Icebreaker Activities
Leadership & Teamwork

Free icebreaker activities and team building tool for improved leadership introduction:

Strong leaders are great at keeping their group focused on the outcome of the task.

Leaders focus their team by breaking down the overall task into small bite-sized tasks that will ultimately add up to achieving the goal.

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Leaders that are most effective lead by example (use icebreaker activities as great assistant tools)– they not only talk the talk, but they regularly walk the walk. They teach, they coach and they hold their team members accountable for results.

Consider the following icebreaker activities as your strive to lead your team to their next greatest victory.

No = Don’t Know
Purpose of this activity: To encourage team members to educate their clients rather than accepting No for an answer. To ultimately increase sales and bottom-line results.

Explanation: Ice breaker activities can be used to teach sales management lessons.

Team members should always respond to an initial “NO” from a client, as a probable “I don’t know.”

The reason for this is that most customers instinctively say no because they are busy and really don’t want to make the time to fully consider your offer. They are constantly being bombarded with sales offers and would prefer to get on with their list of tasks to complete for the day.

Your challenge as the leader is to teach your sales staff how to turn those “No’s” into an opportunity to educate their clients so that they truly understand the cost of saying no.

Until your customer is fully educated about the benefits of your product or service, they truly do not know whether or not it makes sense for them to buy it.

The customer must understand the true value of what they are being offered. If your sales staff can define the value as being much larger than the actual price of the product or service, your sale swill skyrocket!

Use this icebreaker activity to help your sales staff define every possible key benefit of your product or service.

Provide each team member with a form to list every potential benefit of the product or service. Ask team members to mingle and discuss with the many benefits available to their customers. Encourage out-of-the-box thinking and reward your employees for the most creative and unique ideas.

Gather the lists and provide a master list for your sales employees. They are now armed with the tools that will help them turn a “No” into an “Absolutely!>”

Winner’s Choice
Purpose of this activity: To teach team members the important life lesson of choosing to respond to adversity rather than simply reacting to it.

Explanation: Mary Crowley once said, “We are free up to the point of choice, then the choice controls the chooser.”

Our success in our job and in our life is directly dependent upon the personal choices we make. In order to ensure your team members are making good choices you must make certain that they understand the difference between reacting and thoughtfully responding to any given situation.

As leaders we simply must not allow ourselves the luxury of having a bad day in public. Does that mean we never have a bad day? - not at all. However, the leader is disciplined enough to realize that it does no one any good him to share his bad day with others as it will only encourage others to do the same thing. If everyone were constantly telling his or her tales of woe, the workplace would become a very dismal environment.

At your next staff meeting ask your team members to identify three scenarios that occurred recently that was disappointing or not in line with their expectations. List one instance in each of the following three categories: (Ensure your team that you will not be asking them to hand these in, the paper is for their eyes only.)

1. Personal Relationship
2. Customer Relationship
3. Co-worker Relationship

Next, instruct your team to list what actions they took following their disappointing discovery.

Finally, ask them the following question. In hindsight, did you emotionally react, or did you thoughtfully respond?

Make the point that an emotional reaction tends to be an indulgence on the part of that person. It’s a choice that is made almost without contemplation and leaves the person open to being perceived as being undisciplined, unprofessional and unstable.

On the other hand, a thoughtful response will almost certainly help to gain credibility and respect from others. A thoughtful response demonstrates maturity and discipline.

Make the final point that if your doctor prescribes you a medicine for an illness, it’s most desirable to “respond” to the medicine rather than have a “reaction” to the medicine.

Teaching your team members this important life lesson will assist them in virtually every aspect of their personal and professional life. They will always remember who taught them how to make the Winner’s Choice.

Good luck using these creative icebreaker activities.

Receive your free Team Building At Work tool, a collection of 40 fun and effective icebreaker activities and team building exercises that promote increased team performance. Remember, you only need to download once. All of the various team building templates are included in a single pdf file for your convenience.

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» Networking
Grow your library of resource through effective team building and networking.

» Problem Solving
Solving problems as a team helps to show employees that there are many potential solutions to even the most common of problems.

» Professionalism
Team building activities help to increase awareness of professional hazards in the workplace. Use this tool to quickly identify and correct.

We're always seeking new tools and resource ideas for our readers. Do you have a suggestion for icebreaker activities or team building exercises that you are willing to share? If so, we encourage you to provide your own helpful hints and tips here.

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