The Art of Awkwardness: Icebreaker Games Meetings Memorable

Starting your career at a new company can be overwhelming for many employees, especially – if they’re introverted. A great way to combat the awkwardness and help facilitate conversations is by planning icebreaker games and activities throughout the workweek. Icebreakers are small mini-games that take around 5-10 minutes of your time to play. The goal is to help your team feel comfortable communicating with their coworkers and getting to know each other personally. 

Whether you’re onboarding new team members or encouraging two different departments to work together on a project – icebreakers are an invaluable tool for your company. 

Here’s how to use icebreakers to create fun workplace meetings and overcome awkwardness:

The Benefits of Icebreakers

There are many use cases for icebreakers and mini-games. These games are great for sparking open communication and helping your team relax and unwind before diving into a discussion.

• Create a Relaxed Environment: Icebreakers are great if you have a team of new hires who aren’t comfortable speaking up or adding to the discussions. After a quick game or two, they’ll feel relaxed with their coworkers. 
• Entertaining: Sales games are fun! They invite your team to take a step back from the chaos of the workweek to get to know their team and to feel more connected with your company culture. 
• Foster Authentic Connections: Many icebreakers help your team get to know each other better. They’ll learn about their coworker’s likes, dislikes, and interests in 5-10 minutes. 
• Prepare for Collaboration: You want your team to work together and make work friends. With icebreakers, you can avoid awkwardness and get your employees comfortable with one another, making it easier than ever to jump into tasks as a team later. 

That’s just skimming the surface of the benefits. When used correctly, icebreakers can completely change the workplace dynamic and improve employee satisfaction – for the better. Whether it’s an early morning meeting, onboarding, or an intimate meeting between two teams – there’s always a way to use icebreakers in the workplace to make experiences memorable for everyone. 

10 Ice Breaker Games To Try

When introducing icebreakers into meetings, onboarding processes, or activities, you may feel concerned that some games are too cheesy. When engaging with your team, you’ll want to stick with light-hearted, fun games that align with their interests and keep them engaged with their team members. 

Here are our 10 top picks:

1. Never Have I Ever

For this game, everyone will hold one hand up with five fingers. You’ll start with one person and go around the room saying: “Never have I ever…” If someone has done that thing, they put one finger down. You’ll continue to go around the room or the Zoom screen until one person has put down all their fingers first. 

This great mini-game invites you to explore your team’s past experiences, and you’ll get to see who is the most adventurous out of the bunch!

2. Bucket List

This icebreaker is about learning more about your team’s dreams and aspirations. To play, you’ll pick one person to share something from their bucket list. After they share, they’ll choose someone to go next, and you’ll continue to go around the circle until everyone has shared at least one bucket list item. 

Don’t be afraid to let your team socialize, ask questions, or make comments in between this answer. This is a fun-filled icebreaker designed to inspire your team and improve communication.

3. Guess That Childhood Photo

It’s time to take a walk through memory lane and see what your team members looked like when they were a baby! For this icebreaker, every person on your team will submit a childhood photo of them they have. Once you’ve gathered all the pictures and put them into a PowerPoint presentation, you’ll play the presentation, and everyone will need to guess who is who. 

There will be ones that surprise you, some that make sense, and others that you never saw coming! 

4. Rose, Thorn, Bud

As a manager, you always want to know how your sales team feels about the tasks they have on their plate and how they’re feeling in general. Rose, Thorn, and Bud invite your team to share a positive experience, a challenge they faced, and something they’re excited about. This is a great conversation starter used to begin a meeting or a big project and ensures your team is in sync and ready to take on challenges. 

5. Would You Rather?

This is a quick and easy icebreaker that is perfect for paying with new hires. To play, someone will pick two things. 

Here are some examples:

• Would you rather go on a beach vacation or a winter vacation?
• Would you rather eat at a 5-star Italian restaurant or a sushi restaurant?
• Would you rather spend your PTO going to Europe or Asia?

After one person answers the question, the whole group will respond with their answer. This game invites creative ideas and is the perfect ice breaker for “breaking the ice” and helping your team feel more comfortable with one another. 

6. Two Truths and a Lie

How well do your employees know your coworkers? There’s only one way to find out. For this game, each team member will say two truths and a lie about themselves. 

The rest of your team will need to decide which is the lie. You’ll go around the room until everyone has a chance to play. By the end of the game, you’re sure to know more about your coworkers and strengthen your connection with one another.

7. Scavenger Hunt

Looking for an icebreaker that’s a little more interactive to help beat the boring and create a positive culture? Plan a full-fledged scavenger hunt! This is an excellent icebreaker for remote teams and a must-have for creating memorable meetings.

Here’s how to play:

• Break your team up into groups
• Create a list of items each group needs to find
• Set a timer, and let the games begin!
• Whichever group finds the most items on the list -wins!

At the end of the icebreaker, your remote team will feel a stronger connection with one another and will feel more connected with their coworkers.

8. Spin a Prize Wheel

Spin the wheel and test your luck with a prize wheel. Prize wheels are fun, interactive tools your business can use to engage with new hires during onboarding, reward your team after a tough quarter, or make meetings more interactive. 

However, having a giant prize wheel in your office is not always practical, especially if you have a remote or hybrid workforce. If you have Spinify, you can create instant virtual prize wheels for your meetings. 

Our AI-driven tool will generate prize ideas based on your budget and make it easy to randomly pick someone on your team to spin the wheel before your meeting. A prize wheel is the perfect interactive icebreaker that rewards your team for their hard work and keeps them engaged during the sales meetings – a win-win for everyone!

9. Race-Style Leaderboard

Looking for something fast-paced, exciting, and interactive? We have the perfect icebreaker for you. A race-style leaderboard is a fun-filled competition designed to inspire friendly competition and keep your team on their toes. 

For this idea, we recommend using it as a fun “finisher” for your onboarding. At the end of your onboarding process, you can test your team’s new skills by challenging them to race to the finish of their training. This is a great way to turn your onboarding process into a memorable experience for your new hires and ensure they retain the information they learn. 

10. Team Building Bingo 

If you have the time and creativity, team-building bingo is a great icebreaker to try out. This icebreaker takes a personalized approach to the traditional game of bingo. 

To play team-building bingo, you’ll need to start by creating a custom bingo card. In each square, include a line that may pertain to an employee throughout the work week. 

Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Gets up to grab a cup of coffee during a meeting
• Always has their video cam off 
• Someone that’s 5 minutes late to the 1:1 meetings
• The office lunch thief 

Hand out the bingo cards at the beginning of the week and encourage your team to socialize and connect with their coworkers. During the all-hands meeting of the week, you’ll go over the results and announce the winner. Throughout the week, your team will have time to interact and strengthen their connection while learning something new about their coworkers.

Gamify the Workplace With Spinify

So, why are sales training games and team bonding icebreakers so successful? It’s because they use the power of gamification. Gamification is an invaluable strategy businesses can use to engage with their employees and improve productivity. 

Our sales gamification software is an invaluable workplace tool designed to help your sales reps stay engaged with the mundane tasks of the workweek and stay inspired by the work they do with your business. We use game elements like leaderboards, progress bars, and badges to help you engage with your team and keep them on task during 9-5. 

Book a free demo today to learn more about our outstanding sales gamification tools.