Putting Your Icebreakers to Work

JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:00:00] Hi, thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I’m Jessica. Today we’ll be talking about icebreakers, and Erin’s going to be sharing a practice with us.

Hi, Erin. Let’s start by asking you, putting you on the spot, what’s the most memorable icebreaker you’ve been asked to participate in?

‘Cause I know people hate these, so let’s give them some good memories!

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Gosh, okay. A couple of years ago, during a team meeting at my office, my boss brought a marble and she had us all stand in our circle, and we had to hold the marble and then share a piece of wisdom, and then pass it to the next person.

And it was like really enjoyable. People had a lot of really wise words, but I ended up being at the end of the group, and the first three things that I had thought of had already been said by someone else.

So I was scrambling, and then I also noticed as we were [00:01:00] going, everybody got more and more sincere and it was really sweet, but it was also like building this intensity in a way where I just, you know, I was second to last. There was no way I was going to say something profound at that point because like there really, you know, at that time there were maybe 30 people in our office so I was going 29 out of 30.

I decided to pivot, and so what I said was, “Good computer hygiene is restarting your computer once a week.” And then I passed the marble on, and the whole room burst out laughing in a really good way. Because it had been these really like sincere, beautiful things.

And then I just had this very practical, actually honestly I wanted everybody to start restarting their computer once a week because they weren’t and it was causing problems. I was an IT liaison at the time and it was, anyway, it was so funny because people [00:02:00] quoted that back to me for a couple of weeks after that and started restarting their computers when they hadn’t been.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So you spread some good in the world too.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So I spread some good in the world. And it was such a jovial meeting after that, which was so funny.

And I don’t think it was just because I happened to tell a very funny joke, but I think also people were able to share something that was important to them.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Right.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: And then it was received by the group, which I thought was really cool. What about you? Do you have any memorable icebreakers?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, actually, do you mind if I give you one that I participated in and one that I facilitated?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, go for it.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Okay. So the first one was during the pandemic and there was a meeting, a virtual meeting, and the person who was facilitating was very well versed in how she had us play this game.

I’m going to call it like, “Do you remember when we … ” And then, [00:03:00] you know, fill in the blank, because what she did was she started out by saying, calling out someone’s name, like in this case, “Hey, Erin, do you remember when we went on that vacation?” And then your job would be to be like, “Oh, yeah. We went to Greece and, uh, we saw the ocean,” right?

And then the next person kind of adds to it, and I know that it’s, it was a silly story in the end, but it was actually an incredibly connecting experience. I don’t know if it was partly because it was in the middle of the pandemic and it was nice to just be a little silly together, because context makes a huge, huge difference. But we really felt connected.

And we kept doing callbacks the entire meeting. We kept saying, “Oh, yeah, when we were in Italy and we were at that festival, we slipped on the tomato juice, remember that?” You know, it was a really great experience, and I think that can be kind of hard.

And then the one that I’m remembering that I found to be so [00:04:00] meaningful for me is, I was facilitating a very unique workshop where it was sort of strategic planning, but it was strategic storytelling, and just kind of a different way. And we started an icebreaker that was a game called, it’s pretty well known, called Story of Your Name. And it was a multicultural workshop.

We had two different interpreters that were there, that were interpreting everything that we were saying in two different languages, and basically you choose one of your names, whether that’s your surname or your nickname or your first name, and we had people just tell us the story of like, where did it come from or what did it mean to you?

And this one woman told a beautiful story about her nickname and how her sister called her this nickname, and her sister passed away when she was very young, and she had this beautiful story about her name. And it wasn’t just this woman. They all had beautiful stories about their [00:05:00] name and they all felt so connected at the end, and I felt so connected to them and it was beautiful.

