Are you looking for icebreaker questions that are suitable for you to use at your workplace or perhaps to start your next meeting?
If you answered Yes, you’re going to walk away with at least 10 questions you can use for that purpose, and I’m also going to share with you two key principles of what makes those questions work well and why.
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I’m going to share a story that demonstrates a transformation of where people not only wanted to turn up but actually wanted to turn up on time.
Many moons ago, I was working as a lecturer at a university. I had two subjects, both related to adventure programming, and I had a limited amount of time. I had a couple of hours in my classroom.
I would always be prepared and I’d get there nice and early. But what I discovered was actually working with these college-age students that I was smacked by their nonchalance about turning up on time. It was almost like – now that they’re responsible for turning up – what they noticed is that for many of the classes they attended is that they didn’t actually need to turn up on time because the lecturer would always wait that obligatory two, five or more minutes until most people arrived before they got into it.
So why would you turn up on time when you could spend another few minutes with a friend before getting to class?
So this was my workplace and I appreciate it’s within a school setting, but you’ll understand the principle. As I said, I had a lot to share, so I wanted to be able to cram as much as I could into the couple of hours I had. And I started early in what I referred to as the unofficial start.
In fact, this is where I honed the skills of the unofficial start. And in the beginning, probably at least a third of my class was at least five or up to 10 minutes late.
And here is what I noticed, by actually employing an unofficial start early, like the first few minutes before the top of the hour, before my class actually started, and then bleeding into the top of my hour is that by about the fifth week out of a 14-week semester, and I did this many, many times over the course of seven years for two subjects, by about the fifth week of the 14th week of the semester, I never had another late student.
Now, I didn’t know this term back in the 90s, but today it’s referred to as FOMO, fear of missing out. Because here’s what happened.
Those folks who either turned up on time or were just a little bit late discovered that as they entered into the space, there was something going on. It looked attractive.
People seemed to be engaged. They were having fun. There was this sort of feeling, you know, when you walk into a room and you kind of just feel something, there’s something, there’s an effect there.
You do that enough, and I never ever said “Hey dude, you’re meant to be here on time.” It was an internally motivated signal in their own heads that actually caused them to turn up on time so they didn’t miss out. And as I said, over the course of seven years, after about the fifth week of doing this, I never had another late student.
So I want to take that principle and apply it to your meetings, to your workplace, because it’s critical in understanding what’s actually going to be successful for you in crafting these questions, these icebreaker questions for your workplace.
So what did you hear in the story?
It wasn’t about punctuality. Sure, you know, if everyone could be there for every minute of the time I had something to share, they’re going to get the most amount of value from their time as a student in that workplace.
But it was more about generating energy. It was about building connexions. It was about building enthusiasm.
All of those things mattered much more than a student missing out on the first five minutes of the class.
There are two key principles, two hot principles I want to point out, and they will help you understand how I’ve crafted the 10 questions I will share with you below.
The first one is the unofficial start.
The unofficial start, by definition, is any strategy you can use that will engage people productively before you get started, before the official start. So think of your meeting. Think of that seminar, whatever it is that you’re getting together in the workplace for, and if you find that people are dribbling in or don’t feel particularly motivated for coming, you might discover that there’s something you could do.
It could be a question like one of the 10 I’m going to share with you, or it could be a puzzle, or it could be a video, or it could be something that you’re doing as a group that actually engages people productively because you’re building relationships and gives people a reason to not want to miss out. If you do that enough, they go, oh, I might make it to the next meeting on time because I don’t want to miss out like I did today. So that’s the first hot principle.
The second one is make it relevant. It shouldn’t appear like you’re filling in time. So with all of the experiences that I shared as my unofficial start with my students, I found a way to segue to reinforce or fill the content that I was delivering in that particular class.
And it’s the truth about your meetings as well. Could you craft your icebreaker questions related to the purpose of your meeting? You’ll notice this in some of the questions that I’m about to share with you.
These two hot principles will really help you make these icebreaker questions land powerfully for you to help transform not only the engagement and the enjoyment perhaps of the time you spend together, but also build relationships.
So what do these 10 questions look like?
Well, first of all, understand there is no magic to these questions or indeed any icebreaking activity.
It’s simply a tool. And when used intentionally, it can help you build success for whatever you’re trying to get on. So here they go in no particular order, but I will say the first set of questions I want to share with you tend to be more introductory and then they can go a little bit deeper.
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The story of, you know, that is to say, how did you become named the names that you have on your birth certificate? So for example, my name is Mark Alan Collard. And here is the story I share often to demonstrate what I mean by this exercise.
And I can guarantee you for all the people who are in cubicles within your organisation or are coming together for perhaps for the first time, maybe once a year, is that they probably don’t know much about each other. Maybe don’t even remember each other’s names or certainly don’t remember each other’s middle names. So I’ll share the story of my name and then invite other people to share their names, maybe in small groups or to the whole group, depending on how many people are in your meeting.
