Ice Breaking At Corporate Events: Drumming Or Drinking?

Many of my meeting planner friends/clients often muse about the role that drinking alcohol plays in helping group members break the ice, release stress and become more comfortable with each other during corporate events and conferences.

One or two drinks is often very helpful in breaking the ice after a long day of seminars, meetings and breakout sessions.  However, excessive alcohol consumption can make people less focused (no kidding!) and can prevent them from interacting with each other in meaningful and enduring ways.

One of my regular clients, a large mid-western company, always brings me into the loop early on in their event planning process because of a suggestion that I made to them when they first hired me over twenty years ago.

They had asked me about doing a drumming activity for about 400 of their top sales people as part of an awards/incentive event.  Their first suggestion was that I do the event after the cocktail reception in order to "bring them back together and focus them after probably drinking a little too much."

Gosh... thanks a lot!

During a conference call, I asked them two of the most important questions on my "Gig Info" worksheet:

-What are the objectives of your event?
-What is your goal for the drumming activity?

Their objectives for the event were to build a spirit of teamwork, and to throw their people a fun, memorable party to reward them for all their hard work and successes over the past year.

Their goal for the drumming activity was to break the ice and loosen up people from far-flung offices who did not know each other well, and who often saw each other as "competitors"

I then asked them what the goal of the cocktail reception was.  One of them replied, "To break the ice among the sales people and loosen them up as quickly as possible."

Aha!   The moment that was said, one of the planners called out, "Wait... the drumming will do that!" 

I suggested to their planning team that I do the drumming activity with their group before the cocktail reception as a way to build team spirit and to get them into the "celebration zone" that they had always assumed could only be entered through the use of alcohol. They could then move on to the cocktail reception phase and get to know each other better while still "high" from the drumming, and as members of the same community rather than as competitors.  Any drinking they then did would be not be out of desperation to "get loose as quickly as possible".

All agreed to proceed in this way.

It worked!  In fact, the planner who had originally contacted me called me several days after the event and thanked me enthusiastically "for your spot-on suggestion and for bringing us all together in such an uplifting way, and for setting the stage for a great party afterwards!"