Best Ice Breakers for Business

I saw one recently great twitter series About the best icebreakers for the job – especially for getting into small groups in a virtual meeting – and I thought this would be a great discussion here. If you lead groups or manage new hires, do you use icebreakers in your meetings or training? Have you ever been to a meeting where there was a great or terrible, memorable icebreaker?

Best Ice Breakers for Business

Some of the ones that showed up in the Twitter thread included (my favorites on the list):

• Show off and explain your phone’s background.
• Tell us about a great sandwich you ate (the person who suggested it said it sparked a surprisingly great conversation!)
• If you were invited as a guest on a podcast unrelated to your profession, what would it be?
• What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done for fun?
• In which fictional universe would you most like to live?
• You won the lottery, first three things what do you buy?
• When you were 5 years old, what did you want to be when you grow up?
• Where is the most interesting/remembering place you’ve been in the shoes you’re currently wearing?
• A former boss will always ask, “What’s a job that isn’t on your resume?” she liked to ask. You learn really interesting things (the boss said he teaches jazzercise to seniors!)
• If you were an action figure, what would be your main accessory?
• Which TV house would you like to live in and why?
• What skills do you give your team of survivors in the event of a zombie apocalypse?
• If you had to bring a plate to a meal to tell people about yourself, what would it be?
• Where should your life story be when told?
• I ask everyone to share something nice. It can be really small: something they cooked great, they stained their favorite shirt, they planted their plants for the summer, etc. When you do this every week, it turns into a really nice way to get to know people. .
• What language/slang would you bring back if you could?
• What’s your favorite way to eat potatoes?
• Would you rather be the best player on a losing team or the worst player on a winning team?
• What is your favorite ice cream combination?
• Choose a fashion trend to disappear from the face of the world and never come back
• Where would you like to travel to but where you haven’t been? Or where is your favorite place to travel?
• In a box of assorted donuts, which one best describes you.
• If you were an action figure, what would be your main accessory?
• Tell us your unpopular opinion
• The best karaoke song (and why)
• When was the last time you danced (and for what)
• What superpower would you like to have (fly, power, invisibility, telekinesis, etc.)?
• What would be on your concert drive?
• If you were to die tomorrow, what would you eat tonight?
• What would you collect if money didn’t matter?
• What is something you do to surprise your co-workers?
• What’s your fight song?
• What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen in person in the real world?
• What is it that you have dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done yet?
• What is your favorite condiment and what is your least favorite condiment?
• What new personal skill would you develop if you went back to the beginning knowing what you know now?
• If you had a “walk song” that was your theme song to play every time you walked into any place, what would it be?

Some people described icebreakers that involved a lot of preparation, such as asking people to give the leader a picture of a baby, and then everyone had to guess who was who at the meeting. Another person stated that in a small meeting the leader literally took out an ice block and asked team members to break up as many pieces of ice as possible. Other people have suggested that you have pictures of silly things that would cause conflict, such as pictures of foods that could be suspected to be salads, soups, or sandwiches, and ask people to explain their situation.

{relating to: How to be a leader: leadership resources for female managers}

For my $0.02, I love the one about sandwiches—I think it gets lots of surprising responses from travel experiences, childhood memories, and more—and it tells you a lot about the person responding, but without anything too personal.

Some of my least favorite icebreakers are the ones that are a bit frivolous – what kind of dust bun are you and why – or the slightly boring ones like showing a picture of a pet.

Readers, do you? What are your favorite icebreakers for work? What are your least favorite icebreakers for the job?

(Readers have shared this is the list of icebreakers (via Museum Hack) in the past!)

Stock photo via stencil.