Note from Art: In keeping with my “Lighter Fare on Friday” theme here’s an idea to help spice up your next meeting.

As a first-day seminar or workshop participant, don’t you just hate the opening few minutes where you’re thrown together with a group of strangers for the first time?  You know it’s coming…everyone knows it’s coming, you just don’t know what form it’s going to show up as for this session.

I’m talking about the ubiquitous and often dreaded Ice-Breaker.

This is the part where the instructor has spent hundreds of seconds rifling through books that have titles that sound like, “Session-Opening Games that Will Make Your Audience Cringe and Ensure that theirs Standards are Low Enough for Your Lame Content.”  (OK, that was a bit harsh.  Sorry to the authors of bad Ice-Breakers and purveyors of lame content!)

I’ve long avoided most of the games that trainers, workshop leaders and presenters use to “break the ice” near the beginning of events.  I have a “skin crawl” test on these topics.  If the idea is so cheesy and there is no genuine payoff or ability to make a connection that it makes my skin crawl, I don’t want to be any where near a room that is running through this exercise. My “skin crawl” and “cheesy” filters are pretty sensitive.

However, what’s the alternative?  The age-old form of name, rank and serial number or tell us who you are, what you do and what you hope to gain from being here, is just Lame with a capital L. Some session leaders throw caution to the wind and add in the “tell us something really unique about yourself.”  More lame.  There’s about as much energy in those activities as I observe on the  5:47 a.m. express heading for Downtown Chicago, where snoring is the favorite pastime.

An Ice-Breaker that Works:

Well, I’ve finally found an Ice-Breaker that passes my “no skin crawl, can’t be too cheesy, must have some semblance of a point” filters.  I wish I could claim to have made it up, but I actually picked it up from Bob Furniss, a Call Center Industry guru, great speaker and all around good guy.  I’m not sure where Bob picked it up, but since I asked his permission to use it, I sleep comfortably at night, knowing that the chain of copyright is intact.

What’s the activity?  It’s called, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” I just love this game for its simplicity and for the connections that people make in the process.

The guidelines are simple. I explain to the audience that once I say “go,” they are to get up, seek out a new colleague, exchange introductions and then share views on the following:

  • “If you could have a conversation with ANYONE living or dead, who would that be and what would you talk about?”
  • I encourage them to have this conversation as many times as possible (I allot about 10 minutes for this activity), and I throw in the final catch.  “When we wrap up, I would like to hear from you about some of the most interesting dinner guests of your classmates.”

I ask if there are any questions, and invariably one person responds with, “What are we supposed to do?”  I smile and explain it one more time….repetition is good, and then I send the group off to mingle.

You can set your watch by the change in the volume in the room.  I’ve run this exercise with groups of 10 and groups of 200 and the outcome is the same every time.  For the first few seconds the room is quiet and within 45 seconds, the noise from conversations, the laughing and the dinner conversations is extreme.

I walk around encouraging people to switch partners and meet as many individuals as possible.  I also break up groups that are congregating and keep them moving.

In large groups, I will guarantee that at least one person will cry and maybe more.  That’s not a goal, but an outcome of someone thinking about talking with a relative or loved one that has passed.  Others will engage in deeply philosophical conversations thinking about dinner parties with the Founding Fathers, various Saints, the Big Guy himself and so forth.  In every group setting, I hear of a dinner conversation with a fascinating individual that I had not heard covered in a prior session.

What was momentarily awkward at the start turns into so much fun that I often struggle to regain control of the group. It’s a lot like herding cats to get people to wrap up their conversations and return to their seats.

OK, there’s definitely an element of silliness in this, but the dynamic works so well that I find myself uncharacteristically enjoying this Ice Breaker. This simple activity gets people out of the typical boring start of a seminar and the lame introduction mode and into relating to those in the room. In a matter of a few seconds, people establish an authentic connection with several other individuals.  You learn a lot about a person by listening and observing as he/she describes their dinner guest.  You gain a glimmer of an insight into values, thinking, priorities, likes and interests.

After the Ice-Breaker wraps up and I poll for fascinating dinner conversations (depending upon group size I’ll ask for 3 to 6 examples), the entire mood of the room has changed for the better.  People are relaxed, comfortable with the setting and their new colleagues and ready to get down to work.  It happens every time.

If you are looking for help in kicking off a workshop or seminar, or even shaking up an internal departmental or project team meeting, give “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” a shot.  I would love to hear how it works and of course hear about you most fascinating dinner guests!  Oh, and don’t forget to bring some tissues.

And for the record, I would like to have dinner with both Peter Drucker and W.Edwards Deming together.  I’ve got some questions!