But that’s not, you know, the appropriate icebreaker for every situation. That was appropriate for that situation.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, yeah. I love that. I’ve actually done that one before and it’s amazing how much easier it is to remember people’s names when you hear a story about what their name is.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yes.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I was so thankful that the facilitator did it because I remember stories better than I remember names.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yes, we all do.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: And I was like, “Somebody was cooking here. Someone was thinking about what they were doing because I now know everybody’s name in the room.” And there were like 30 people I’d never met before. So it was very, I was impressed.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And it’s funny too when there’s so many people who are like, “Oh, I don’t have a story about my name.” And then they start telling you about their name and you’re like, “What are you talking about? You do have a story about your name. You just told it. ” But they always think they don’t have a very good story [00:06:00] is what it is, right? That’s the context.

Well, we’d love to hear from all of you about the memorable icebreaker that you’ve been asked to do. Email us at practicingconnection@onop.org or click on the link in the show notes. We see and respond to every message and we can’t wait to hear from you.

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JESSICA BECKENDORF: All right, Erin, let’s talk about icebreakers, because I know so many people dislike that.

Why do you think so many people dislike icebreakers? Let’s talk about that.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. Well, I mean, I will fully admit that I have been an icebreaker hater.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I feel so sorry for you being paired up with me because I love a good icebreaker. Anyway, you go ahead, sorry.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Well, now that I facilitate things as part of my job, I don’t hate all icebreakers. I just hate purposeless icebreakers.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, [00:07:00] yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay, so I think ideally, you know, an icebreaker is something that will help build camaraderie in the room, but often people think you can do that just by making everybody do something awkward or by sharing, like, a really trite fact about yourself, like, “Tell me your favorite color.”

And that’s, you know, not boring, but it’s also not interesting. So if you have a huge room and then everybody has to say their name and their favorite food, unless you’re the person who plans to make everybody’s favorite food like me, that’s not necessarily fun.

So a lot of times it feels like wasting time or it doesn’t feel like it has a purpose, or it makes people awkward, or it brings discomfort in this space. And there isn’t trust among the group to really survive the discomfort.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Right. No, that’s such a great point. You know, we were talking a little bit before we started recording and I mentioned that, it’s funny [00:08:00] because I think, because I do like to talk and I do like icebreakers, you would think that I would love all icebreakers, but I don’t. I agree with you.

I don’t like the ones that feel like they’re purposeless and I don’t like the ones that feel like it’s just forced interaction, versus something that can be joyful and fun. The example I was giving you was, it’s my preference to not show up to a venue and be given a card with a question on it, and then ask to go and talk to people about that question. I would rather, but some people are not feeling like this, I would rather just go and talk with people. If I needed to go talk to people, I’d rather go talk to people.

But a lot of people really like that game, and so it’s really kind of, you know, personal, I guess, how you might feel about things like that. But I do think purposeless is difficult, and I would not say that a game or an activity that asks you to discuss a [00:09:00] question on a card, I wouldn’t say that that’s purposeless, but –

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: But maybe you think the question’s boring?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Hmm, maybe.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Do you like small talk, like typical small talk, or do you tend to like asking people small talky questions that really dig in deeper?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, that’s a really good question, because I tend to have the ability to be able to go deeper with someone really fast, if that’s where they want to go to. And so, I have no problem just going and talking to people, but I know that that’s not easy for a lot of people.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. Hmm. I think another thing that I see sometimes as a reason why people dislike doing icebreakers is when you have an icebreaker that’s effective at letting people share something personal about themselves, or you start a meeting with a, “How’s everybody doing?” check-in, and then nothing that happens in that section impacts the rest of the meeting.

Like you do the little icebreaker because you’re [00:10:00] supposed to do a community building bit, and then you end in immediately your business. But if you spent the first 10 minutes of the meeting where everybody is saying they’re tired, they’re burnt out, they’re overwhelmed, and you don’t do anything to address that whatsoever and you’re just like, “Okay, thank you for sharing. Moving on.” You know?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: It can even be a simple, like, “Okay, is there anything we should change on our agenda based on what we just heard just now?”

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Or like at one point I was facilitating a meeting and I had everybody do a check-in, and half of the room hadn’t gotten to eat lunch and/or they had like physical pain in their body.

