The Power of Ice Breakers for Team Building
A few years ago, when my agile coaching teammate George and I had just started working with our current agile transformation, we had this phrase we would say to our early adopter teams: “You gotta crank up the goofball!” We thought it was hilarious, a sort of challenge we would push each other on. Who could do something more ridiculous with their team to lighten things up… and teach them something through a team building exercise.
What we were mostly doing was being creative with ice breakers. We’d watch a funny video together, start every meeting with a new silly question, ask questions that get the team sharing stories, or try to make everyone laugh before starting a serious retrospective. Why do you think we did these things?
Agile Teams are most effective when everyone on the team contributes equally to the conversations and the outcomes. The Google study called “Project Aristotle” essentially proved this concept by studying hundreds of teams (read more in this NYTimes article). Most people know that psychological safety makes for better teams. But how do you create trust and build safety with teams of people who have only just started working together?
Building trust has a lot in common with making friends. Learning more about each other creates deeper bonds. Practicing the act of sharing with others helps it to become part of a normal routine. The more we share, the more we know about each other. Getting comfortable enough to be vulnerable in front of others is an important first step to building psychological safety. The more we laugh and have fun together, the more memories we have with each other. The more knowledge and experiences we share, the stronger a team becomes.
Edgar Schein, author of the book “Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling”, spent his whole career studying the topic of building trust and he says the secret to embracing vulnerability and building trust between two individuals is found in the very art of asking a good question. This is especially true for those who hold some sort of authoritative position, but is true for all people. The trick is to ask a question of someone, the answer to which you truly do not know and are genuinely interested in knowing. That very act creates a special kind of exchange. The asker of the question expresses a vulnerability of what they do not know and at the same time shows respect and a genuine interest in the other person that creates a deposit into their friendship account. Try it and see.
Whether you are a scrum master, agile coach, or just a team member looking to strengthen your team, I’d really encourage you to find a new routine of asking questions, having fun together, breaking down barriers and just finding regular ways to crank up the goofball!
If you’re looking for ridiculous videos to start a meeting with a quick laugh:
- “SEAGULLS! (Stop It Now)” — A Bad Lip Reading of The Empire Strikes Back
- Top Soccer Shootout Ever With Scott Sterling
- Paul Rudd Dancing to September
- Monty Python Dead Parrot
- Lazy Sunday SNL
- The Office — Jim Impersonates Dwight
- Funniest Trunk Monkey Commercials
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Hi, I’m Brian Link, an Enterprise Agile Coach who loves his job helping people. I call myself and my company the “Practical Agilist” because I pride myself on helping others distill down the practices and frameworks of the agile universe into easy to understand and simple common sense. I offer fractional agile coaching services to help teams improve affordably. See more at FractionalAgileCoach.com
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