Great ice breaker ideas start with three words

Can you sum up your job description in three words or less? Think you could describe yourself or your personality in only three words?

Give it a try the next time you’re preparing for job interviews, recommends UK management advisor Colin Beveridge (via Human Race Horses). You may find the exercise to be a powerful self-evaluation tool, he says.

But if you’re not interviewing anytime soon, try the idea out as a quick ice breaker idea at your next meeting or event. We’ll call it the Three-Word Challenge, even shorter than the six-word ice breakers we shared late last year.

Simply start off your meeting by asking everyone to describe their job, what makes them happy, or even an interesting, unknown fact about themselves. Give them a few minutes to mull it over, then go around the room and have everyone share.

Be prepared to give good examples to get them started. Michael VanDervort at Human Race Horses recently shared these great three word self evaluations:

• Help people think (Beveridge)
• Make information useful (VanDervort)
• I think differently
• Evaluate, encourage & execute

The possibilities are endless. Try the Three-Word Challenge as an ice breaker and let us know how it goes.

How would you describe your job in three words?

Six-word icebreakers, keep it short

When Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a story in only six words, he responded with:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

SMITH Magazine reignited the six-word story challenge in 2006 by asking readers to describe their lives in six words or less. The response was so overwhelming that they compiled the stories and created a book, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs from Writers Famous and Obscure.

“They sent in short life stories in droves, from the bittersweet (“Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends”) and poignant (“I still make coffee for two”) to the inspirational (“Business school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah”) and hilarious (“I like big butts, can’t lie”).”

The six-word memoir is not just a lesson in writing, but a concept that can be used to stay on task and on time around the office.

Take the idea of the six-word memoir and turn it into an introduction game or icebreaker:

• As everyone takes a seat at your next meeting or training exercise, tell them they have two minutes to write down their job description only using six words. When the two minutes are up, go around the room and have everyone share their name and six-word memoir.

Or, use it to keep your brainstorming sessions focused and to the point:

• Inspire your group with this video from SMITH Magazine and then ask the group to come up with ideas that can be written in six words or less. Whether you’re brainstorming new slogan ideas or identifying core issues, keeping ideas under six words will keep everyone focused.

Saying anything in six words or less can be a challenge, but it’s an exercise that delivers a great lesson on the value of clear communication. Use the ideas above or create your own six-word activities to challenge your next training group.

Have any ideas on how to use the six-word challenge to inspire employees? Leave a comment and let us know.

Open with ice breakers for effective learning

Ice breakers can help you open a meeting or training session by lightening the mood and encouraging audience participation. If you have a team working together for the first time or are introducing new employees, they can also ease the discomfort that goes along with meeting strangers.

“Ice breakers and energizers heighten the effectiveness of learning sessions when targeted to the training, speaking, or facilitation topic and the needs of the learners or participants,” according to Scott McArthur at McArthur’s Rant.

Enhance audience retention and foster learning by opening up your next training session, meeting or seminar with a fun, new ice breaker activity.

Here’s one easy ice breaker idea, all you need is a pen and pad of sticky notes:

What’s my name?

As each person enters the room, have them write the name of a famous person on a sticky note. Have participants stand or sit in a circle. Keeping the names hidden, place sticky notes on the participants’ foreheads.

One by one, each person asks ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions to determine the name of the famous person posted on their forehead. Depending on how much time you have, set a limit to how many questions each person can ask before they guess the name on their sticky note.

Go from person to person until everyone has guessed right or wrong. If you have a large group, break them down into manageable teams of 5 or 6.

When using a new ice breaker idea at work keep three things in mind:

1. Carefully choose the right one, McArthur liked this list - Ice Breakers, Energizers, and Activities
2. Follow the Do’s and Don’ts of ice breakers - keep it simple and don’t force people to participate.
3. Make sure the activity you choose isn’t listed in the “Top Worst Corporate Icebreakers,” or you “can kiss your dreams of a professional first impression goodbye.”

New icebreaker activities for meetings

We all want meetings to be productive, informative and help deliver results. Many times it is the way you start a meeting that can directly affect those results.

Even when you have a short time frame, icebreaker activities can help get meetings off to a great start. Get everyone talking and engaged with these easy icebreaker activities for meetings:

The Magic Genie - Designate one of the meeting leaders as the ‘Magic Work Genie.’ The genie has given each person in the room three work-related wishes. Ask each person in the room what three work related activities they would change and why.

21 Questions - As each person enters the room, tape a small note card to their back with the name of a famous person, city or topic related to the meeting. Arrange everyone in a circle, with backs to the wall. Let each person go around the inside of the circle, with their back turned to the people in the circle. The circling person must ask questions that can only be answered by a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to identify clues to find out the name on the index card taped to their back.

Office Survivor - Tell the group that tomorrow they will each be stranded on a separate island for an undetermined amount of time. What five (or other number depending on how much time you have) items would you bring? The catch - the items must all come from the office.

Dream Getaways - Ask each member in the meeting to introduce themselves and then share their idea of the perfect dream vacation. Encourage people to go into detail as to where the vacation will be, who they would bring and for how long.


After the activity is over, have a quick debriefing and ask everyone in the meeting why they think you played the icebreaker game, as well as how the quick activity may have impacted communication and teamwork. Get your meetings off to a great start every time with a fun icebreaker activity that gets everyone involved and engaged.