From the course: Icebreakers for Teams, Meetings, and Groups

Psychology of icebreakers

From the course: Icebreakers for Teams, Meetings, and Groups

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Psychology of icebreakers

- Remember Shrek? He was the big green ogre who starred in the "Shrek" movie series. In the first film, he told his friend Donkey that ogres are like onions, they have layers and to get to know an ogre, you have to peel away the outside to get to the center. Well, same thing goes for people. And it's really important to know other people's centers when you're on the same team. When members of a team feel safe sharing their inner layers, honest communication happens. They learn to trust and depend on one another and they're more creative and committed. But this doesn't happen automatically. Team members need to learn that it's safe to share their inner selves. So we're going to explore how icebreakers help a team become stronger and more effective. Icebreakers are formal planned exercises a group completes together. They can involve sharing personal information, solving a problem or even just learning each other's names. Regardless of their specific format, icebreakers all serve the same purpose: they open doors for deeper communication. When we first meet someone, our communication is relatively shallow. We talk about the weather, other trivial things. But over time, we figure out if we can trust the other person with more important information and the more we learn about other people, the more comfortable we are telling them things about ourselves. Social penetration theory explains how this works. Relationships usually develop in a pretty predictable way. If I want to get to know you, I'll disclose some personal information, maybe tell you about my dogs. Then, I'll wait and see if you also disclose something about your personal life. If you do, then I'm more likely to tell you something else and if you again reciprocate, we're on the road to friendship. Self-disclosure is the key to determining how far a relationship can go. But, it can be hard to share parts of yourself with people you don't know very well and relationships take time to develop. That's where icebreakers can really help. Left on its own, relationship development in a 10-person work group could literally take years. Think of it, each person has to get to know nine others individually. That's a lot of time and energy. Icebreakers involve the whole group at once, so people can get to know many others at the same time. It's just more efficient. And icebreakers make sharing information normal. You have to tell people your childhood dream or favorite animal, it's the rule in a game that everyone is playing. It's hard to get things started in a relationship. We often don't get to the point where we figure out what we have in common with other people. Icebreakers give us the opportunity to make that happen by getting us used to sharing things with one another. So, as you plan icebreaker activities for your team, remember the wise words of Shrek, we need a way to get past people's outer layers and connect with their core selves. It's not only the recipe for good collaboration, it can also be a lot of fun.

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