Combat the Zoom Zombies with Icebreakers

Let me ask you a question:

When people show up to the online meetings you’re leading, what levels of energy, excitement, and readiness to engage are you observing? Are you finding that people are showing up ready to go and excited to accomplish something? Or do they look a little more like these folks?

While you may have their attention, you can almost hear them saying, “Ugh, another online meeting.”

Body language like this is telling you something. It's telling you that you are not making the most of your team’s time.

The people in that photo are what I call “Zoom Zombies.” These folks are the undead of online meetings, and you need to wake them up! If you're seeing this every time you run an online meeting, that should be a red flag that you are not leading effectively.

And you need to do something about it. We have a whole training course that offers a host of tools to combat these issues, but in this article, I’d like to spotlight just one: icebreakers.

So what is an icebreaker?

Simply put, an icebreaker is a very short activity that shakes people out of the hypnosis of their doldrum days. It gets them participating in an active, positive way that then carries over to the rest of the meeting

Here are some examples of effective icebreakers.

Icebreaker Example #1:

Say to your group, “Hey, everyone, take a look around your workspace. I want you to find something that's meaningful to you; something that has a story behind it. It could be an item on your desk, a picture, or a plant. And I'm going to ask the first five people who find something like that to take 60 seconds to tell us the story behind it.”

Five minutes, and boom. Now you've gotten people engaged, talking, and probably even laughing. Even though it’s just a short activity, it is quickly warming people up and getting them to know each other better—and in the process positioning them to more effectively participate.

Icebreaker Example #2:

Just ask a trivia question, such as “What country consumes the most chocolate per capita?” Tell people to grab a piece of paper and write down their guess. Then, you as the facilitator can direct them to hold their piece of paper up to the camera in five, four, three, two, one. This helps everyone interact and see each other all at once without having to individually verbalize their answers.

Icebreaker Example #3:

Try asking, “What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?” Then give people 30 seconds to type their answers into the chat. Similar to holding things up to the camera, chat allows a lot of people to contribute very quickly. Not only are you warming them up for the meeting, you’re probably yielding interesting tidbits, some funny, others poignant. And that's exactly what you want. 

Icebreaker Example #4:

Play two truths and a lie, which can be done with just a few people. You probably already know this game. Participants have to come up with two things about themselves that are true and one that's a lie.

If I were playing, I might say that I lived in Los Angeles during some of the big earthquakes in the 90s, I was once on a television game show representing New York University, and I have a pet dog named Calvin.

So those are my two truths and a lie. And then the group has to try to figure out which one is true. To find out what my lie is, keep reading to the end.

So why take time out of a meeting to play games like this? There are a few reasons.

Reason #1: Icebreakers change things up. They’re an unexpected, fun way to start a meeting, which is invaluable in a time when everyone is working from home and catching chronic cases of “Zoom fatigue.” 

Reason #2: Icebreakers help participants start the meeting off on the right foot, fostering positive mindsets that they will keep with them as they move to the next part of the meeting.

Reason #3: Icebreakers condition interaction. You don't want people in your meetings to be couch potatoes passively watching you present. You want them ready to interact. When you start a meeting by giving them something that’s easy to participate in, it's as if you're getting the fire going. As you start transitioning to the real content, your participants are already warmed up. 

Reason #4: Icebreakers can be a good way to practice using a helpful tool on your online meeting platform. For example, if your team doesn't use the chat feature a lot, the trivia icebreaker can serve as a practice session for using it. Once participants gain experience using chat for trivia, it will be easier to incorporate it into other parts of your meetings. 

Reason #5: Icebreakers foster socialization, which is one of the five key goals for a meeting, as we explain in our meeting training. By playing an engaging, lighthearted game together, teammates will get to know each other better and be primed to collaborate more effectively throughout the rest of the meeting.

So those are 5 reasons that beginning a meeting with an icebreaker is well worth the two to five minutes it takes.

To wrap up, here are a couple of tips for how to ensure these icebreakers are successful.

Tip #1: Briefly tell people why you’re doing this. Explain that, “Hey, we're going to play a fun game that’s going to get us in a great mood. We’ve got a lot to accomplish, and I really think it's worth taking just a couple of minutes now to do something fun.

Let's get going.” You don't need to give them a whole treatise—just convey to them why the icebreaker is a valuable part of the meeting rather than some frivolous game.

Tip #2: Approach it with absolute confidence. You do not want to halfheartedly say, “Hey, guys, I got this icebreaker activity from the internet. I’ll just throw it up on the screen and see if anyone’s interested.”

No, no, no. Use these tactics to make it clear that these icebreakers are an essential part of the meeting.

• Present the icebreaker with the mindset that there will be 100 percent participation. Don’t explicitly say it’s mandatory, but make it clear how the game will work and what you need from everybody. 
• Approach it with a spirit of fun. There’s no need to be a strict taskmaster about it. Instead, let your enthusiasm shine through and frame the icebreaker as something enjoyable and worthwhile. 
• Before the meeting, practice how you tee up the icebreaker a couple of times to make sure your pitch is convincing. When your group sees that you're invested in it, they'll be encouraged to fully dive in. 

Tip #3: Keep it varied. When you get in the habit of using icebreakers, you don't want to be using the same ones over and over again with the same group of people. It’s crucial to maintain a large, varied collection of games and continually change it up. Here, we’re giving you a deck with 10 different icebreakers, and our forthcoming training has a deck with 50 different icebreakers. 

Now, I’ll complete the icebreaker I began earlier on. As you recall, I told you that I had a pet dog named Calvin, I lived in Los Angeles during some of the big earthquakes in the 90s, and I represented NYU on a game show. In fact, I do not have a dog not named Calvin. I don't have any dogs at all—just two guinea pigs that my daughter Samantha has. So the other two things are true! 

And with that, good luck with your meetings and your icebreakers. Please follow up if you have any questions. We hope you enjoy this starter set of 10 icebreakers. You can download them in PowerPoint format if you like. Or, if you use Google slides, you can upload the PowerPoint file to Google Slides.