Moving Beyond Icebreakers

Today's can be a great way to kick off a meeting where you need to brainstorm new ideas or talk about different perspectives. It's also pretty fun! Song Association (variation on Word Association pg 254):

1. Establish an order. Make sure everyone knows who comes before them.

2. Explain that you will give everyone a word. They will have 10 seconds to think of a song with that word in and it sing a few words of it. If they can't think of a song, they are out.

3. Each person gets a new word. Keep going until only one person is left in.

Process: It can be hard to think on your feet under pressure. Did anyone have an easier time thinking of songs for others' words than for their own? The songs people think of are often influenced by their experiences--their age, the type of music they listen to, where they grew up, ethnicity, etc. Often people's ideas and perspectives are influenced by their experiences too. Having a diverse team and giving everyone a voice can help generate new and different ideas.

Variation: Sing Down: choose just one word (example "love"). Each person has to sing a song with the word "love" in it. No one can repeat a song that has been used (even if it's a different part of it). If you can't think of a song, you are out. Keep going until only one person is left.

Word suggestions:
love
hate
forever
world
want
need
peace
now
out
in
happy
sad
old
new

Happy Hanukkah to those celebrating! Here’s a new spin on the traditional dreidel game that can make a great . If you’re playing over video conference, you can have each person spinning their own dreidel at their own location or have one person with a dreidel spinning for everyone. Or, try out this online virtual dreidel game: https://virtualdreidel.com while also chatting on the phone or via video conference in a separate browser tab.

Today's is a word game you might know and can be done fairly quickly or take longer. Anagrams

1. Choose a short phrase--could be the name of your organization or a company motto or tag line or the topic of your meeting (ex. Human Resources, All Staff Meeting, Office Reopening, Remote Meetings).

2. Ask everyone to get a pen and paper or open a doc to type in. At the top of the page, have them write the phrase you chose.

3. Explain that they will have 30 seconds to generate as many words as they can made up from the letters in the chosen phrase. The words can be any length and can use the letters in any order (ex. the phrase Human Resources has the words man, core, mush, names).

4. Set a timer (if you can, show it on the screen) and say go. After 30 seconds say stop.

5. Go around and have each person read their list of words.

Process: Some of the words were found by most of us and some words were only found by one person. When we work as a team and each person shares their perspective, we get the best and most thorough answers--our collective list is much longer than any one person's list. In any discussion topic there is more below the surface than you might see at first. How does time play a role? What other limits do we have that affect our work?

Here's an that explores what it's like for a team to work isolated from each other on a collaborative project. It also can help your familiarize members with a new tool in Zoom. Draw Together

1. Choose a simple picture that depicts several individual components. Don't show it to your team.

2. During the meeting, send a private message to each team member telling them what to draw (for example-- a rising sun; evergreen trees; a mountain in the distance; a lake. Be somewhat descriptive, but not too much!

3. Share your screen and select "whiteboard." Explain that each user should click View Options then Annotate at the top of the screen so that they can draw on the white board. Tell everyone they have 1 minute (or more if you'd like) to draw their part of the shared picture. Everyone should draw at once, not knowing what others are supposed to be drawing.

3. When time is up, ask people to stop. Have them reveal what they were asked to draw, then show them the original picture you were using as inspiration.

Process: How similar do the pictures look? How are they different? Are you surprised by how this turned out? It can be difficult to do your work when you don't have an idea of the bigger picture. When you communicate and know what others are doing, the end result turns out better. Even when you can't be in close communication though, there are many ways a team can work together to make something beautiful. What would have made the picture closer to the original? What could have made the process easier or more difficult?