5 Fun, Easy Ice Breakers that Promote Communication and Team Building
3 Truths & A Lie
A simple game to get people to open up. Each team member says three truths and one lie about themselves. Team members have to guess the lie out of the four statements. There is no competitive element to this game. Instead, it's designed to get people to open up and get to know each other better. The opportunity to lie can also get some hilariously outrageous statements from players, which further improves the group's mood.
3-minute Vacation
A talker and listener exercise that can be done in pairs. In a larger group of participants, this can be done multiple times as players pair up with different conversation partners. And in each pair, of course, team members will take turns being listener and talker.
The talker discusses their dream vacation for three minutes, describing what they would like best about it but without specifying where it is. While they talk, the listener pays close attention to the explicit and underlying details, using only non-verbal cues to show that they are listening.
After the 3-minute vacation, the listener summarizes the key points of their conversation partner’s dream vacation. After they’ve ‘pitched’ the ideal vacation spot in the space of one minutes, the pair discuss how accurately the listener understood the talker.
They outline how they could improve their dialogue with regard to active listening, then swap roles. A twist on this team coaching exercise might involve allowing the listener to make notes during the talker’s description, revealing them as a point of discussion only after they deliver the recap.
Pet Peeve
How about a chance to blow off some steam and get that empathetic listening ear at the same time? And at the same time, helping your co-worker practice active listening?
In this game, one colleague has a full 60 seconds to rant about something which irks them. It’s best if this isn’t inappropriate for the workplace, but at the same time, it doesn’t have to be work-related. If you hate pop-up ads, for instance, you’ve already got great material for your rant.
The first colleague (Player A) simply lets loose while the second person (Player B) listens carefully, trying to cut through the noise by singling out:
What Player A really cares about – for instance, smooth user experience on the internet;
What they value – e.g. clarity and transparent advertisements;
What matters to them – e.g. getting work done, doing their online shopping in peace, or a more intuitive, user-friendly adblocker.
Player B then ‘decodes’ the rant by repeating it back to Player A, isolating the key positive points without the fluff or negativity. They can use some variant on the following sentence stems to guide their decoding:
“You value…”
“You care about…”
“You believe that…matters a lot”
Then, they can switch over and repeat the game again. As you can probably see, the activity is aimed at helping teammates appreciate that feedback has positive goals.
Personal Storytelling
In organizations, we may only bring a part of ourselves to the workplace. If we want to communicate empathetically and build relationships with co-workers—important social resources—personal storytelling is one way we can build our teams while developing communication skills.
To try out personal storytelling, set aside time within a teambuilding afternoon, meeting, or workshop. Here are some ideas that nicely blend the emotional with the professional:
Tell me about your first job, or your very first working experience. What was it and how did it shape you?
If you were given $1,000 to do something good with (ie. you have to give it away), what would you do with it?
What is the most valuable item you possesses and why?
Office Trivia
Sometimes, you need a quick activity to break the ice and get people involved in an event. Asking relevant "trivia" questions about your workplace works well in such situations. This game doesn't require any equipment or significant preparation. It can also be held indoors or outdoors, with small teams or large teams, making it a flexible option for team building.
Objective: Get people engaged and improve team bonding
How to play
1. Come up with a list of trivia questions related to your place of work. Questions like "What does the poster in the cafeteria say?", "How many people named 'John' work in the IT department?", "How many people work in the accounting department?", etc.
2. Write all questions and their answers on index cards.
3. Ask questions to the whole group and solicit answers out loud.
4. The participant who gets the most answers right wins at the end.
Optional: To make it more competitive, consider dividing participants into teams and adding 'buzzers' for each question.
Strategy
Your workplace is the one thing common to all members of the team. The objects and people in your office tie your team together. A game like this is not only fun and easy to run, but also highlights the things common to everyone in the room, improving team bonding.