I have often used the following energizer at the start of the afternoon while teaching a leadership class to pre-promotional correction captains. I show participants a real frying pan, a yardstick, and an egg. I tell them that I will drop the egg three feet into the frying pan and the shell will not break. If it does, I add, they may have the afternoon off. I also add that I will not cushion the egg, its fall, or the pan. This is when I usually get peppered with questions e.g. is the egg fresh, or is it hardboiled, or what will they have to do if the shell doesn’t break. (I tell them they will have to take the afternoon class--as punishment).
I put the pan on the training table, bring out the yardstick to measure height, and drop the egg into the frying pan. Naturally, there are participants in the back who stand up to see if the shell breaks, which of course, it always does. That’s when I proudly announce that I won the bet because the shell didn’t break.
As the looks of puzzlement mount, I remind them I said I could drop an egg three feet without breaking the shell; I didn’t say I would drop it from three feet. They saw me drop the egg from three and a half feet, and six inches above the pan the shell still hadn’t broken. That’s when I welcome them to the Communications Skills portion of their training.
Your ability to create energizers is only limited by your imagination.