So for example, Mark Alan Collard is my full name. Collard is a mistake because three generations ago, my great-grandfather on an official government form had our actual last name, Callard, C-A-L-L-A-R-D, incorrectly transposed from an A to an O. And from that point on, we became Collards, which is why there’s not many of us in the telephone book.
My middle name is Alan because in my family, the family tradition is that the firstborn son assumes their father’s name as their middle name. So my son, Devon, is Devon Mark Collard. My dad is Alan James Collard for the same reason.
But the most fascinating, interesting part about my name, the story of my name is my first name, Mark.
Mark was the first name of my mother’s second favourite boyfriend. True story. I guess the deal was I’ll marry you, Alan, but we have to name our first son after the other guy.
Fascinating. Now, sometimes people have some really wonderful stories and it’s a great way to develop a bit of insight, a bit of empathy, and also a connection with these people. Or if not, if people can’t or don’t know the reason behind their name, I give them permission to make it up and that can be a lot of fun as well.
What made you smile this week? Hmm. There should be lots of reasons. I didn’t say what was the biggest smile or narrowed it down to the last hour.
Give people a lot of options. And so what made you smile on the last week? It could have been something small at home or at work. It won’t matter.
Question number three, where in the world would you describe as paradise? And I often give an example of, I don’t spend a lot of time in bed, so I reckon being in bed is being in paradise, but it could be a holiday destination. It could be with your family somewhere overseas. It can really open up some really interesting conversations for people connected to that question.
What are people usually surprised to learn about you when they find out? For example, did you know that I’ve been hit by lightning twice? It’s a great story. I won’t share it here, but it’s true. Most people would have no clue that that’s actually happened in my life.
But notice the intentionality, the question up front intentionally invites people to share something that they’re willing to share. And that’s an important aspect of it.
Question number five, what are you grateful for? I start all of my evening meals with my family, holding hands and thinking about what we’re grateful for in that day.
Now, I’m not saying you should do that around the table at the workplace, but simply crafting an attitude of gratitude can be a really powerful way to diffuse conflict and issues of misunderstandings and so forth. When we start with gratefulness, it can really open up possibilities for our group. So a great icebreaker question, but may actually be very useful for serving to go into a conversation that may be a little bit more difficult for you to engage with.
Two more questions that sort of come under the non-threatening nature.
I remember this question when it was asked of me years ago that I was running late. And in fact, I’d missed my taxi and I was on my way to the airport and someone, a local passed by wondering why I was dragging all of my stuff to what would appear to be the train station.
And they stopped and said, can I give you a hand? And they took me to the train station and I made it just in time. I was really grateful for that. That was something kind that that person did.
Maybe it’s a language, maybe it’s something related to work. I’d really love to be able to learn how to use that accounting software or that particular machine or how to be able to make a presentation without notes. What skill would you like to master? Notice now that some of these questions easily have a segue to the purpose of your meeting or the reason that you’re gathering with your group.
Okay, this next set of questions is a little more, let’s say deeper or more self-reflective.
So you will need to judge whether in fact these would land sensitively for your group. But if it’s a group of people who are intact and they meet frequently, you might find that these questions work really well to break the ice.
Remember, that’s our focus here, to invite people to connect and interact in a way that helps them build those relationships.
What is one of your favourite things about one of your team members? It might be a personality trait or something that they’re good at, something they’ve done for you, but it’s a favourite thing about one of your team members, not about yourself, but one of your team members.
You could just imagine when that starts a meeting, how that will set up the conversation that follows.
This can be a great segue to sort of be able to chisel into the conversation around what you’re actually purposefully meeting for.
So what is something that we’re not talking about enough would be a great question to ask.
And finally, again, there’s no shortage of questions here, but this just sits on my top 10.
What is one of your greatest struggles? We’re not asking you to complain. We’re just asking you to describe what’s a struggle for you right now. Again, that might feed really nicely into your conversation, or if not, it just might provide an opportunity for your group to really connect closely.
If we’re really listening actively to what is being shared, can actually help us as a group grow together rather than consider ourselves as siloed workers in an environment where we have no connection to each other.
And now, an invitation. Try these out the next time that you gather for a meeting or otherwise. Maybe it’s just around the coffee room or the cooler room.
Asking these sorts of questions and try them out and let me know in the comments below what sorts of responses you got.
Now, don’t expect a miracle. If it’s something that’s really new, then you want to start really easily, softly, smoothly so that you don’t ruffle too many feathers. But if you do it in a really careful way that crafts the questions in a way that doesn’t threaten anybody, what you’ll discover, I expect, is that people are actually going to wake up and possibly even be motivated to turn up on time to your meetings. Because isn’t that really one of the biggest wastes of time is that you set a meeting time and not everyone actually arrives.
So try it out. Let me know how it goes in the comments below because that’s almost like the price of admission. All of this is free, but I’d love to know what resonated for you in this episode.
Thank you so much for reading. I can’t wait to hear what you have to share in the comments below.
Have fun out there.
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Original post August 2024, last updated December 2024.