is a visual representation of their current emotional state.
Example: “I chose this pack of colored pens because I am feeling particularly colorful and creative today, but I also feel ready to get things done, which pens are great for!”
Variation: Find an object that represents your past. Find an object that represents your future. Give them any relevant topic that requires them to assign some emotional qualities to an object and have them explore why they chose the object.
Why it works: It primes the group for thinking creatively by assigning an emotional state to an object. It also gives a quick read on the emotional states of the people in the room.
Story Icons
Use ambiguous iconography to invite personal storytelling. Prepare a set of small cards with a small visual icon on each (use our virtual set here). Each person will take turns flipping over a card and revealing the icon underneath. They will then tell the first personal story, memory, or fact about themselves that comes to mind when they see their icon. Each person will reveal a new icon and share a corresponding story on the spot. As the facilitator, share an example to show how these needn’t be elaborate or even particularly interesting. The idea is to invite a new way of learning more about each other.
Example: “This kind of looks like a rice cooker to me, so the first thing that I thought about is just how bad I am at making rice. I don’t have a rice cooker and it seems like every time I try to make rice I get it wrong! If anyone has the perfect way to make rice without a rice cooker, let me know.”
Variation: You can intentionally theme the icons if you’re trying to encourage stories, memories, or facts from a specific theme.
Why it works: The icons we reveal will likely spark different memories and allow us to tap into memories or stories that reveal new things about ourselves to colleagues. I would probably never mention anything about rice to my coworkers otherwise, so it can be a fun way to unearth random bits of knowledge about your team.
Icon Source: Smash Icons
No Looking Art/Sightless Art
Have everybody grab a piece of paper and a pen or pencil. Then instruct them that once those two objects have made contact, they must not look at them again and they will draw the prompt without looking at the paper. Everyone can either close their eyes or stare directly into their camera. Choose a prompt that is somewhat easy to draw and give everyone 30 seconds to do their best. Do a show and tell after 30 seconds and let the laughs pour in.
Prompts:
A giraffe
A rhino
Your favorite animal
Your birthday dessert of choice
Variation: Establish pairs and have them draw each others’ faces without looking at the paper. This variation requires a little more trust but results in a lot more laughs.
Why it works: Even the artists in your group probably won’t be good at drawing without sight so it evens the playing field and sets a tone where it is psychologically safe to fail. Everyone will laugh as drawings are shared and depending on the prompt you might learn something new about your people.
🔎 Behind-the-scenes note: In the process of writing this post, a colleague pointed out that the original name for this activity included ableist language. With the help of this article, we reworked two alternative names to be more inclusive in our language choice.
Ask a question
The most simple and obvious icebreaker is a good question. Relate your question to the topic you’re about to discuss or pick something that’s just for fun and helps you learn more about the team.
Prompts:
What’s a great meal you’ve had?
What’s a crazy vacation experience that you can share?
What’s your go-to dish for a potluck?
What did you think you wanted to do for a career when you were in high school?
Why it works: Theming your question to your topic can do double-duty in priming your participants for a discussion and gauging their experience levels with the topic. A thoughtful question goes a long way in building connections between people and ideas.
All of these activities were inspired by or originally shared by other people and iterated and adapted as needed in a variety of ways. Take these ideas and adapt them as you see fit! Good luck out there!