Lead ~ Serve ~ Learn
Mason's Resource For:
Ice breakers & Team Building
"Team" is defined as a group of people who work together with an explicit purpose and who are in need of each other's skills and abilities. So when you have a team who is fresh out of the water, you need to make sure that all members of the group are able to work together. That is where team building and icebreakers come into play.
The purpose of team building is to form a more cohesive, supportive, and trusting group which recognizes and utilizes different skills, styles, values and other behaviors of team players. All teams are made up of a variety of people. Most groups are constantly working to have great team players.
To build a team, one can use a variety of icebreakers. There are many different levels of icebreakers and you should consider who you are trying to make comfortable. The following is a chart of how the icebreakers are ranked, who they apply to, and how they work.
- Low-Level...People who have never worked together or who are at an age where you aren't sure how they will react.
- Mid-Level...People that have just met or those who are in a same age bracket.
- High-Level...People that know each other and have been together for a period of time.
Once you have decided what group level you are dealing with, you can then decide what type of icebreaker you might want to use with them. The icebreaker you choose should be one that is going to get the whole group interacting. The length of an icebreaker should be determined by how long your meeting is going to last. If you have an hour meeting, it would not be wise to have an icebreaker that lasts 20 minutes because that detracts from the meeting time. The purpose of any icebreaker is to relax the group, and set a pace for the meeting. Many organizations when first coming together like to get members introduced to each other by using an icebreaker called the "Name Game." This is just one of many different types of icebreakers an organization can use.
For more information and examples of icebreakers, please stop by the Center for Leadership & Community Engagement.
