Please allow me to introduce myself...

I'm preparing for a couple of virtual team workshops in Prague and South Africa in the coming weeks.

Members of teams and communities need to begin to trust each other quickly. A great way to start is by learning everyone's name. Psychologists say to learn a person's name, you should use it three times in conversation as soon as you meet them. This is difficult with a roomful of people, so you need a way of making people repeat their names.

Here are some warm-up exercises I learned from the in situ: theatre group’s Learn To Act course.

Introduce Yourself
Invite the members of the group to walk around the space and introduce themselves to each other. Ask them to greet each other as they meet – "Hello, my name is Richard" – even when they meet someone for the second or third time.

No one would introduce themselves three times to the same person, but by giving the group permission to act in this way, you increase the chance of them remembering names. Lead by example and no one will question this or call it unrealistic.

Allow this exercise to run for 2-3 minutes or until everyone has met everyone else 3-4 times.

Introduction Circle
Form a circle and ask everyone to introduce themselves to the rest of the group, saying, for example, "My name is Richard."

Tell everyone to find a new place in the circle and go around the circle with everyone introducing the person to the left of them: "This is Andrew." (Tell them to check the person's name beforehand if they've forgotten!)

Tell everyone to find a new place in the circle and go around the circle with everyone introducing the person to the right of them: "This is Suzanne."

Ball Circle
Introduce a ball into the circle. Choose a person, call their name and throw them the ball. They repeat this. Continue for 2-3 minutes.

Break the circle and ask everyone to walk around the space, throwing the ball between them and calling the name of the recipient as they do. Continue for 2-3 minutes.

Simple exercises like this help to breakdown barriers from the start and encourage people to get to know each other.

Facilitators should always participate - it saves resorting to sticky labels..!