Home/Activities/First Impressions

Mixer · A great activity for everyone

First Impressions

Everyone tapes a blank sheet to their back, mingles the room, and leaves one honest adjective on every person they meet. It works because the compliments people usually keep to themselves end up in writing, in someone else's handwriting, for the room to read.

15–30 min10+ peopleEasyLarge paper, markers & tapeIn-person onlyClassroom ✓
By Jon Zajac · Founder & Chief Icebreaker · Last updated February 19, 2024

What is First Impressions?

First Impressions gives every person a blank sheet of paper, taped to their back with their name at the top. The room mingles in short conversations, and after each one, players write a single adjective — their first impression — on the back of whoever they just talked to. They move on and repeat with someone new until the mingling window closes, then everyone introduces a neighbor and reads the words gathered there out loud.

It works because of the one rule that governs the whole game: only kind or encouraging words make it onto anyone's back. That constraint turns a room of strangers into a wall of specific, handwritten compliments nobody had to fish for — and reading your own back at the end tells you something an introduction round never could. Not what you'd say about yourself, but what a room of near-strangers actually noticed.

It's built for a group that hasn't met yet — a new team, an orientation, a mixer where nobody's sure who to talk to first. Skip it for a group that already knows each other well: the whole exercise runs on genuine first impressions, formed without any preconceived notions, and old colleagues don't have any left to give.

The rules

  1. Give each person a large sheet of paper, something to write with, and their name at the top.
  2. Tape every sheet to its owner's back, out of their own sight.
  3. Everyone mingles and talks, one short conversation at a time.
  4. After each conversation, write a single adjective — a first impression — on the other person's back.
  5. Only kind or encouraging words are allowed — no mean, rude, or critical ones.
  6. To close, each person introduces a neighbor and reads back what's written there.

Before you start

  • Group size: 10 and up. Works for a room of 10 or more — bigger groups just mean more paper on more backs and more people to meet.
  • Materials: large paper, markers, and tape. One large sheet and a pen or marker per person, plus sturdy tape that holds through a room's worth of mingling.
  • Any room with space to mingle. Indoors or outdoors both work, as long as the whole group has room to move and talk in pairs.
  • Set the one rule before anyone writes. Say it out loud first: kind or encouraging words only. Nothing mean, rude, or critical makes it onto anyone's back.

How to run it

  1. Hand out the sheets 1–2 min

    Give each person a large sheet of paper and a pen or marker. Have them write their name across the top.

  2. Tape them on 1–2 min

    Tape each sheet to its owner's back, making sure they can't see what's written on it.

  3. Mingle and write 10–20 min

    Send everyone out to talk. After about a minute with someone, write one adjective — their first impression — on the back of the person they just spoke with, then move on to someone new. Repeat until the window closes.

  4. Introduce and read 30–60 sec each

    Bring the group together. Each person introduces a neighbor and reads the words gathered on their back out loud.

← budget 10–20 minutes for the mingling. the backs don't lie.

Facilitator tips

Offer more than one way to writeA mix of pen colors and paper shades costs nothing and signals that difference is welcome, not just tolerated.
Have a visual option readyFor anyone who processes better visually or has language-processing differences, icons or simple symbols can stand in for a written adjective.
Default to person-first languageModel it once and the room follows — "a person with a disability," not "disabled," becomes the norm without anyone announcing a rule.

Why it works

A peer-reviewed mirrorThe words on your back are how the room saw you after a few minutes of small talk, not how you see yourself. Reading them out loud is closer to feedback than to a compliment.
The one rule does the heavy liftingEvery word gets filtered through "kind or encouraging" before it hits the page, so even a passing conversation ends in something worth saying to someone's face.
Adjectives force precisionSumming someone up in one word after a minute of conversation is a genuinely hard creative act — it's easier to gush than to land on the single word that's actually true.
HELLO, MY NAME ISJon

"As an introvert, this is the one that gets me talking — writing something kind on someone's back is a low-stakes way in. And because the impressions form before anyone's had time to build a story about each other, they usually turn out to be more honest than anything a round of introductions would produce."

Jon Zajac · Founder & Chief Icebreaker

Reflection questions

7 questions that turn a stack of handwritten adjectives into an actual debrief.

  1. What was your initial reaction when you first saw the words on your back?Gets at whether their self-image matched the room's read — often it doesn't.
  2. Which adjective described you the best and why?Turns one word from the pile into a story worth telling.
  3. What was your experience like when you wrote words on someone else's back?Flips the lens onto how they show up as the one doing the noticing.
  4. Did you discover any common themes or descriptive words used for you across different people? If so, what were they?Repeated words are the group's actual read on someone — worth naming out loud.
  5. How did this activity make you feel about yourself and the people around you?The real debrief question — how the exercise landed emotionally, not just logistically.
  6. Did any of your first impressions change over time as you interacted with more people? If so, how?Names the fact that impressions move — worth surfacing before the paper comes down.
  7. What did you learn about yourself and others through this activity?Closes the loop on what the words revealed that introductions wouldn't have.

If this fits, so will these

Activity

The Name Game

Everyone gets an alliterative adjective-and-name combo, then the group repeats the whole chain from the top.

Activity

Sorts and Mingles

The room sorts itself by shared answers, then mingles group by group to find out who else picked the same one.

Activity

Bang Name

Names called out around a circle, fingers drawn like pistols — miss the dodge and you're out.

Activity

Korean Rhythm (Assa)

A name and a hand motion passed around a rhythmic beat — drop the pattern and the round restarts on you.

Activity

Late Arrivals

Teams invent fictional guests for a themed ball, one pun-heavy introduction at a time.

Activity

Memorable Catchy Names

An adjective and a name sharing the same first letter, then the whole circle tries to remember everyone's.

Activity

Name Aerobics

A name, a syllable, and a movement for each beat — the group repeats the whole routine back.

Jon Zajac

Founder & Chief Icebreaker

I started IcebreakerSpot because I believe strong connections are the foundation of successful teams. This site exists to make it easy to find and share the icebreakers and team-building activities that build trust, spark collaboration, and help groups do great things together.

XLinkedIn