There’s a reason your stomach drops. Here’s what to do instead.Hey, How are you? Remember the moment someone said, “Let’s start with an icebreaker”? Your stomach dropped. Your mind went blank, then went into overdrive. What’s an interesting fact about me? What can I say that sounds impressive but not too impressive? What can I say that’s true enough? You stopped listening to the people around you because you were too busy inventing yourself. That’s the bit nobody says out loud. The icebreaker was meant to bring the room together. Instead, everyone spent five minutes alone inside their own heads, performing. Icebreakers ask people to be interesting. Connection needs people to feel safe. Those are very different things. You can’t build trust with someone who’s busy managing how they look. And the people who feel it most, the quiet ones, the new starters, the ones who don’t think they have a “fun fact”, are the very people you most want to bring in. So I stopped using icebreakers a long time ago. I use connection builders. What’s a connection builder? A light, harmless question that everyone already has an answer to. Nothing to invent. Nothing to prove. Nothing to get wrong. Eggs in the fridge or out? Watch what happens. The room splits. Someone says, “You keep your WHAT in the fridge?” People laugh. People argue, gently, about something that doesn’t matter at all. And that’s exactly why it works. Because it doesn’t matter, it’s safe. Because it’s safe, people answer. And every time someone answers and nothing bad happens, the room learns something important: it’s safe to be honest here, and it’s safe to be different. Watch the one. The lone tally mark on the whiteboard, the person who’s the only one who puts their eggs in the fridge. In that moment they find out that being different gets a laugh, not a judgement. Now for the part most people miss: layering A connection builder is never just a question. It’s the first layer. Start light. Eggs. Socks. Chocolate. Let people practise answering and being heard. Then, as safety builds, the questions can go a little deeper. What’s a small thing that makes your day better? What’s something you’ve changed your mind about? Then deeper again, when the room is ready for it. Each layer earns the right to ask the next one. Skip the layers and you’re back to the icebreaker, only with better questions. Why I’m telling you this Last week a leader told me about someone who’d been on one of my training sessions. They loved the connection builder questions because of the conversation they sparked, so they borrowed them word for word. And it was a lovely conversation. That’s great, and I’m glad. But they used the questions at face value. They didn’t know about the layering, or why the questions were built in that order, or what they were really for. So they got a nice chat, and missed the shift underneath it: a team that gradually finds it’s safe to say what it really thinks. The questions are the easy part. The intent is where the value is. Ask it, then make space for the answer. Then build on it. Where the layers really come to life That story is one of the reasons I’ve spent nearly ten months writing my new book, Curious Conversations. Connection builders are just the doorway. Behind them is a whole way of asking, listening and building on what people give you, so that the conversations you have at work get braver, more honest and more useful over time. Layering is a big part of it, and in the book we go into it in far more detail than I can fit in an email. I’m not ready to tell you everything yet. But if you’ve ever wondered how to get from “chocolate in the fridge” to a team that tells each other the truth, that’s the journey the book takes you on. More soon. Start with the 120 connection builders (free) In the meantime, here’s the first step. I’ve put together a pack of 120 questions, in ten themes, from Food Fights to A Glimpse of Character. It includes four ways to run them (whiteboard, round the room, show of hands, or on a call), the ground rules that keep them safe, and a four-week planner so you can start on Monday. 👉[Download the Connection Builder Pack here] Try one this week. Ask it, then really make space for the answer. Chocolate in the fridge or out? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one. Have fun Lee P.S. If you forward this to a manager who still says the word “icebreaker”, I won’t tell them it was you. P.P.S. The right answer is always chocolate in the fridge, isn’t it? |
Icebreakers don’t break the ice. They break people.
