It’s early morning and time to start your day’s meeting. However, jumping directly to your topic feels cold-hearted. At HUONE we care about the success of your meetings and making sure you get the maximum engagement from your participants. As a result, we put together a list of 15 best icebreakers for meetings in order to kick start your day. Let’s break the ice!
Why do you need icebreakers for meetings? For instance, it is good to bring down the barriers and take a moment to feel at ease with each other. Whether it’s a one-off training day or a weekly scheduled meeting, a short icebreaker makes a huge impact on your overall meeting performance, creating higher engagement from your attendees.
You will achieve employee conversations that are more open and honest. Furthermore the higher engagement from your participants also results in stronger and more effective teamwork.
So, what do you call a polar bear on thin ice? An icebreaker! Bad jokes aside, let’s find the best icebreaker for your meeting. If you have a big group of attendees, you can always divide it into smaller groups. Each group can do the icebreaker by themselves in order to save time.
Icebreakers for Meetings that Enable You to Learn More About Your Colleagues:
1. Speed Dating Icebreaker
Icebreakers for meetings are a good way to get to know each other better! Arrange your meeting attendees in two rows of chairs, facing each other. Attendees have 1-2 minutes to talk with the person opposite. You can write down 3 questions that they must get through, eg. favourite hobby, what superhero they would be and what is their guilty pleasure food. Once the time is up, the other row will move one chair sideways and the attendees will have a new speed dating partner. At the end of the round, each attendee has to randomly present another participant and tell about them.
2. My Life as Lyrics Icebreaker
If you were a song, which song would you be and why? Ask everyone to give an example of the lyrics and the line that speaks to them the most. For example, I would be Eye of the Tiger from Survivor, “It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight, Risin’ up to the challenge of our rival” because I’m ready to work hard as a team to compete against our market challenger.
3. Two Truths and a Lie
Ask everyone to share two truths and a lie about themselves. Meanwhile, the others are tasked with guessing the facts and the lies correctly.
4. Toilet Paper Challenge
Have a little fun and surprise your colleagues with icebreakers for meetings! Bring a toilet paper roll with you for this icebreaker. Ask everyone to take as many pieces of toilet paper as they would normally use. Once everyone has their toilet paper squares, they now need to share as many fun facts about themselves as they have pieces.
5. Random Presentation
Choose one of the meeting participants in advance and request them to prepare a relaxed 5-minute presentation for this icebreaker. Hence the only condition is that the topic should not be related to work. Your colleague can talk about their hobby, their best or worst achievement in childhood, about an endangered animal species, their personal interest, relevant news, cooking recipe, etc. This is a fun icebreaker and in addition, you learn a little bit more about one of your colleagues. Also, if your meeting goes on for several days, each day a different team member can be picked to do the presentation.
Fun and Easy Icebreakers for Meetings to Lighten the Mood:
6. Celebrity Icebreaker
Prepare in advance an equal amount of notes that you have participants. On each note, write down a name of a celebrity, for example, a politician, singer, actor, sports athlete, cartoon character, etc. Each attendee will randomly pick a note and stick it on their forehead without looking at the name — make sure there are no mirrors around! Afterwards, on each round, everyone gets to ask one YES/NO question about their character, and the goal is to guess your celebrity. For the rest of the meeting, the celebrity can be your new nickname!
7. Icebreaker of One Word
This meeting icebreaker is simple. Everyone has to share one word that describes their past weekend / upcoming weekend / expectations of the meeting / mood / achievement. Go through the circle, and likewise do different rounds with different themes if you feel like it.
8. Or… Do a One Word Chain
Start by saying a word, and the person next to you has to say the first word that comes to their mind after hearing yours. Everyone is allowed one word in your circle. You can see how by comparison the theme or feeling of the words changes by the end of the circle.
9. Silent Exchanges
In this icebreaker no spoken or written language is allowed. Tell your attendees to form a line from the youngest attendee to the oldest, then by height so shortest to tallest, by the number of languages spoken, by years working in the company, etc.
Quiz Icebreaker for Meeting — Everyone Loves Them:
10. Company Quiz
This icebreaker requires some advance preparation. Prepare questions about your company and hold a short quiz in the beginning of the meeting. This is a fun way to test how well your colleagues actually know the facts! Consequently, ask questions such as company founder’s name and founding year, number of employees, number of countries operated in, who is your biggest competitor, last year’s revenue, mission, values, CEO’s favorite food?
Cherry on Top of the Cake, a Couple of Millennial Proof Icebreakers…:
11. Smiley Icebreaker
If you have younger meeting attendees, you can opt for tech-savvy icebreakers for meetings. Attendees have to present themselves shortly and then do a facial expression, after which the other attendees try to guess which smiley your participant is putting on. Therefore this icebreaker works great for the smartphone and social media generation!
12. Tell Us About Your One Instagram Photo
Again an icebreaker that’s great for events with younger attendees. Firstly, ask everyone to show one of their Instagram photos on their phone and moreover, tell the others why they chose this photo and what the story behind it is.
… And a few Icebreakers that Will Get Your Attendees Moving, Energized and Feeling More Focused!
13. Mindfulness Icebreaker for meeting
Meeting icebreakers don’t have to be all about playing games and being active. Start the day with a few minutes of pure silence or instructed silence. Everyone finds a comfortable position either sitting or lying down, silent and just focusing on their breath for five minutes. You can also do an instructed mindfulness session with the help of a mindfulness app, like Headspace or find a meditation video from Youtube — there are lots of meditations of different lengths available.
14. Your Favorite Stretch!
Have your attendees stand up and ask everyone to shortly present themselves and pick their favorite stretching move, that you will all hold for 10-15 seconds. Go through the round and your body will feel more open and ready for the day. It’s also good to break the meeting regularly to do a few more stretches and avoid sitting down too long.
15. Dance The Macarena
Oldie but goldie, have everyone stand up and pleasantly surprise them with playing The Macarena from Youtube and have everyone do a short Macarena dance before kick starting the day! This icebreaker is guaranteed to put a smile on everyone’s lips.
Finally, let us know which Icebreaker for meetings is your favorite and send us a photo of your team playing it! At HUONE our mission is to ensure the success of your meeting day and we are looking to create the best possible meeting day for you.