Posted by Justen Collins on December 8, 2012
Whether we like it or not, the days are getting shorter and colder again. Winter is quietly creeping in with its dark and frigid mornings. Pretty soon, millions of Americans will return to the ritual of scraping frost off their windshields and chipping away at frozen door handles. Breaking through the ice is the only way to reach the eventual warmth and security of the toasty car interior.
As you will discover in time, many of the Cubicle Survival Guide tips involve aligning your life outside the office to promote success inside it. I have been promising you tips you can use from the confines of your office chair, though, and this week I deliver one of my most tried and proven strategies to overcome a common problem. As luck would have it, though, this tip can be just as useful in your personal life or in any aspect of your life where building trusting relationships is beneficial.
This week’s Cubicle Survival Guide tip is to employ an effective icebreaker.
I am not talking about one of those plastic tools you buy at the gas station to scrape your windshield, either. The effective icebreaker I have in mind is a question or statement that makes the average person pause to consider it thoughtfully and feel compelled to respond.
Your first thought when the term “icebreaker” comes up is probably those horrible attempts that group leaders often make at the start of meetings to force strangers to quickly get to know each other. “Tell us something interesting about yourself” or “give us an adjective to describe you that starts with the same letter as your first name” or some other intrusive request that makes you cringe. That is definitely not the icebreaker concept that I am advocating for today.
As someone who has changed jobs many times in the past decade, I can promise you that using a good icebreaker at the right time can help you build relationships with coworkers in an expedited fashion. I believe in most cases you will recognize the appropriate time when you reach it. Once you have been around folks long enough to get past the obvious small talk about families and work history and such, those “awkward silences” begin to creep into your day. You have not established enough trust to have any conversations deeper than the daily pleasantries yet. This is the perfect time to employ the effective icebreaker.
Because I love all of you so much, I am going to give you some of my best personal icebreakers at no cost today. I am willing to bet that each one of these is going to make you pause and ponder for a minute at least. That is the secret to the effectiveness of this tip, actually. Once you have made a person stop and think about something that they had probably never considered before, you gain a new level of trust from them. These icebreakers give you the proverbial “foot in the door” of their mindset, and once they realize you can carry on these interesting conversations, they will turn to you on other topics as well.
The first icebreaker has never failed me. I call it the “Bread Loaf Debate.” Basically, ask everyone what they do when they open a new loaf of bread and go to make that first sandwich. Do you use the end piece of bread that is all crust on one side or do you reach past it and grab two “normal” slices from further back in the loaf? Personally, I call that first slice in each bag the “mailbox lid” of the bread world. It is just there for you to pull down, reach past, and then close back up when you are done. It is just there to protect the good bread. It was not meant to be eaten. You just throw it away with the bag when you are done. I am sure those last few sentences have some of you upset already, right? This topic divides people down the middle and forces everyone to take a side, but in a fun way and in a conversation that is mostly nonsense. I have used this icebreaker at every company I have ever worked at, and it always works. Try it.
Another icebreaker I have had a lot of luck with is bold proclamations about the rankings of common food or restaurants. I realize both of my best icebreakers involve food, but everybody eats, right? This one is easy and works in nearly any setting. All you have to do is boldly declare some food item as the best in its genre. When others take a moment to consider your statement and begin to propose other candidates, you quickly rank them and drive an impromptu debate. I have done this a couple of ways in the past. The first time, I declared that ketchup was clearly the king of condiments and could even be proudly used on steaks. I think some people lost sleep that night, honestly. Another time, I announced that turkey had surpassed pork for third place in my personal ranking of meats to consume. Seriously, I just randomly announced that one day in the office. Within seconds, I had people asking how the entire top ten shook out and challenging my decisions. It was contagious, and the next day several people returned with their own rankings.
The final icebreaker is for the men out there, and I can guarantee complete success on this one. If you are in a situation where the audience is entirely male and you realize you need an icebreaker, there is a foolproof option available to you. Pick any two fictional or historical characters and either ask or predict who would win a fight between them. It is as simple as that and completely irresistible to every American male. Who wins a fight between George Washington and Abe Lincoln? Let me give you five reasons why Batman would win in a fight with Spiderman. Mix and match however you want. This never fails.
I hope you can see the common themes across all these icebreakers that you can apply as needed in your life and with your own style. We always encounter those points in a relationship where things seem a little awkward and no one knows what to say next. If you have a proven icebreaker in your arsenal, you can push through these moments and develop a stronger relationship. The key to the Cubicle Survival Guide is building this network of trusted friends around you, and helping one another along the way.
Feel free to use one of my icebreakers or confirm you are much smarter than me by creating vastly superior ones of your own. As long as you avoid religion, politics, and office talk, almost any topic is available to you. Whatever strategy you decide to employ, you can’t get through the frosty exterior of new relationships and into the warmth and security of trust without first breaking through the ice.
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