Meeting Openers / Icebreakers

Open your meeting or program by sharing the Square Wheels® One illustration (shown to the right) and asking: "How might this illustration represent how organizations really work?"

Allow at least 5 minutes for participants to interact with each other and then bring the group back together by asking for ideas from various people or within each group.

You can then link to the topics and opportunities that you might want to address, discuss issues of motivation and improvement, or make any number of transitions to your meeting subject.

We've collected over 300 different responses to the Square Wheels One illustration. People's reaction to the cartoon along with their active thinking about the image causes a flow of ideas, creativity and humor; helping to establish great group rapport. And, once you see how well it works, you may want to try our other tools for involving and inspiring.

Everything you need to facilitate an engaging, memorable and successful meeting icebreaker is included in this complete kit of the Square Wheels® One Icebreaker (including a 10-page facilitation guide).

• Square Wheels® Icebreaker Facilitation Guide
• Square Wheels® One illustration in Powerpoint
• Square Wheelsreg; One illustration in pdf format
• Thoughts on Icebreakers
• Square Wheels Poster Handout

The magic starts with your showing what appears to be a full-page picture of Square Wheels® One, our illustration about ideas and issues on workplace improvement. That page transforms itself into two Square Wheels® when folded. It is folded again into one Round Wheel and this then becomes two Round Wheels. As you continue, it becomes an illustration about teamwork and the successful implementation of a Round Wheel in a Square Wheel workplace. Magically, it ends with a brand New Vehicle in place of the initial Wagon illustration.

• Explanation document
• Assembly document
• Masters for pages to print and photocopy (2, 2-sided pages are used)
• Worksheet for identifying Square Wheels

You'll receive all the pages and instructions needed to do this magic trick and it's fully reproducible so you can use it again and again. All you need is a glue stick!

AND: You will also have materials to distribute for teaching your participants how to assemble the trick and practice it with others, a process that involves and engages while allowing them to think about how the process of transformation occurs.

This Change Management Magic Trick has the same principle as the Square Wheels Magic Trick but uses our theme of transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly, with two different ending pages so you can closely link it to your transformational change programs, either for individual change or for team building.

How does it work?

The magic starts with your showing what appears to be a full-page picture of Square Wheels® One and sets up Scott Simmerman's "joke" about two caterpillars and a butterfly. That page transforms itself into two Square Wheels when folded. It is folded again into a question about making choices about change. This then adds the Round Wheels metaphor and an illustration about becoming a butterfly. It ends in either of two ways, "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, god calls a butterfly" or a butterfly-pulled round wheel wagon.

• Explanation document
• Assembly document
• Masters for pages to print and photocopy (2, 2-sided pages are used)
• Worksheet for choice and change

You'll receive all the pages and instructions needed to do this magic trick and it's fully reproducible so you can use it again and again. All you need is a glue stick!

AND: You will also have materials to distribute for teaching your participants how to assemble the trick and practice it with others, a process that involves and engages while allowing them to think about how the process of transformation occurs.