Ice breaker games that you don't hate??

[pastypirate]

I'm doing a session at a team building event tomorrow. What do you not all loathe? I'm doing two truths and a lie so far. It's only for about half an hour and essentially as a team we get on great.

I don't like any of these very much. If you have to, a simple quiz - trivia/genral knowledge - is least likely to upset people.

There are none. Why do they need to be done at all if you already get on great?

Cringe. If you al get on why do you need ice breakers?

None. They're all equally crap and pointless.

Ones which aren't based on giving info about yourself which includes 2 truths and a lie (sorry!!) But maybe that would work well if you are an established team with good levels of trust amongst you all.
Otherwise, I'd go for quizzes, intros round, pub quiz type things.

Would You Rather?

We just did two:

One where we were given 3 categories and had to give an answer. e.g. favourite film, book, band, food, who you'd like to go for dinner with etc. Then the person to your left read it out.

The second one we wrote one thing off our bucket list on a post it and stuck them to the wall. One person read them out and we had to guess whose was whose.

We'd all met online but hadn't all met in person.

Was better than forced games.

Please don't do two truths and a lie. It's awful.

All cringe. Although one theory is the real purpose is to bond the team in hatred of the facilitator. So on that basis the most excruciating one you can think of

Tomorrow? Did this get dropped on you?

I don’t understand why you’re doing ice breakers for a team building event where everyone already knows one another.

Just dive straight in with useful activities. Or use the 30 minutes for longer informal chatting over coffee.

There is nothing worse than doing ice breakers with people you already know. It’s bad enough when it’s strangers who you need to build a relationship with.

Two truths and a lie is my idea of hell, like all ice breakers. It is even worse if you already know each other.

Why do you even need one when you clearly realise 99% of people hate them?

Hate all ice breakers. Completely pointless. Rather everyone just introduced themselves, name, what role they work in.

Would like it if everyone wore a name badge. That's the best ice breaker, a sticker with their name on as when they've said it in introductions I forget most of them and feel rude for rest of day.

You know, just because the standard format for these things has a section called ‘ice breakers’, it doesn’t mean you need one.

if it’s an already established team, longer unstructured socialising is much better. Especially if there’s been limited face to face contact for ages.

An unexpected fact about themselves. Like you are one of identical triplets, you used to be a child model, you are fluent in sign language. It's short and it makes people consider you differently and reminds everyone that people are more than their appearance and job title.

It will bring joy to the whole room if you just announce that, instead of a painful ice breaker activity, you’re just expending the coffee and chat. The first activity will start at 9.30 or whatever.

joy. Bucket loads of it.

easyday that one is awful. I don’t have any unexpected facts about myself and it always embarrasses me especially when everyone else is like ‘I speak 19 languages and am an Olympic finalist on the Penny farthing’

Don't do any, everyone will thank you. As someone who has zero 'interesting' facts about themselves I always find them really stressful!

Snap Scarlett !

Urgh when will these bloody ice breakers just die? Why do we keep being put through this pish? See also: role play

The best ice-breaker is to announce that ice-breaking activities are cringy and there won't be one so time for another coffee.
People will bond over their shares feelings of relief and gratitude

Or say that you are getting straight on with the team building cringe fest and evereyone can go home half an hour earlier.
Not everyone wants to be forced to chat with either strangers, or people you work with every day, for half an hour.

Loads of people really do just want to be seen as their job role at work though. They don’t necessarily want their colleagues to get to know them in a more rounded way.

There are all sorts of reasons why they might feel this way.

i also agree that role play is always excruciating. No one looks forward to that in a work meeting. Or training.

They could announce it now. So people can just turn up later.

Or, yes, finish earlier.

The one I always go to bow is draw a map of the uk and ask them to say where their favourite place in the UK is and why. No one minds doing this and answers can be brief and superficial or more in depth and emotional so people can pitch their replies where they’re comfortable.