• By Jonathan Ruales
• In DIY
• Posted September 21, 2015

Energize Your Team with This Quick Icebreaker!

Yes, you heard me correctly. Now, playing a game in the middle of the day may sound unimportant or even counterproductive to a workday. This however couldn’t be further from the truth!

We are talking about something more important than just playing games.

The American Workplace survey showed, 70% of U.S. employees aren’t engaged at work, a statistic that has not budged much in a decade.

Make it a habit to evaluate morale in your workplace; if it’s suffering, a break for fun can lift spirits and boost success. Give your team a chance to enjoy themselves; it’ll undoubtedly create a friendlier, happier, and all-around healthier environment for everyone. You’d be surprised by how challenging it can be to keep fun a priority. In this case, practice makes perfect.

The largest strides are not needed to be taken for this to work, either. Just having small breaks or activities can work wonders and create a proud team dedicated to improving workplace culture.

Salt and Pepper

This quick icebreaker activity is fun, excellent for energizing your team and letting them get to know each other. It doesn’t take up a lot of time and requires a few simple materials like a pen, tape, and small sheets of paper. Recommended group size can range from 6-40 people.

1. A sheet of paper for every person.
2. As manager, come up with pairs of things such as, salt and pepper, yin and yang, shadow and light, peanut butter and jelly, Mickey and Minnie mouse, male and female, and so forth.
3. Separate the pairs and write only one of them per piece of paper. (Salt on one paper, pepper on a completely different paper).
4. Tape one paper on the back of each person, making sure they can’t see it.
5. When you say go, everyone must walk around asking yes or no questions in order to find out what word they have taped to their backs.
6. Once they figure that out, they’ll be able to find their other pair. The two will sit down and learn three to five interesting facts about one another.
7. Optional step: have the pairs introduce their partners and the interesting facts they learned about them.

This exercise will encourage communication and creativity among the participants. Learning how to ask the right questions will be a challenge. It will also encourage teamwork as interacting with the other team members is necessary

Source: http://www.refreshleadership.com/index.php/2012/08/quick-games-engage-employees-work