Posts Tagged ‘icebreaker game’

Ice breaker games are powerful allies for getting groups and teams to gel and work together quickly.

Many trainers, group leaders, teachers, charity workers, committee leaders, church, youth and team leaders to professional consultants and managers employ ice breakers to break down barriers and accelerate the getting to know you phase of learning and engagement.

This ice breaker game is ideal for newish teams and  ideal group size is 7 -15.

• So, give each person an envelope and enough strips of paper for every person in the group. So, if there are 12 people in the group give each person an envelope and 12 strips of paper.
• Get everyone to write their name on the envelop and then pass the envelope to the person on their left.
• Instruct every receiver of the envelope to write a positive first impression about the person with their name on the envelope they hold. Then place the strip of paper in the enveope and pass to the left again. Repeat the process for every person in the group.

Eventually the envelope will return to the owner and will contain 12 strips of paper, each with a positive first impression. Ask each person in turn to dip into their envelope and read aloud a positive attribute.

How powerful is this! Each person will have an envelope full of positive messages and will feel warm towards the group, even though they barely know each other. This is a fantastic platform to build on!

Get more fantastic and brilliant ice breaker games and ideas for your groups and teams at ice-breaker-ideas.com

Here's a great game I recently came across though it is more for an established group than a new group.

 Split your group into teams - you will need at least 2 teams. Allocate every team to another team and than ask each team to write a story about the other team using their talents and positive attributes.

• First, get teams to make a list of the team members they are portraying as characters for their story.
• Make sure teams can't hear each other during the writing.
• Allow about 20 minutes to write the story.
• When everyone is ready get each team in turn to read out the story.

Ask groups for feedback and question what it was like to hear themselves being described as part of a story.

Were people surprised at their chosen attributes and talents ? Do they see themselves as others do?

You can use this game as a corporate ice breaker or a group game for teams that know each other fairly well

Check-out the Incredible Ice Breaker Games and Ideas web-site for more group games and ice breaker ideas.

How Well do you Know Your Colleagues?

Here's a fantastic ice breaker game to start off a training or team building program where the attendees know each other fairly well, or so they think!

Write down a list of qualities on a flipchart and get each person to fill in their qualities on a piece of paper. Qualities could be things like:

This person likes...

This person dislikes....

This person values....

Major achievements of this person......

Major goals of this person..........etc. etc.

Gather all the papers in and then call out the qualities. See if the rest of the team can guess who the person is. There might be some surprises and it will certainly give people some insights no matter how well they might think they know each other.

For tons more great ice breaker games and ideas to make your meetings and events sizzle, check-out our ice breaker ideas web-site

Many team building programs start by asking people to introduce themselves. This helps people to relax and to get to know each other quickly and many more meetings, group sessions, training programs and social functions would be much more engaging and enjoyable for the participant if they too were able to experience the magic of a simple ice breaker at the beginning of an event.

• the place where they were born
• their favourite holiday destination
• if you had a $million what would you spend it on?
• favourite food
• hobby

And a bit more daring you could ask people to describe:

• their favourite joke
• if they were an animal what would it be?

These simple techniques bring a bit of fun to the group and allow people to get to know others in a non-threatening way. They give people some basic and interesting information about others in the group, making it easier to make connections and talk together.

It's easy to make up your own ice breakers too! But for tons of ice breaker ideas for your next meeting, training program, social activity or party check-out our ice breaker ideas web-site for instantly downloadable ice breaker games.

Everybody can use ice breaker games!

Games can become a way of life! Once you play ice breaker games with your groups and see them work their magic - they'll be with you forever and will be an indispensible tool to call upon for all occasions. It's so useful to be able to play these games, not just for work situations in meetings and for training programs, helping people relax and get to know each other quickly, but in social situations, for parties, youth groups, committee meetings etc.

