Ice breakers - I hate them with every fibre of my soul but have been asked to organise two for Friday

[catin8oots]

9 colleagues. 4 new, never met before. All women if that's relevant?

Please help me before I quit my job 😀

Great idea

Kahoot is actually quite fun! Maybe do a quiz about icebreakers?!

I have never told the truth in an ice breaker, they are pointless and only benefit the confident of the group.

Get a pack of cards, chocolates and leave them to it!
I bet you they will introduce themselves and get along fine...

Get a jigsaw puzzle with about 50 pieces, and share the pieces randomly between everybody and ask them to complete the puzzle. Don't let them see the picture on the box. First one to guess what the picture is wins a KitKat.

They do serve important purposes. I don't think that makes up for what they do, but if I can change them into something that doesn't affect the people who hate them, I think it's a win:win.

Another trick to break ice more subtly is to play music for any 'silent times' like before you start or breaks. People find it hard to talk in a silent room but if there's music they will. In multi-day trainings I encourage the group to choose the music on subsequent days. My favourite was 'music from your home country' day. We had everything from Ghanaian to Filipino. Chosen by the group with no input from me.

This is giving me flashbacks to the time I had to give an interesting or fun fact about myself for an icebreaker and could think of neither. So clearly I’m neither interesting nor fun. I would keep it simple if you really can’t get out of it. Put everyone in pairs with a few questions to ask each other and share back with the rest of the group? Or I quite like the extrovert/introvert one someone else posted.

Ohhh no. Everything feels so cheesy but it sounds like you need something! You could do something based on the traitors as traitors stuff is everywhere at the moment.

-Write faithful on 7 pieces of paper and traitor on 2.

-Fold them so no one can see the words and put them into a hat or a bowl.

-Each participant draws a piece of paper but does not reveal it to others.
-Everyone takes turns introducing themselves, just basic name and role.
-After intros, everyone has a few minutes to chat, grab a cuppa and try to guess who the traitors might be.

-After this, gather back as a group.
Each person then says who they think the traitors are.
-The people with the most votes reveal their roles. If the traitors are found, the faithful participants win. If not, the traitors win.

They have gold bar things on the show, so maybe chocolate coins as a joke prize.

I'd just play stop the bus instead. No awkwardness and uses up a few minutes

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources/teaching-secondary/activities/beginner-a1/stop-bus

Favourite one to participate in was arrange yourselves around the room in order of your birthday (Jan 1st to the left, through to Dec 31st to the right) without actually talking. Then when arranged say your birthday out loud to confirm the sequence. It was quite a laugh, got everyone moving and might be a coincidence that I formed a firm friendship with another colleague who shared my birthday.

OP, I really feel for you. I'm a facilitator at work and I loathe icebreakers and any kind of organised 'fun'. There's none of that crap when I'm in charge but sometimes I support a colleague with a session where they're in charge. I swear to you that some people LIVE for this sort of thing. They light up and often get insanely competitive with stuff like the spaghetti and marshmallows. I find it all really exhausting 😁

I think the two truths and one lie is not a bad one. Another could be asking people to share where they would be right now if they could be anywhere in the world - can elaborate if they want but no pressure. Or asking people what is the VERY FIRST thing they would buy if they won the lottery - not buying a house or car, coz that would take ages, but what would you buy immediately

Good luck. It's a load of shit really

@biscuitcat great idea to share the boring fact!

Guilty pleasure TV/book/music is funny too

I accidentally broke someone's nose in an icebreaker once. I still feel bad about it!

Christ, is it possible to have second hand PTSD?

I appreciate you guys but my dread is growing even more now 😀😀😀

Put some random, weird stuff in the front/middle of the room. Then arrive about 5 minutes late. Everyone will be wondering if the weird stuff is for an icebreaker and they’ll all chat to each other to see if anyone knows what it’s all about and/or moan together about how much they hate icebreakers and then, when you arrive just launch into the day without mentioning the random stuff at all.

I agree, I can’t. I’m there to work. I don’t want to fall anyone where I grew up or what my business is. If I form a friendship I’ll form it myself. I really strongly believe it’s not required to open up to woek colleagues. I’m very friendly and I will go out of my way to help you… but I’m not telling you anything about my personal life in order o continue to do my job. I just don’t think this carry on should be a thing! No one, apart from people who want get up on stage and then figure out what they’re going to do as a party piece once they’re up there, want to participate in this hell! Insanity! sorry I edited to say I know this beyond unhelpful! I clearly got triggered! 😂

Brilliant, just do this OP 😁

Squid games!

I guarantee the majority of you will be dead won't have to sit though any more ice breakers again 😂

This is actually insane 😂

I’d love to see someone asking a group of male professionals on the spot for a ‘time-saving household hack they would recommend’. No googling, no conferring.

I am sitting here thankful that I do not have to deal with this kind thing in my workplace.

I remember in University they did some teambuilding crap with us. One was which group could build the highest tower out of clothes pegs and the other was we had to play scrabble, then try to remember all the words, clear the board and rebuild. Our group cheated a bit. One of the men found the instruction book and there was a sample board on it. We just copied that.

I love this idea.

Just play chorno guesser. Guess the age of the picture. Doesn't ask for personal information then

Our last team day we did lining ourselves up in order based on things like date of birthday, what time you got up this morning etc. It wasn't too painful (other than there not being enough space for the line and having your toes repeatedly trodden on!)

I have a colleague who is fond of an icebreaker of handing out jigsaw pieces with random themed words on them and you have to find the people with the rest of your puzzle. There are several puzzles and a prize to finish one first. Fortunately for you 9 people is not enough to inflict that on them as it brings out some terrifyingly competitive behaviour!