Ice Breakers – Creating Conditions For Active Listening
By Alan Gillies

The aim of Ice-Breakers is to establish an agreeable environment for proceedings to happen by helping the participants feel at ease. These methods are all the more necessary when the people involved don’t know each other well enough to make a good beginning. An ice-breaker will assist the participants with becoming relaxed and also set the mood for a discussion to develop. This relaxed state of mind will greatly aid the participants with being more focused and receptive so they can actively listen to all forms of communication.

Ice breakers are used not only in the beginning, but also when the meeting is in the midway or reaches a difficult situation. The content and timing of using an ice-breaker doesn’t need to be given excessive consideration – as some individuals instinctively understand how to implement an ice-breaker. With minimal training, others can easily learn this skill as well.

Ice-breakers are basically small exercises that inspire individual enthusiasm – making interpersonal situations more favourable, with the usual overall result of more meaningful interactions. Some of the commonly used ones are:

1. True or False – Ask each individual to state three facts about themselves, two of which are correct, and one false. The other members are to guess at the incorrect statement. The individual who guesses the False statement is then the next up for the following phase of the game.

2. Inferring – Ask each person to write a list of their choices, for example, favourite animal, flower, and personal hobbies. Read out these details to the group one by one without revealing the name of the individual being discussed, and then ask the others to guess who was just being talked about.

3. Ask the participants to state two or three adjectives about themselves that start with the same letter as the initial of their first name. This generally enhances everyone’s thought process.

4. Physical exercises will remove any lethargic feeling some may have, for instance, ask the participants to stretch their arms and legs.

Some of the Do’s and Don’ts that can help in the successful use of ice-breakers are:

Do’s

- The game specified should be appropriate and tailored to the group at hand.

- Make the instructions as simple as possible to understand.

- Watch the participants to ensure that they are having fun with the process.

- Irrespective of how much effort you have put into devising a good ice-breaker, it may not work. So, always have a back-up plan in place.

- Make sure that you have the right number of people for the game.

Don’ts

- Don’t go for ice-breakers which might make the participants feel uncomfortable, physically or mentally.

- Don’t force anyone to participate.

- Don’t be unorganized. Have all of the material you might need, as any delay can quickly make the atmosphere lose direction and focus.

- Don’t underestimate the time that might be needed for completing this activity.

- Don’t limit the use of ice-breakers to the start of a meeting

Finally, as a general rule of thumb – insert Ice-Breakers whenever needed.

Copyright (c) 2009 Alan Gillies

Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of the L2L group, specialising in providing Executive Coaching, Training and Consultancy Services to Businesses across the Globe. Want to learn more about these business success strategies? Get Alan’s popular FREE ebook, available at http://www.l2lgroup.com

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