The Best Six Ice Breaker Exercises for Training Employees

Sitting in a room with a group of strangers can be awkward. That’s just human nature. Even when you’ve spent a great deal of time working with a team, you might come to the conclusion that you don’t know the people around you that well. Ice breaker games and team-building exercises can be very effective solutions to not only improve every employee’s emotional well-being, but boost the morale and rapport of your team. This will maximize their production. And maximized productions always leads to increased revenue for you.

The following six ice breaking activities are guaranteed to break the ice and train your employees to become better at communication and problem-solving.

1. Determine the Commonality

This ice breaker will bond your team closer together.

The Set-Up:

Divide the team into pairs, or, if you have tons of employees, large groups of three to five are fine. The game will take about ten to twenty minutes to complete.

The Premise:

The groups or pairs will need to take some minutes attempting to determine something they have in common. It could be a possession they own or an activity that they enjoy participating in. The commonality could even be a belief that they are in agreement about; however, the common thing cannot be something too obvious such as that they both wear shoes or they all live in the same city.

Poor communicators will say something broad, such as that they both enjoy eating food. Better communicators will make specific statements such as, “We both listen to Luther Vandross” or “We both traveled to Italy a few years ago.”

Once you have allowed the employees a few minutes to talk and everyone has found a specific commonality, the pairs/groups can share what they have in common with the rest of the team.

Why this Ice Breaker is Good:

The game is an effective team-building exercise due to forcing employees to find common ground with one another rather than just telling the rest of the team about themselves. This will make your employees feel more connected to one another. One of the tricks is that while the partners/groups are searching for a commonality, they will also share more information about themselves—which helps them get to know their co-workers well in a sort amount of time.

This activity also serves as creative booster. The employees have to brainstorm about things they potentially have in common—which makes them apply their thinking and communication skills.

2. Two Truths, One Lie

This is an effective ice breaker that allows the team to get to know each other.

The Set-Up:

Have your employees sit in a circle—but any formation that ensures that they see each other is fine. The game will take about fifteen to thirty minutes, depending on the size of your team.

The Premise:

Each employee must think of two true statements about themselves and one statement that is a lie. (Hopefully your employees aren’t good at lying!) The statements can be about any subject such as products they like and places they’ve visited.

You want all of the statements to appear to be believable. You don’t want the lie to stick out like a sore thumb. For example, “I’ve been to outer space” would be extremely unlikely but “one time I swam with dolphins” is much more likely.

Once you give your employees five to ten minutes to come up with their three statements, go around the room one-by-one, and have the team members each present their statements. Once an employee has made their three statements in an unarranged order, the rest of the team has to guess which statement is untrue.

Why this Ice Breaker is Good:

This is a very traditional ice breaker to play. It allows employees to quickly learn about one another and there will be plenty of laughs in the room. It gives the team ample opportunity to present themselves in a positive light and even allows them to fix any assumptions or preconceived notions that may have bothered them. To mix it up, you can even have employees make two lies and one truth. Laughter will fill the room, boasting the morale of your employees.

3. Five Favorites

This ice breaker is a classic game that encourages your team to bond together.

The Set-Up:

Make sure each employee has a pen and piece of paper. You should divide the team into small teams of five, or smaller, depending on how large your business is. It may be helpful to have topic ideas listed in advance, so you save some time. This ice breaker takes about five to twenty minutes to complete, depending on how many employees you have.

The Premise:

The teams will be given a topic (of your choice) and they must list five of their favorite things concerning that topic. The opportunities are endless in terms of topics you choose to select. The topics could be anything, including:

-Five books

-Five movies

-Five places to travel

-Five snacks

-Five sports

Each employee will write their top five things and once everyone is finished, they will each share their favorites with their co-workers.

Why this Ice Breaker is Good:

This ice breaker allows employees to share new insights about themselves and to potentially realize their similarities. Your employees will get to know each other while having some fun—and activities like this are morale mega-boosters.

4. GOOD/BAD

This ice breaker has your employees revealing unique stories about themselves and encourages them to turn negatives into positives.

The Set-Up:

Divide your team members into pairs. If you end up without even numbers, make larger teams of three, four, or  even five if you’d like. No props are necessary—just a big enough room for all your employees to sit in pairs. This game takes only five to fifteen minutes to complete.

The Premise:

Each employee must make a statement that reflects the most negative experience they have ever had in their lives. They will describe what made the experience so awful. Afterwards, the employee must focus on the good of that situation with the help of the other employees. This allows everyone in the room to find a silver lining. Maybe something positive came of the situation or the person learned more about himself/herself.

The negative event doesn’t have to be work-related. It can be something deeply personal—if the employee is comfortable discussing it.

Why this Ice Breaker is Good:

This ice breaker is an effective way to not only get to know people, but to generate a sense of empathy. The power of focusing on positivity in any situation will subconsciously be applied to the employee’s work at the company.

5. One Question

This is a problem-solving ice breaker that will exemplify how people think diversely in any situation.

The Set-Up:

Divide your employees into teams of three to five people. You won’t need a lot of space—just enough for the groups to talk amongst themselves. No props are necessary but you should have a list of questions written in advance. The game takes about fifteen to twenty-five minutes to finish.

The Premise:

The point of the ice breaker is for each group to come up with one question that they think is best for the variables they are presented with. Basically, they are presented with a situation and they can only use one question to solve that situation.

Here are some question ideas:

-Food: what is the best question to ask when seeking a waiter’s recommendation at an Italian restaurant?

-Dog walker: what is the best question to ask when hiring a dog walker?

-Employment:  what is the ideal question to ask a candidate when our company considers hiring an employee?

When the teams are set up, present them your scenario and give them ten minutes or so to come up with their question. Then, the groups will share the solutions with the rest of your employees.

Why this Ice Breaker is Good:

The ice breaker encourages your employees to not only think, but think creatively. Outside the box thinking and problem solving are crucial skills your team should be practicing. Your employees will have no choice but to communicate and express their opinions. Once again, morale and good-rapport training will take place without your employees even realizing it.

6. Drawing

This ice breaker is a game that encourages your employees to communicate and be creative.

The Set-Up:

Divide your employees into pairs. Keep in mind, this game only works when you have an even number of people. The game requires the employees to use pens and paper. Before the game begins, write down a list of things that the pairs will be drawing. Make sure your list is written on individual scraps of paper and place the scraps into a bucket or hat so the employees can reach in and take out one piece of scrap paper per group. This ice breaker will take about ten to twenty minutes to complete.

The Premise:

Each pair features one person drawing and the other explaining what is being drawn. The employee explaining will select a piece of scrap paper from the bucket/hat and will have to begin verbalizing what needs to be drawn. The person drawing will have to carefully listen to their partner’s instructions and draw based on what they’re being told.

The catch is that the person cannot explicitly say what’s on the paper—sort of like the game of charades. Say, for instance, they are drawing a dog, they cannot simply say, “Draw a dog.” The partner speaking has no choice but to guide their partner through the physicality of the drawing process from beginning-to-end, making comments like, “Start by creating a round shape. Next, draw a neck, a head, add fur, etc.” Once the drawing is complete, the pair will swap roles.

Why this Ice Breaker is Good:

This ice breaker is a great way to improve your employee’s communication skills. Your employees will have no choice but to work closely together to achieve a common goal. It will be fun for them—while also training their problem-solving skills.

In Summary

Morale and good rapport are vital to your company’s success. You know that. And now you know six easy and effective ice breakers to train your employees to improve their communication and thinking skills. Not only will their skills improve, so too, will their attitude. And nothing is more important to the sustainability of morale and good rapport than your employees maintaining a positive attitude.