And I just said, “Okay, before we move on to the content of our meeting, I would like to take a five-minute break at the top of this meeting so everybody can go get some food and water and take care of their body. I will see you in five minutes.”

Like, “Get out of here, come back in five minutes.” Or just message me if you really need to go take care of your migraine and leave the meeting. [00:11:00] And that’s where even that’s an example that makes me look really good, but also it’s an example of what it means if you’re going to do a check-in and ask people how they are, don’t just ignore that and move on.

Like integrate your icebreaker into a meeting. And I think more broadly too, I’m curious if you have any thoughts about if so many people dislike icebreakers and they’re so awkward, what can they do for us? Why is it worth still doing them? Why is it worth participating even if somebody gives you something and you’re like, “This is the worst.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That’s a really good question. I mean, I always like to tell people that every single element of your meeting, including your icebreakers, if you’re planning icebreakers, needs to have a purpose. You can even write down at the beginning, maybe after a while you don’t need to write it down anymore, but I’m going to do this activity with them, and I think I’ve told you in the past that I don’t tend to use the term icebreaker anymore because so many people hate [00:12:00] it.

I just say, “activity.” But, you know, “Here’s the activity that I’m planning.” Well, what do I hope it will do for people?

So what do I hope it’ll do for them and what do I hope it will contribute to the meeting? So not just that it’ll loosen people up, right? I mean, that’s not necessarily a bad purpose, especially if your meeting is going to have a lot of participation, but, also, like, what will it do to help contribute to the meeting?

And I’m, by the way, I’m not saying that I think that your icebreakers also need to have some sort of output for the meeting. I’m just saying think about the purpose, and have a purpose for it. And so I think what they can do for us are many different things. If you’ve thought about the purpose, like maybe this group, it’s the first time they’re getting together, so they need to get to know each other. Maybe it’s a team that’s going to have to have high trust.

So maybe you want to think about, well, maybe it’s too soon [00:13:00] for the story of your name, like what we were talking about a little bit ago, but maybe what we could do is, another type of icebreaker that will get them smiling with each other, right?

‘Cause we know laughter is one way that people connect and start to build some trust. So, I think that they can do many things and I feel like that’s just sidestepping the answer, Erin, and I don’t mean to do that, but because I can’t list out all the things they can do for us because you need to have a purpose for it, and once you figure out that purpose, then you can match it up with an icebreaker that will fit that purpose.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. I get why your answer is your answer, and I agree with it. I also think that icebreakers are sneaky ways to that – sneaky is such a malicious sounding word, but an obtrusive way for a facilitator to get a read of the room,

JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:14:00] Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Who’s comfortable talking, who’s not comfortable talking, who is new, who knows people,

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Who’s seeing through your efforts.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Who needs to move their body.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Right? Oh yeah, right.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. And so, I think when I’m thinking about facilitating, I’m thinking of icebreakers as, “Here’s a beat where I can check in on the room, give people an opportunity to move or stretch, or like a brain break.”

We’ve talked about needing to change modalities so that your brain doesn’t get fatigued before, and I think icebreakers can do that when they’re implemented well.

I think also that, if you’re not the facilitator, if you’re just a participant, and you’re asked to do an icebreaker and internally there’s a part of you that just says, “Ugh, I hate this,” it’s worth doing it anyway, especially if you trust the facilitator. Because there’s [00:15:00] probably a reason why they’re doing it.

So it’s a little bit of a trust the process, and it’s also a relational building thing to respond yes to somebody else’s bid. Are you familiar with the idea of a bid?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Like a bid for connection?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. So someone is offering you an opportunity, and I will confess that I don’t always love small talk. I love talking with people, but if we’re only talking about the weather and sports teams, that is not my favorite kind of conversation.

At one point I used to work at a front desk and I would have the same conversation with every single person who walked in the front door. They all wanted to ask me how I was doing and, you know, that was a struggle.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I always felt bad for people that asked me that question because I will tell them I’m not just fine.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: But a lot of what I was realizing is, oh, this is a way that people build a sense of [00:16:00] safety. And while it may feel rote and boring to me on occasion, it’s worth doing because for that other person, it helps them feel safe to have a different conversation with me later, and the later conversations are the ones that I like.