Who learns how to use and gain the benefits from an ice breaker game? Everyone - business groups, spots clubs, business leaders, conference organisers,college groups, school teachers, guide and scout leaders, social and youth workers, party organisers, church group leaders, families, vouluntary groups etc. etc. The list is endless...

Planning your Christmas party for home, office or club? Then you should think about including an ice breaker game or two. Check-out our ice breaker ideas web-site for tons of fabulous ideas to make your Christmas festivities a time to remember

Why do I love ice breaker games?

• Because they can transform a rather average or dull meeting into something rather special.
• Carefully crafted, an ice breaker can be a brilliant lead in to the main topic of the day
• People learn better when they're having fun, and an ice breaker should be FUN!
• Ice breakers introduce people to one another in a fun and informal way
• Ice breakers relax people and help them to get to know each other far more quickly than without
• An ice breaker at the beginning of a meeting or conference means people are participating and joining in, they become more engaged than if merely listening
• And once engaged, your participants will be more receptive to your main message of the day
• Once you start using ice breakers you'll never look back - people will look forward to your next meeting or session with anticipation

Never run a boring meeting or training session again. Set your social functions ablaze and have your audience eating out of your hand. We show you how. Go to our ice breaker ideas web-site for tons of fantastic ice breaker ideas to really set your events on fire!

 "Who would you do anything to meet?"
   

This interesting ice breaker idea was in the Daily East News, and written by a journalist called Doug Graham - I'm not advocating that you go ahead with the stalking bit but it would make an interesting ice breaker idea!

Inspired by a story about a young Rod Blagojevich, I believe I may have created an icebreaker that will reveal more about your friends than a rousing game of "never have I ever" ever could.

The story goes that the recently graduated Blagojevich, decades away from devastating the state of Illinois with his shady dealings, took a trip with a friend to New York City to see the sights.

Blago, ever the determined young man, decided that the trip would only be complete if he seized the opportunity and hassled one of his personal heroes for an autograph.

The personal hero who Blago sought to meet was none other than Richard M. Nixon.

No matter how deliciously ironic it is that a man destined to be an impeached governor would seek the autograph of an impeached President, that is not what interests me most-it is the method that Blagojevich used to procure the autograph.

He enlisted the help of a friend and at 4:30 a.m. he went to Nixon's apartment and stood outside of it until the former President came out.

This behavior is creepy and borderline illegal, and while I am usually in favor of scumbags inconveniencing scumbags, Blago's autograph stalking seemed at first to be too bizarre to ever consider doing.
After much reflection, I've begun to see Blagojevich's logic.

After all, he got what he wanted-an autograph given to him by his hero with photo evidence to prove it. All he had to spend was a few hours of loitering and a few friendship points with his buddy he asked to take the picture.

With this story in mind, the game is this: "Who would you autograph stalk?"

Players of the game must choose a person who they like enough to want to meet, but whose privacy they don't respect enough to leave alone.

I'll go first.

I'd autograph stalk Zinadine Zedan - brilliantly ingeneous French footballer and international hero until he head-butted Marco Materazzi in the most talked about incident of the 2006  World Cup, ending in a red card which marred his glorious career. Having seen this incident on TV and incredulously gob-smacked for several minutes - I would want to know why!!

 So "Who would you autograph stalk and why?"

And if you want more ideas on how to excite and challenge your team members, meeting or conference delegates and get them firing on all cylinders, down load ice breaker ideas from our web-site NOW!

Can Serious Business Include Fun?

 Brian Chernett, Founder, The Academy for Chief Executives writes an interesting article:

 
Just the expression 'serious business' suggests that we need to have our faces set into a serious expression whilst we embrace the 'work ethic' and drive ourselves and our employees into the ground. What if it didn't have to be that way? What if work was leavened with fun, indeed what if work was fun? How would that be? Would it impact your bottom line? Which way?

Everything starts with the culture of the business and business leaders can help to create a positive culture. In my book, The Entrepreneur Within, I describe it this way...

