If you're tired of the same old meeting format, you're not alone. Shake up your next meeting's vibe by adding an icebreaker to get things rolling. Once everyone laughs together and interacts, ideas and discussions flow naturally. Before you know it, your meetings will become the place everyone wants to be.

Skill Charades

Ask everyone to think of a special skill or talent they possess, then have each person stand up and act out clues to their skills or talents. The rest of the group tries to guess the answer. If your meeting group is large, split into groups of two or three each. Have each group act out one person's special skill, while everyone guesses both the skill and the person who possesses it.

Brain Teaser

Start the meeting with a brain teaser or riddle for everyone to try to solve in a specified amount of time. The time allotted will depend on the problem's difficulty. Allow the group to talk it out to get creative ideas flowing and encourage working together as a group, or divide the group into teams of two or more and see which team can solve the riddle first. If the meeting organizer wants the group to get to know others in the group better, have each person choose a number from a bag. Next, match that person with the other person who shares that number.

Have a Ball

Sometimes adults need to revert to playfulness to loosen up and get creativity flowing. A simple koosh, or soft, squishy ball, will do the trick. The meeting leader tosses the ball to someone in the group and asks him to tell one little-known fact about himself. He then tosses the ball to another person who does the same, and so on until everyone has received the ball and told about themselves. A variation is that when each person tosses the ball to another person, he asks a particular question of the person, such as his very first job, his most interesting vacation or his favorite color and why. It's important that the ball be soft, however, to protect everyone from overzealous throws.

Good Times

Start the meeting by handing each person a champagne glass filled with sparkling water or cider. Ask each person to raise his glass in celebration of something good that has happened to him. It could be closing a deal, receiving a kudo from a client or winning a new account. After each person describes his good fortune, the group drinks to toast their success. Make the rule that everyone must describe something from his own experience, not someone else's. This encourages employees to see the positive in their own lives.