Meetings, a love story.
#1. Inspire good mood!
Meetings… Whether it’s the big annual strategic meeting, the monthly team point, the weekly meeting, the briefing session or the project steering session, we all have a relationship of love / hate with it.
We all criticize meetings, we all reject meetings, we all spend too much time in meetings… Well, bad news for you, meetings are not going to end. So, we can not escape meetings it’s a fact, but we can change it.
Giving participants the desire to go to a meeting with smiles, involve them and turn it into a real collaborative dynamic, is a long journey.
Here is the first article of a series to regain control of this precious and misued moment.
The first step is to put joy, and so put your heart and soul into it.
Today, we suggest to have a look to “icebreakers” — these little introduction exercices to energize a group. Icebreakers arouse enthusiasm and sometimes a beginning of disinhibition. But they also are here to bring us back that we are not only managers, representatives or directors but firstly humans, we need interactions and fun!
1/ What is an icebreaker?
Working together is the reason for being in a company!
Unfortunately, it is not innate so far … While some are comfortable speaking in groups, others are shy and will tend to keep their opinion for them and not to end up in the limelight. Some even come with their personal problems and have their minds elsewhere (we are human above all!). Yet, it is the diversity of profiles, skills and opinions that make a team strong!
So that everybody feels involved, motivated and comfortable we need to create the right atmosphere within the team. This is what icebreakers are made for. If your participants do not know each other, it is also an opportunity to make them get to know each other by avoiding the usual and interminable round table presentations.
2/ An icebreaker during a meeting… What is the point?
The first advantage of the icebreaker is to involve everyone around the table. This phenomenon, called inclusion, is essential for acclimatizing participants to group sharing. By giving a task or even just a chance to speak to everyone, you involve everyone without distinction! Shy people, for example, generally feel more comfortable expressing their ideas if they have already been given the floor.
Moreover, by treating each individual with the same regard, you abolish the hierarchical levels during your meeting. Indeed, it’s easier to say that you do not agree with your boss once you have spent 15 minutes playing LegoⓇ with her/him!
The icebreaker is also an opportunity to spread the word and set the tone for your upcoming meeting! Thus, each icebreaker must be accompanied by a debrief, explaining its morals. It will be an opportunity to make the participants understand, or even make them live, what you expect from them on this working time. If you are approaching a meeting with a lot of issues, or even conflicting relationships between the participants, focus on an icebreaker insisting on communication! If you brainstorm on a new service or product, choose one that demonstrates the collective intelligence of a group!
Finally, the icebreaker is an opportunity to energize the group. Nobody comes to a meeting with joy and enthusiasm (it’s a shame!), so reboost them with a fun and playful icebreaker! Between us, is it really useful to explain why a welded and dynamic group is more pleasant and effective than a passive group, even slightly asleep? :)
3/ But How can I choose the right icebreaker for my meetings?
The first big question to ask is: do all participants in this meeting know each other? If not, you must choose an icebreaker that allows participants to meet and introduce themselves. For example, the icebreaker 2 truths & 1 lie fulfills this role very well. Ask the participants to announce 2 truths and 1 lie about them, the other members of the team have to guess the truth!
At nod-A Makestorming, we will rather use the icebreaker “Crazy Jobs”, each participant has to say why he or she would be the best at this “Crazy Job” based on his or her own skills and personality.
If your participants already know each other, you have more freedom in choosing your icebreaker. If you want to get into the subject without wasting time, you can try the “Pecha Kucha”. Give the participants about thirty minutes to make an inventory of the subject and present their opinion in this synthetic format from Japan. If you do not have 30 minutes to prepare the exercise, you can also try our “7-family cards”.
Finally, if you are looking for a funnier icebreaker to get your participants move and / or think, use Lego® or try the famous “Marshmallow Challenge”. Our crush to initiate a team to “do/work together” is the icebreaker of “the bridge”. Each a team is asked to build a bridge to connect two chairs from 1 meter away, by using a single A4 sheet, without sticking on the chairs (yes, yes, it is possible!).
Now that the icebreakers have no secrets for you, no more excuses for the unmotivated participants! They will be involved, boosted from the beginning of the meeting, ready to make things happen. But beyond all these benefits, doing an icebreaker is changing our relationship to work, leaving manager to collaborator relationships, or employer to employee, to finally return to a human-to-human relationship.
If you liked this format, we’ll see you again soon for a new article giving you the tips to break the usual postures in meetings and take a little height on your daily work! In the meantime, do not hesitate to share your best meeting practices, we will integrate the best in the next articles of the series!
This article was written by Tobias Riché, Product designer and Product owner at nod-A Makestorming.
Makestorming reinvents ways of working by putting human and collaborative work at the heart of the companies.
We design Sprints, distribute tools and provide training. This enable transformation while releasing the full capacity of teams and individuals
You want to know more about Makestorming?
- lisa@makestorming.com
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