You may be asking - but does 'fun' add to the bottom line? My instinct and my experience is that it does. Creativity and performance are both best generated by a positive and enjoyable work environment. People are more productive when they enjoy what they are doing and/or they enjoy the environment in which they do it. Corporate culture and top management have a leading role in creating an enjoyable work environment.

Having a balanced workplace can help retain people and reduce recruitment costs. It can develop people and maximise return on training and development and make coming to work an enjoyable experience. Happy employees work better and communicate their enjoyment to customers and suppliers - and to anyone they come into contact with.

All of which DOES impact on the bottom line.

I have to say we whole heartedly agree with this view. Put yourself in your employees' shoes - wouldn't you prefer a fun environment in which to work - wouldn't it make you that bit keener to come to work? A bit more loyal? A bit more enthusiastic? More likely to have a smile on your face?

  Create a bit of fun in the office with a few ice breaker games at your next team meeting or just for a bit of morale boosting fun!

Check-out our ice breaker games web-site.

Back to school Ice Breakers

Our kids have just gone back to school today. In some ways it's great but in other ways I love the lack of structure during the holidays. I wonder how they are getting on? New teachers, new school mates? I wonder if they will have an inspiring Induction Week  like some of the schools who are customers of our team building company?

Many schools hire us to go in and run a team building day or ice breaker sessions during their back to school induction weeks. I think these schools are very lucky that their teachers take the beginning of the school year seriously enough to want to set the right tone for the school year ahead.

More Induction Week Ice Breakers

Running a great ice breaker session at the start of Induction Week can help pupils settle in quickly and look forward to the school year ahead with purpose and commitment. It's also great to see teachers as well as students in a relaxed and fun-filled mood. Having fun together creates a great atmosphere and helps to prepare pupils for the tasks ahead.

We always start an ice breaker session with everyone sitting or standing  in a circle. Generally we don't use tables for most of our events and you might need to move the tables aside -it creates a more inclusive and relaxed atmosphere.

A Quick Ice Breaker:

Introduce yourself and say one thing you like and one thing you dislike. Then ago around the circle and ask everyone in turn to offer their likes and dislikes. You will learn quite a bit about your pupils from this simple ice breaker.

Next move on to something a bit more challenging. Tell them what your goals are for the school year (briefly - no more than 1 minute!) and then ask them to think about what they might like to achieve within the school year. Ask them to write it down and then go around and ask for contributions. You may have to tease it out of them as they may well have not really thought about this before. You might want to keep these goals and put them to together perhaps on display in the classroom. You might also want to re-vist these goals regularly to see if you and your students are on track to achieving them. Students should be able to change goals or set new goals and help each other with their goals.

 Imagine what a great celebration it would be to see all your students achieve their goals at the end of the school year. You could create your own mini class achievement ceremony.

Learn how to run a great ice breaker session at your induction week by visiting our ice breaker ideas web-site. We have lots of great youth group icebreakers to make your back to school induction weeks inspirational and fun-filled for all!

Teachers, does going back to school fill you with joy or dread? A new set of pupils, colleagues, head and a new set of curriculum, forms and administration?

I'm not a teacher but it must be really difficult having had a long period of time off over the summer months and then face a new school year. We always think about the trials of pupils but what about the teachers?

I'm all for having fun wherever I work or study - it makes learning so much easier. I love the experiential nature of our team building games and events and the ice breakers we employ at the start. So it doesn't surprise me that many teachers employ a good ice breaker session during their Induction Week. Pupils can have fun reconnecting and new pupils will really enjoy getting to know the others through a simple ice breaker game.

At the residential youth centre I worked in, we used to run a whole evening of youth group icebreakers with every new residential group. A couple of hours of ice breaker games really helped the kids to relax and get to know each other quickly. They set the tone for the whole week and they set the tone for your high school year.

Try some for yourself this Induction Week and you'll see the remarkable effect they can have on your students. We have lots of tried and tested, fantastic ice breaker ideas games and ideas on our web-site ice-breaker-ideas.com