A collaborative conversation about student activities and college success.
I was facilitating a full-day orientation leader training recently and an orientation leader asked me how to get a group’s focus back without yelling at them. That is an excellent question and one that comes into play often- whether you’re doing an icebreaker with 500 new students or you’re running a committee meeting of 8.
Right up until he passed away at 92, my grandpa and I used to do lunch often. His usual order was a BLT sandwich. Just to be clear, that is a sandwich with bacon, lettuce and tomato – a BLT. Every time the sandwich arrived he’d peek inside and say, “Those damn tomatoes – every time!” I’d be chuckling and thinking to myself, “Grandpa, wouldn’t you expect that a BLT would have some ‘T’ on it?” I just never said it out loud.
I’ve used this hundreds of times over six years with thousands of students. Being a professional speaker and student leadership trainer I’m on college campuses, and at leadership retreats and orientations a lot. This icebreaker has never failed me – no matter the situation or size of the group.
