Sometimes a session doesn't need more blocks. It needs more energy.
A good energizer takes two to fifteen minutes, needs almost no materials, and gets people talking to someone they wouldn't otherwise talk to. These five work with groups from ten to a thousand.
Why do facilitators skip the energizer?
Because the agenda is full, and the energizer looks like the cheapest thing to cut.
It's the wrong trade. A tired room doesn't disagree with you — it agrees with everything, quietly, and forgets it by Monday. And low energy is contagious.
I've never once regretted spending five minutes on energy. I've regretted skipping it many times.
1. Short meetings
I learned this one whilst I worked at Implement Consulting Group. It's still the one I use most.
Purpose: warm the room up at the start of a day.
- In advance, write questions on cards or small slips of paper — one per participant. Either about the theme of the day ("What associations do you get when you hear the word CHANGE?"), or just something fun.
- Put them on a table in the room, facing down, and ask everyone to take a slip and find a partner.
- Person A asks their question. B answers, then asks theirs.
- Both answered? Swap slips, then wave the new one in the air to find the next partner. Repeat.
- Run it for ten minutes.
The card-swap is the part that matters. Everyone ends up asking a question they didn't write, which takes the pressure off.
2. Compliment cape
Purpose: give each other positive feedback — ideally tied to the topic you've been working on.
- Tape a flip-chart sheet to everyone's back, like a cape. Use two sheets so the marker doesn't bleed through.
- Everyone takes a marker, moves around the room, and writes something positive on their colleagues' backs.
- Hang the capes on the wall afterwards.
Best used at the end of a day, not the start. It needs a room that has already worked together on something.
3. High-five handouts
Purpose: the cheapest trick of them all — and it works with anything from ten to a thousand people.
- Ask everyone to stand up.
- Their task: give five high-fives to people they don't know well, or people on the other side of the room.
That's it. Works every time, and it takes ninety seconds.
4. Rock-paper-scissors tournament
Purpose: noise and laughter, fast, when the room has gone flat after lunch.
- Everyone finds a partner and plays one round of rock-paper-scissors.
- The loser becomes the winner's supporter — they follow them and cheer for them, loudly, by name.
- Winners find new winners. Losing teams merge behind the new winner.
- Keep going until two people face off with half the room chanting behind each.
Takes about five minutes and ends with the whole room shouting. Widely used in the facilitation community; I've never seen it fail in a room that has some rapport already.
5. Count to twenty
Purpose: focus rather than noise — good before deep work, not after lunch.
- The group stands in a circle, eyes closed or looking down.
- The group counts to twenty out loud. Anyone can say the next number.
- If two people speak at once, start again at one.
It's quiet, it's frustrating, and it does something the loud ones don't: it makes a room pay attention to each other instead of to you.
Which one should you use?
- Opening a day — short meetings
- Closing, or after something heavy — compliment cape
- Post-lunch, large room — high-five handouts
- You need laughter in five minutes — rock-paper-scissors tournament
- You need focus, not volume — count to twenty
The mistake isn't picking the wrong one. It's picking one that doesn't match what the room needs next.
What's your favourite energizer?