Does anyone else hate ice breakers in meetings?

[asblindasabat]

I bloody hate them. Sometimes I just don’t know how to answer them. For example, “what are your dislikes?” - I can’t think of anything appropriate to respond to that in a professional environment - saying I dislike fake people probably wouldn’t look to good!

I also hate “what are your favourite movies?” - I don’t really watch movies so I couldn’t tell you the names of most of them and it really makes me look boring!

anyone else just hate them?

The point of the exercise is to get people engaged and talking. People may not know the topic but can talk about themselves

They can get engaged and talking about whatever it is they've all come to talk about or learn-just get cracking and get it over with.

Thing is though… as someone who regularly chairs team meetings I have noticed an increase in how much people participate in the meeting when I have started with an ice breaker (I try to keep them as non-cringe as possible, such as ‘how has your week been’) versus those those times
when I haven’t. So that’s why I do them..

Oh god they are awful. I particularly dislike "Find someone who" which unfortunately a lot of conference organisers are especially fond of.

'How has your week been?' isn't great. Someone could have had an absolutely terrible week and not want to talk about it, I personally wouldn't want to tell a bunch of people I'm only spending the day with about my week, and would be dreading my turn.

I manage a team and my go to ice breaker is a game that doesn't involve having to say anything about yourself. It's just a silly word game with categories and a single letter and the aim is to come up with a unique answer for each category that begins with that letter in the quickest time. It's quite fun and doesn't put anyone on the spot having to talk about themselves. It just gets people a bit more relaxed.

In fairness I imagine everyone just answers ‘good’ or ‘okay thanks.’ It’s almost a pointless question because nobody’s going to sit in front of a room full of strangers and say ‘well actually I’ve been really struggling with xyz and things are difficult for me right now and blah blah.’ It’s just an exercise in saying ‘yes.’

Or 'How has your week been?'
'Well it was going really well and then I found myself here doing a pointless ice breaker when we could have just been getting on with the course and getting home '

Just say "this is my ice breaker - a 600kg polar bear".

😂😂😂 you know I’m not going to lie, anytime I hear the words “ice breaker” I think of icebergs and sheets of ice in the Antarctica and all the polar bears and penguins

@goldfinchonthelawn But it's obvious when I'm telling a lie, you can see it in my face and then I'm sure everyone would laugh at me :( At this point in my life I'm happy to just say I don't want to play.

I've come across a couple of ok ones.

One was that there was a bowl of Smarties in the centre, and everyone had to take 2. Then we went round the circle and you had to answer 2 questions based on the colour of the Smarties you had (eg if it was red then you had to say where you grew up; if it was blue then you had to say where your best holiday was etc). It wasn't too horrific and meant you could give one-word answers, plus you got smarties.

Another was where you had to submit a fact about yourself beforehand (eg "I once fell out of a moving car"). Then at the meeting you got a piece of paper with all the facts on and you had to match them up to the people (you weren't allowed to just ask "which fact is yours?"). That was quite good fun and meant people had things to talk about during coffee. You could also get away with not taking part too much and just lurk at the edge.

However, both of those were in groups where nobody really knew each other (both at 2-day-long conferences) and not in very formal settings.

In groups where most people know each other, ice breakers are awful. Likewise, in a formal work environment, awful.

Surely everyone hates them

I always get the "tell everyone an interesting fact about yourself". My mind goes blank and I feel like I'm the most boring person in the room!!

I was going to say I hate this one! Its awful

Also 'tell us something interesting about yourself that will surprise us'. Or 'if you were a fruit/animal etc what would you be and why?'

Worst one I ever had...'if your life was a newspaper headline, what would it say?'

And all the group activities. Absolutely hate all of it!

It wouldn’t get me more relaxed. It gets my back up.

Why @PriamFarrl ?

I did a course starting in January. The ice breaker was our most funny/best joke Christmas present.

I'm not really a family where we give each other joke Christmas presents, I can't remember what I said.

Then another woman said her husband gave her a loo seat. Before going into a rant. They were headed for divorce before the course was over.

I was interviewing someone for a junior role once, and she didn’t have much experience on her CV, so to break the ice and get her to talk (it was a telesales role, and chatty people generally were better suited) I asked her about her hobbies which were listed as gym, dance, cinema etc. she replied very honestly that she gave all that stuff up because her boyfriend just liked her round his and they mostly ended up in bed 😳 I was not prepared for this answer and stopped asking after that.

todays icebreaker game was 'compare yourself to an animal and explain why' FFS

Oh god, i would be' I'm a cat and I need to be let out, someone open the door'.

Does it though? I am so on edge whenever someone does an icebreaker that the ice breaker just doesn't work .

Worst one I ever had...'if your life was a newspaper headline, what would it say?'

I think I'd enjoy that one. I'd go with "Naff Orff - Princess Anne tells reporters where to go"

It would probably show me up as the oldest person in the room though.

I would hate that. I've never come across anything like that at work (although this is going back 15 years so maybe it's a new thing!)

Icebreakers have been around for years sadly. Time for them to be shelved. Or at the very least the potential participants could get asked if they want to bother with it or just get on with what they are there for.