Photo by Pierre Jarry on Unsplash

When you have new people joining you for a Group Session, you want to ensure they have a connective experience.  This is often hard to do, but it can be easy if you remember just a few things.  Our Breaking ICE activity uses the ICE acronym to remind you of the intention behind the design of the activity.  ICE stands for Introductions + Connections + Efficiency.

In our activity, we've created a type of interactive member introduction sequence designed to achieve all of these things.  This can be scaled to small or large groups, depending on how you implement it.

Here's an excerpt from just after this activity during a recent Group Coaching Session with participants.  We had just run a small group version of the Breaking ICE framework to help our participants bond and get to know each other while creating positive group culture.

Here's a transcript of the debrief and what your participants can expect to feel when using this technique.

• Robert Murray: What did you notice as we were doing this? What did you notice about how we got to know everybody, and then the way we choreographed the conversation and some of the things that it helped to bring out.
• Group Session Participant: Well, if it felt organic that oh my gosh there are other people, just like me struggling with the same things,  here for the same goals, and I'm not here alone [...] that the experience I'm having with this challenge there's a whole bunch of people in this same spot, and so I felt an affinity immediately with the group.
• Robert Murray: yeah, thank you for sharing that.
• Group Session Participant: It felt organic like it didn't feel like you set it up, even though I know you did [...] because you already told me that you did [...] I didn't know that was the outcome it was driving for but [...] these questions were designed with purpose and that's the that's what I saw.
• Robert Murray: I love it.  Did you notice anything specific about the choreography of having you know one person go appreciation and then call upon the next person, with what that did?
• Group Session Participant: Yes, I think two things: It made me listen when other people were talking, for sure. [...] and you know, I was taking notes on what people were saying [...]  yeah so it kept me engaged as a listener

When you design activities for your group with INTENTION, participants can feel things they would never feel in a typical group or a 1:1 session.  That's why session Design is such a valuable skill!

The best way to gain mastery in that skill, and to learn how to deliver activities like these, is to join us for our Group Sessions, but in the meantime, ask yourself this:  Where could you add a little more intentional design into your sessions to elevate the experience of your participants even more. Reply and let us know!

Sending you Virtual Hugs

Rob & Daniel

P.S.  If you already know you want to go deeper, consider joining us in 6 days. The Surefire Group Coaching System 6-Week LIVE Training & Coaching Experience is coming soon, with experiential coaching and training.  You transform as a participant, learn as a coach, and are supported in a community, and you get all the templates, session plans, and resources on our best tools.