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How To Use Ice Breakers To Motivate Employees

In this section of the site, I want to give you a toolkit of ice breakers to use for meetings, conferences, or whenever a group of people or employees are together.

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But first, I want to give you a bit of background on why this is such a powerful tool for employee motivation.

If you want to go directly to the details if the ice breakers, just scroll down or follow this link

For those of you who are interested in some background, here it comes.

I have found in my 15 years of using these games, that EVERYONE has a child inside of him or her. And that child has the same need to play and to have fun than it has when the person was five years old…it doesn’t matter how old the person is now.

Never underestimate the power of ice breakers on employee motivation. It is difficult to measure its impact on meetings exactly. But believe me. The value is priceless. If you are still wondering, here are some benefits.

It breaks down the natural barriers that exist between people.
It clears people’s minds. Most of us pitch up at meetings with our bodies there, but our minds are either on what we did before the meeting, or on what we still need to do after the meeting. Ice breakers bring them into the here and now.
Ice breakers are fun and bring laughter to the process. I don’t think I have to emphasize the benefit of that…especially if you are working with generations X and Y.
If the meeting consists of people that don’t interact a lot, it will do a lot to get them to know one another better.
It is a great stress reliever. Employee motivation and stress management is NOT something that happens separate from the day to day activities. It has to happen simultaneously. Ice breakers are a great way of doing just that.
People and employees interact with one another on a different level. I have found that employees usually follow the same pattern of talk when they interact. It’s mostly about work and sometimes some other topics. Ice breakers get them to interact on a different level

It breaks down the facades that we carry around with us.

I can carry on and on about the benefits of ice breakers, but I will stick to these for now. I hope I have sold you on the value that it can add to employee motivation.

Tips on How to Use and Facilitate Ice Breakers.

Sometimes HOW you say or do something is far more important than WHAT you say or do. And it goes double for Ice breakers. Here are some important tips on how to maximize the benefit of these games:

Have fun with it yourself. This is the most important part. Don’t just do it as another part of your agenda.
Get over your fear of emotional discomfort. To some people this will be the biggest barrier. Don’t worry about acting stupid. Just because you are dressed in a suit and have a certain amount of status doesn’t mean that you can’t do funny and stupid things.
Use music if you can. If the activity involves a lot of movement, get upbeat music. If it requires just talking, use appropriate background music.
NEVER think that your employees will not take to this. I can guarantee you they will. Don’t think that these games will not be fun for them. Or that they are too old or too senior or too whatever. Trust me. They will love it.
I get many people who tell me that their employees or delegates wouldn’t like these games. Earlier in my career, I’ve listened to them. The last couple of years though, I’ve totally ignore those warnings and advice…and I have never been disappointed.

Build your activities up. In other words, don’t start with an activity that makes people extremely emotionally uncomfortable. Yep. Those are usually the gems, but you need to ease the people into the activity.
Rather start with ice breakers that involve just talking. Then you can move on to games where people touch one another. After that, they will be ready for the way-out ones.

OK. I hope you have enough background by now. If you have never used ice breakers before, just follow these guidelines and you will be OK.

The Ice Breakers

There are different ways to categorize activities. I am going to divide them into only two parts. Talking Activities and Touching Activities.

Start with the talking activities first and then move on to the touching games.

I’m going to start with seven activities of each, but I will add some more later.

Talking activities

Paired Sharings

This is the most basic talking activity of them all. You give people a topic to talk about in pairs (two-two). After the paired sharings, they share what they have discussed with the rest of the group. I always start with this activity. In my experience, it’s the best one to start with. Read more…

Who am I…?!

Everyone get a tag with a famous name on it…David Beckham, Osama Bin Laden, Barack Obama, Oprah, and so on. They don’t know what’s on their card because it’s pinned to their backsides. So everyone knows what’s on everyone else’s name tag, except their own. People then walk around and ask questions to find out “who they are”. Read more…

Two Truths and a Lie

Also in pairs. Each person shares three things about themselves to the other person. Two of those things are truths and one is a lie. The other person then needs to guess which one is the lie. Read more…

Sorts and Mingle

You through out a general category and people walk around to find other people with the same answer as theirs. All the people with the same answer then group together. An example of a category is, “What type of car do you drive?” Read more…

Autograph Bingo

Everyone get a list of very uncommon and bizarre facts like, “Doesn’t own any blue jeans”. The participants then walk around and try to find at least one person that matches these facts. Read more…

Never have I ever…

People sit in circle or around a table and share things that they haven’t done before in a fun way. Read more…

First impressions game

People walk around and share their positive first impressions of other people in a fun way. Read more…

Touching Activities

Human Knot

Everyone stands in a bundle, close together. They are asked to raise their hands and everyone take another person’s hand. This way they form a human knot. The challenge is to untangle themselves. Read more…

Lap Sit

Everyone stand in a circle, with their right leg to the inside. On the count of three, they all sit down on the lap of the person behind them. Read more...

Catch My Finger

Sit in a circle. Everyone hold their hands on either side of them. The one hand has an open hand palm facing the roof. The other hand has their index finger pointing to the ground. Each person then put the index finger in the palm of the person sitting/standing next to him or her. On the count of three, they have to try to catch the person’s finger. At the same time, they need to lift their finger on the other side, so that the other person can’t catch theirs. Read more…

BANG!!

People stand in a circle and hold their hands together in front of them as if it’s a gun. Somebody is “it”. That person then chooses to “shoot” any other person by saying their name and “BANG”. The “victim” then has to duck down and the two on either side need to shoot one another by saying “BANG” The person who is shot first go to the middle. Read more…

Line up

People line themselves up from the person whose birthday is the earliest in the year to the one whose birthday is the latest. This all happens without anyone talking. Read more…

Chaos

I usually use this one as my last ice breaker. Play loud, upbeat music. The group have 30 seconds to touch three walls, hug three people and sit in a different chair next to someone else. Read more...

Inside Out

The group stand in a circle and hold hands. They face the inside. The challenge is for the group (without letting go of the hands), to all get their arms folded in front of their chests, still holding hands and to face the inside of the circle. A nice brainteaser. Read more…

And that all for now folks. Remember to sign in to The Energizer, to receive updates of more Ice Breaker Games

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