Icebreakers: those awkward exercises at the start of a workshop that are supposed to help participants warm up to one another but in reality just annoy everyone in attendance. Sometimes, however, they are necessary. But how does one go about giving an icebreaker that doesn’t make the audience want to throw their notebooks at you? In this Communication Q&A, you’ll learn the key parts of a good icebreaker, how to make them less cringe-inducing, and a few ideas for icebreakers you can use the next time you give a talk or lead a workshop.
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TRANSCRIPT
Don’t inflict cheesy icebreakers on your workshop participants! There’s a better way to get them talking!
Welcome, friends, to communication Q&A, where I tackle your tough speaking and communication issues. If you need to leverage YOUR communication at work (and really, who doesn’t), then please like this video and subscribe to my channel so you can be in the know with my latest videos.
Today’s question is from corporate trainer Samesh, who asks “Hello Lauren, thanks for taking my question. I’m developing some new client-facing workshops, and my manager has told me to include icebreakers to “get people talking”. But I hate icebreakers! They feel like waste of time and people don’t seem to enjoy them. Any ideas for what else I can do to create engagement at the start of my workshops? Thanks!”
Thank YOU, Samesh, for a really outstanding questions. Usually when we think of icebreakers, we think of annoying activities where you share your favourite animal or breakfast food in a bid to get-to-know the people you’re sitting with.
And people hate them for the exact reasons you laid out – they are a waste of time. People are at workshops to learn, not to make friends, and they want to get down to business with the least amount of awkwardness or embarrassment possible. So instead of creating engagement, icebreakers usually just create irritation.
That being said, you do want to some form of audience interaction within the first few minutes of your workshop. It helps them get on the ball, so to speak, and signals that participation is expected. It also helps make you as the presenter more approachable by encouraging direct interaction.
The key difference between a good early interaction or activity and a cheesy, annoying icebreaker is it’s relevance to the workshop content. Most of those groaner icebreakers have little to no relevance to the topic at hand.
But if you can use that early interaction to help create context regarding who is there, or to identify relevant trends among the participants (such as how many other people have experience with your topic, or who is using your product or service, or what people’s main concerns are), then the engagement has a function. It helps everyone get a feel for where others are at and helps you give the impression that you are genuinely interested in your workshop participants.
Early interactions or engagement activities need to be quick and snappy. Easy and simple to carry out is best – avoid any activity that takes too long or requires several steps.
I favour call-and-response interactions that allow me to survey the whole group at once – I ask people to answer a simple question by raising their hands.
If I’m doing a virtual workshop, I have them answer a poll or type something into chat. And I often select specific people to expand on their answer a little so I get that conversational feel going. I’ll do something like this: “Who here is really comfortable with CompuCog? Okay – you seem enthusiastic, what do you use it for?”
The person can then speak to me – that’s the two way conversation I want. Then I carry on “Who’s heard of it or maybe dabbled a little but isn’t too familiar with it? Okay, and who here has never used it or is even a bit scared of it? Excellent! You, what’s your biggest worry about CompuCog?” They answer, I make some witty reply, and then get into the agenda for the day.
If you want an interaction that gets participants talking directly to one another instead of you (let’s say you’re doing a workshop with people sitting together at tables of six to eight people) focus on giving the group easy questions about the workshop topic that they can share very brief answers to.
One of my favourites is to do a “burning question” exchange. Everyone takes 20 seconds to write one burning question they have about the workshop down on a piece of paper and puts it into a bowl in the middle of the table. Then everyone draws out someone else’s question, reads it, and the person who wrote the question identifies themselves. You can even extend this by having someone from each table share one question from the pile with the room at large. This sort of thing can help people figure out who else might have similar issues as them, or which other participants they might want to connect with later.
And you can have a lot of fun with these early interactions, even being downright irreverent with them.
My favourite icebreaker moment to date was when I was MCing a sponsorship conference. There were two distinct groups of people at this event – fundraisers and donors. I got up to the mic and told everyone we were going to kick things off with a quick icebreaker. I literally heard groans from the audience, which was the reaction I was expecting and wanted. Then I said “Ok, everyone here who needs to FIND money, stand up. Thank you, take a good look around. Now sit down. Now, everyone who needs to GIVE money, stand up. Look around. THERE, now you know who you need to talk to. Icebreaker over.” The audience howled with laughter and I got a round of thunderous applause. It was quick, silly, but still relevant!
So, Samesh, when it comes to your workshop icebreakers, think creatively but don’t overcomplicate things. Keep those early interactions quick, simple, and on topic. That will keep your audience happy and get your workshop off to a great start.
Now for everyone watching, if you need to boost your own presentations and workshops, I strongly suggest you check out my online program Business Presentation Mastery – this is my full-suite presentations course where you learn all my signature methods of developing and delivering outstanding presentations and workshops. And yes, that includes techniques for engaging and interacting with your audience. You can find out more at laurensergy.com/bpm – the link is in the description below.
Thanks for joining me here on Communication Q&A – I look forward to seeing you again soon!