So this is the thing that I can do in order to help people feel comfortable with me. So I think icebreakers are often that same kind of thing. I often, you know, I think people who don’t like icebreakers might also be people who don’t like small talk, because it feels purposeless and meaningless. Anyway, I think you should try to do it because it’s a way to engage in the community and say, “Yes, I’m here, I’m here to participate.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. We should in the future think about doing an episode about small talk, because I think it’s not as small as people think it is. Maybe that’ll be the title. So what do you think makes a good icebreaker from your perspective?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. I like icebreakers that are interesting.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: But interesting [00:17:00] according to you.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, so I’m torn because I think there’s part of me that’s like, I like a good juicy question or a playful question or something that brings a little bit of joy or whimsy, or something that isn’t just getting immediately to business.

I recognize that it’s not everybody’s thing. But from a more serious like facilitator mindset, I think what makes a good icebreaker is having the thing that you’re doing tied in either with meeting the needs of the people in the room, or helping people feel more connected with the purpose of the gathering.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yes. That’s close to the answer I was thinking of. So when I think about what makes a good icebreaker, because they can fill so many different purposes, and if you’ve really thought about the purpose, then that’s a good icebreaker.

A good icebreaker is one that meets the [00:18:00] purpose that you intended, or, look, you can plan for an icebreaker to meet a purpose or to meet the needs of a group and maybe it doesn’t always work out, but to me, what makes a good icebreaker is just one that is either meeting the needs of the people, or meeting the intended purpose.

And when it goes wrong, it’s okay. Learn from it, right? Do it differently next time.

So, what practice are you bringing today? I’m excited about this because I had a little clue as to what you were working on and I’m really excited. I think this is a great practice.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. So I’m going to walk us through how to write a magic question.

Have you heard of a magic question before?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yes, I read the book you were telling me about.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Oh, great.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: the Art of Gathering, I think, right.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, I learned about magic questions from Priya Parker and I know that she wrote the book, The Art of Gathering. I don’t know if I read this in her book or if I read it in her newsletter, but –

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Got it. Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: It comes from Priya Parker, and she describes a magic question as [00:19:00] a “Question that everyone in the group is excited to answer, and everyone is interested in hearing each other’s answers.” It has to be both.

So some examples are, ‘what’s the last time you cheered so loudly you lost your voice?’ ‘What’s a live performance you wish you could see again for the first time?’ ‘What do you own that you’re pretty sure nobody else in this group owns?’

I’ve done that one before. It’s very fun. And then, ‘if someone named a menu item after you at a restaurant, what would it be?’

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Grilled cheese sandwich.

No, I love these questions so much. I’m often asking one that’s very similar to the live performance one. I usually ask people, ‘what’s the first live performance they went to?’ ‘Where was it?’

And there’s all kinds of follow-up questions you can ask with that as well, and people love telling the story of their first live performance, [00:20:00] or the first one that they really loved or whatever.

So I love these questions.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. And what I like about magic questions in general is they’re a really easy icebreaker to implement. They don’t need materials. You can do them a lot of different ways. They work in a big group or a small group. You can have people split into small groups. If you know that your group needs to move around, you can have everybody stand up and go talk to a person and answer this question and then switch people.

There’s a lot of different ways you can use it. You can use it on Zoom, you can have people drop their answers in the chat, you can have people journal about it. So it’s a really, I think, useful way to come up with one question or a couple of questions that you can use a bunch of different ways, depending on who’s in the room and what the room feels like.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I’ve sometimes just put it on, like, a big easel, or on a slide, and I tell people as they’re walking in, like, “find someone that they can share that answer with,” which I know is opposite of what I told you, that I don’t [00:21:00] like to do that, but these questions to me are ones that I do want to answer and I do want to hear other people’s answers.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. And I have found one of the common threads in these questions is they’re questions that promote people telling a story about something they’ve experienced. They’re almost always questions that inspire people to share something that you had no idea about, and it’s usually something that they’re very interested in or passionate about. So it’s a very compelling story a lot of the time.

