I love icebreakers and would never start a meeting or workshop without one. No matter how well people know each other, they are entering your event space with a million things flying around in their heads, and often with a great deal of nervous energy, either from anticipation of your event, or from other things going on in their lives. Giving everyone a chance to literally warm up their bodies and minds by moving around, getting to know each other, and using their voices will help them immeasurably throughout the session. If you don’t already do some kind of warm up activity, today is the day to start!

Here are some ideas on how to make this happen:

• Have your icebreaker relate to the topic you will be covering. For example, if our topic of the day is “staying organized,” I might do an icebreaker that involves people sorting a bunch of random objects and then discussing with their partners how their sorting system works. Or I may ask participants to discuss a series of questions like, “Which parts of your life feel organized, which don’t? What systems do you use to stay organized? What helps and motivates you to be organized?” etc. In teacher-speak, we call this opening activity “the hook,” as it gets people excited and clear on what we will be covering during the engagement.

• I love mingle-mingle activities because people have to walk around the room and have the opportunity to talk to several different partners. You can either play music and ask participants to find a partner once the music stops, or you can ask them to find a specific partner, for example, someone who is wearing similar shoes to the ones they are wearing. Change partners at least three times, and each time give them a different discussion prompt (related to your topic!) to discuss after they have introduced themselves.

• Be mindful of opening with an activity that takes too long. Having everyone share to the whole group is probably not feasible if there are 40 people in the room, but having them share in pairs or small groups definitely is! The goal does not have to be for everyone to meet everyone else, since they will hopefully have opportunities to meet more people at other points during the engagement. Instead, the goal should be for everyone to have an opportunity to get warmed up, whatever form that takes. I usually aim for 20 minutes, which feels like a great use of our time if it really launches us into our topic, which, when done well, it will!

• If you want to do introductions as part of your icebreaker, I like to have partners introduce each other, rather than introducing themselves. Why? Because some people struggle to keep things short, and others feel uncomfortable talking about themselves in front of a large group. Ask pairs to introduce themselves to each other (they can take notes if they feel nervous about remembering details), and then have the partners introduce each other to the group.

• Look online or at your local bookstore for ideas. There are so many icebreakers on the internet, you can even do a search for “icebreaker [your topic]” so that all of the work is done for you! I also often refer to a couple of different books I have for ideas, all you need are one or two good ones to keep you in fun-icebreaker-mode for a long time.

• Debrief the icebreaker after you are finished. Some questions I like to ask participants to think, write, or discuss include, “Why do you think we opened with this activity? How did this activity relate to today’s topic? How might you use this activity with staff or stakeholders in your work environment?”

• Keep it fun! People actually learn and perform better when they are having a good time and are feeling relaxed! Set the tone for your engagement by keeping things light, funny, and upbeat. Especially if you are planning to cover a tough topic, starting out with a solid, fun icebreaker can really help keep people up.

Although it may seem like a waste of time to spend 20 minutes running around the room or playing a game, I actually cannot think of a better way to spend time during an engagement – because opening this way will make the rest of your time together more productive. Try it out and let me know if I’m wrong!