Week 17: Ice Breakers

Ice Breakers used in training should have an element of learning coupled with an element of fun.

Ice breakers are used to give a serious message to the trainees through a light exercise.

“Nothing which is not part of learning should be introduced in the training”

COMMON INTEREST – ICE BREAKER  

Step-1

1. Trainer asks the trainees to form a group of three. Waits till they form the group.
2. Trainer asks them to discuss amongst themselves and identify a subject of common interest of all the three and write it on a piece of paper.
3. Trainer tells them that only one subject of common interest is to be identified.
4. Trainer gives them 3 minutes’ time, and monitors the time with a timer.

Step-2

1. Trainer invites one group to the stage.
2. Receives the paper on which common interest is written and looks at it.
3. Asks one of the participants in the group to demonstrate only in action through non verbal communication what is the “common interest”
4. Requests the audience to identify the common interest.
5. If the audience fail to identify, the other member in the group is requested to demonstrate.
6. If the second member fails to help the audience identify, then the third member is requested to step in.
7. If all the members of the group fail to help the audience identify, then the trainer reads what is written on the paper.

Step-3

Trainer repeats this with all the groups.

VARIED RESULTS

Example:

When this ice breaker was introduced in a training session, the results were different

A group had identified the “common interest” as “listening to old songs” and demonstrated it correctly.

Another group had identified the common interest as “cooking” but could not demonstrate it without using words.

Another group had strangely identified the common interest as “Male lawyers”. None could identify.

On questioning they admitted that they had misunderstood the words “Common interest” as “Common factor”.

The above ice breaker helps us learn many things:

1. It helps to make the members of the group to communicate with each other in order to understand a specific objective within a short time.
2. It helps trainees to develop the skill of conversing with others with an object in mind.
3. This will help prepare them in getting the information from the disputing parties in actual mediation.
4. This will help the trainees to train themselves to work within a time frame and in a focused manner.
5. This will help the trainer to understand the level of comprehension of the trainees.
   For example, When the group members had mistaken “common interest” to mean “Common factor”
6. This will help the trainees to develop the art of communication without the use of words.
7. It will help the trainer to understand how good are the trainees in understanding the non-verbal communication, which is essential part of mediation.  
8. This exercise will become part of further learning about active listening., and help the trainees to enhance their skills of communicating without using words, and understanding what is not spoken in words.

DE BRIEFING BY THE TRAINER

• Trainer should explain the objective of the ice breaker exercise.
• Explain each element (as shown in (i) to (viii)) so that trainees understand the importance of the exercise.

PREPARATION BY THE TRAINER

1. A Trainer should have 10-15 ice breakers in the Trainer’s Kit
2. It is ideal to make a list of the learning objectives with each of the exercises and keep it ready in the trainer’s kit.
3. Should know the objective of using a particular ice breaker at a particular point of time.
4. Learning objectives must be very clear in the mind of the trainer and should be communicated to the trainees, after the exercise.
5. Should think about the suitability of the exercise.

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(All copy rights reserved by the author S.Susheela)