6 Simple Icebreakers That Are Actually Fun
Stop with the cringe-inducing icebreakers and try these ones instead
I have been in thousands of meetings, training sessions or classes that I look back on and think how strange it is that I’m never there alone and yet that’s pretty much how it feels.
I’ve been in training sessions as part a group of people learning something together, avoiding each other’s eye contact because we haven’t been properly introduced, wanting to keep ourselves to ourselves and anyway — mum always told us not to talk to strangers, right?
We’ve all been in meetings where we all know each other technically well — hey, we spend almost every day together — but actually we’ve barely scratched the surface and mostly tip-toe around subjects until we get to the point of it all (3 meetings later).
Wouldn’t it be better to have a bit of a personal connection with those around us to encourage us all to open up a little more, let go of the stiffness of just being a bunch of bodies in a room waiting to run off to our safe spaces, to get creative and have some FUN together?
That said — there’s a fine line between fun and cringe-worthy when it comes to icebreakers.
So below is a list of icebreakers which I have found usually spark interesting conversations rather than eye-rolls.
1. The “Would I Lie to You?” Icebreaker
Starting with my personal favourite — in this exercise you ask each person to write down two truths about themselves and one lie. Then when everyone is finished, each person reads their list out and everyone else tries to guess which one is the lie. Make it interesting and help the group learn something new about you too!
Tip: It helps to give a couple of examples like “My mother’s name is Janet” or “As a kid I had a pet potato” to get the group warmed up.
2. The One Word Icebreaker
Tell everyone the topic of the meeting / event and then ask each person to say one word they associate with it. Be the one to start to set the tone of how creative you want it to be.
Tip: This is a great one to play with people who are allergic to the word “icebreaker” — they won’t even realise it is one!
3. The Secret Handshake
Get people into pairs and ask each pair to make a “secret” handshake. Once they’ve nailed it, ask everyone to find a new partner to teach their secret handshake to. Encourage people to use their secret handshake before leaving the room at the end of the meeting.
Tip: Join in! Even if everybody is already paired up, get yourself into a group of 3 and create an even more elaborate handshake.
4. The Guess Who Icebreaker
Pick a question, for example “What was your first job?”, ask each person to write down an answer to that question and put all the answers in a hat. Pull out the answers one by one and as a group try to guess who it belongs to.
Some fun questions to use:
- What is your crazy retirement plan?
- What is your dream job?
- When you were 10, what did you want to be when you grew up?
- What is the weirdest job you’ve ever had?
- What is your strangest hobby? (not too strange — you don’t want things to get awkward)
5. The Self Improvement Icebreaker
This is a good one to set people’s brains into a positive improvement oriented mindset before the meeting. Ask each person to share a skill or talent they would like to develop. It can be work related or personal but keep it lighthearted if you can and you’ll find out some interesting new things about your participants.
Tip: Be interested! Ask a follow-up question to each person to encourage them to share a little bit more about the skill or talent they’ve revealed.
6. The Year of the Coin
This needs a little prep as you need a bag of coins with different dates on to begin with. Encourage everyone to take a coin from the bag, go around the room and ask each person to reveal the date on their coin and share a significant thing that happened in their life that year. You can shake things up by asking them not to reveal the date and instead get the group to guess.
Tip: If you don’t want things to get too personal just ask the participants to share what job they had / what year of school they were in during that year instead.
Are you a facilitator? Scrum something? Project manager? Check out a couple of my other posts below that might be of interest:
Thanks for reading! Leave your icebreaker tips in the comments below — I love ‘em!