And that I think is also why magic questions are really good for getting to know people, finding shared values, finding shared experience. They’re really good at community building and also bringing the energy of the room up.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Right. And even if you’re not finding the shared values, just the practice of sharing values is really important.

So you’ve [00:22:00] given us some really great examples. Let’s talk about how to write a good magic question.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. Okay. So I have a four-step process, and this does require a little bit of creativity because –

JESSICA BECKENDORF: A big process, four steps?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I promise it’s not as hard as you make it sound, Jessica.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, I know. It’s not hard.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So one of the reasons magic questions take a little bit of intentional thought is because different groups of people are going to need a different question. Different situations are going to need a different question. So I’ve set up a series of questions that I use to figure out the qualities of the room, so that you can then write the question that’s going to work for the group and the setting and the purpose.

So step one is to think about who is going to be at your meeting or gathering. Do you know how many people are going to be there? Do they know each other?

Do they trust each other? is it a formal setting? Is it an informal setting?

Just think a little bit about [00:23:00] what is the room and who are the people who are going to be there.

Step two is to think about what are you trying to accomplish at this gathering? Some examples might be building connection and trust, brainstorming an idea, making a decision, working on a project together. Those are all common things.

And then step three is what tone will best serve the purpose of your meeting?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: This is such a good one. I love that you have this tone question, or this tone planning in here.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes, because the difference between something that has people tell humorous stories and something that has people tell sincere stories is big.

So figuring out, what emotional atmosphere do I want people to be in? And I think this is also helpful because I’ve used this before in a partner meeting, where we had two people coming and there was some tension in the group about what is our purpose. And we were [00:24:00] making really important decisions about the future of the program.

And so I wanted us to think through, how do I ramp down the animosity intention and ramp up this sense of connection and conviction in the work that we were doing? And so that was kind of the tone I was going for, right?

Okay. So once you’ve figured out who’s going to be there, what you’re trying to accomplish and the tone, what question could you ask that would encourage people to share a story?

That’s a broad question, so I’ll give you a bit of an example. So, one time – actually I just told you about this. There were groups of people coming together to talk about a project, and it was contentious and we were talking about how we were going to facilitate a learning experience for people. And there were a lot of different organizations who were doing it together, and they all had very different cultures.

And so the question that we started the gathering with was, “What is something that a teacher taught you that you still think about today?” And it was [00:25:00] so good. People were thinking about this teacher, and it was very much more sincere than funny most of the time.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: It helped people think about, “Oh, why was this such an impactful experience for me?

And then it helped us look at what are our values for providing educational experiences for people and how do we provide good ones? And then that started to guide our decisions around how we were going to implement educational programming, because people were thinking about their own experience in an educational program. It worked so well.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I love that.

I really love this process, and you are right. It wasn’t nearly as complex as I was making it sound like with four steps. It’s actually really, really simple. And so I wonder though, if you wouldn’t mind just briefly going over the four steps one more time before we close out because yeah, I do think it’s nice and simple.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Step one, think about who is going to be at your meeting or gathering. Step two, what are you trying to [00:26:00] accomplish with your meeting? Step three, what tone will best serve the purpose of the meeting? And then step four, what question could you ask that would encourage people to share a story?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Love it. Thank you so much for guiding us through that, Erin, I really appreciate this thinking on the magic questions. I’m always encouraging people to ask more questions of each other, and to go much beyond, “how’s the weather?”

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. And if you end up doing this and coming up with questions, I would love to hear them. I keep a little list on my phone of good questions, so if you come up with some, please email us, or leave us a voicemail. I would love to hear. There are links in the show notes if you want to do either one.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us.

If you enjoyed this episode, click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend. We’ll be back next week. Until then, keep practicing.

[00:27:00]

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.