Strong beginnings
‘The beginning is the most important part of the work.’ Plato
Regular readers will know that I never, ever do ice breakers. That’s because ice breakers free ships, not people.
I like to craft a beginning that fosters connections between people. It’s got to feel easy and natural. Well, as natural as it can be in a situation where a group of people might be walking into a room, or logging on, wondering what this meeting is about or if this workshop is going to be a waste of time. But I digress.
My next non-negotiable is that the connection must be purposeful. It’s got to relate to the topic, the purpose or an objective of the workshop.
Let’s say you’ve got a team that’s been through quite a bit recently. They probably need a bit of a lift, to re-connect with colleagues or connect with new ones.
Thoughtful meetings leaders know this but we call get stuck in ruts, doing what’s expected.
Like the well-intentioned, ‘let’s go round the room, say your name and what you hope to get from today.’ 🥱
If you’ve got just ten people in the group, there goes 20 minutes that you’ll never get back. People do not stick to the request and almost everyone loses interest, expect for when they get to speak. Lots of words but zero connection.
Doing things by rote makes for boring meetings. How you start a meeting or workshop is as crucial as the first song on the playlist of a party. Get it right, and the dancefloor fills. Get this wrong, and the floor will probably remain empty.
My tip? Fill a table up with photos, give people a prompt to pick one. Things like, ‘our meetings are like….’, ‘xxxxx is like…..’, ‘What does customer service look like to you?. You get the gist.
You need:
A box of photos, like Photo Language, or use photos cut out of magazines.
A table to spread either of these out on. Have plenty of photos to choose from.
Space for people to move around the table.
Next, pair people up (you can make this fun too with a quick sociometric process), give them a prompt to share their photos, and off they go.
The whole thing takes about 10 minutes and can be extended as long as it remains valuable to the group and its purpose.
Photo: Jacinta Cubis
Why bother?
Because this simple activity achieves a lot.
It helps people to express their view or perspective visually and with metaphors. It also helps them to connect to another person in the group, a meeting's purpose and to practise listening and not interrupting. It gets people up and moving. It highlights that we all see things slightly differently, not matter if we are all in the same group. The photos can be stuck on the wall as a visual reminder about what the meeting, or a topic in a meeting, means to every individual in the room.
If you’re fretting about where you’ll get a box of photos by tomorrow morning or where you’ll find the time to cut photos out of a magazine – don’t.
You can ask people to choose a photo from the gallery on their phones. Everyone has a phone and we all love showing our photos. 1.3 billion images are shared on Instagram every day. In fact, this is my preferred method. Sharing personal photos is so much more powerful. Use your judgement if you think you need to tell people to choose a photo they’d be happy to share with their grandmother 😉.
If people don’t have a phone, ask them to draw it. Or imagine it.
If you’d like to get my one pager with the step-by-step process just reply to this email with CONNECT in the subject line and I’ll send it to you.
And while you’re there, I’d love to hear one of your tips for helping people to connect that’s purposeful and meaningful.
(Fl)awesome Facilitator Mentoring Program
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