Icebreaker LO21284

Leo Minnigh (L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl)
Tue, 13 Apr 1999 10:10:00 +0200 (MET DST)

Replying to LO21269 --

Replying to LO21269

Dear LO'ers,

Although I used the message of Claire to link to the
icebreaker-discussion, my comments will have a general reflection on this
metaphor.

I am interested in the origin of the expression 'icebreaker'. I don't like
this expression so much. It supposes that the starting group is a coherent
ice field floating on the water. It means that it is very cold and maybe
the attendents are yet 'cold' for the meeting. However, it means also that
it is a group with coherency. But what does the icebreaker do? It breaks
the coherency, but there will be still ice. Instead of a cold group, one
creates cold individuals floating in a warmer environment (the water). Is
that what the icebreaker is ment for? Is that the purpose? Does the
facilitator likes to work with individuals or with a group?

I think that the intention is to get the ice fluid. It cannot be the goal
of the starter to keep the individuals rigid and only the environment
fluid.
How do we get the ice fluid? There are two ways. One is obvious, the other
is less. Let's start with the latter.

We all know of glaciers. Glaciers in a mountaneous environment do flow.
The extraordinary thing is that, although the glacier will be permanently
ice, the glacier behaves as a fluid; a very viscous fluid.
A glacier is composed of an infinite number of individual icecrystals,
packed together and forming a massive mass of ice. Due to the stress on
this mass (caused by gravitational forces in the declining glacier
valley), the individual crystals 'feel' a permanent tension and internal
deformation occurs. This internal deformation means that the crystal
lattice of the ice is deformed. Along specific planes in the lattice some
small gliding may occur, and individual atoms in the lattice are
displaced. This results in a lot of defects in the initially perfect
lattice. These defects are called dislocations. A crystal does not like
dislocations, it likes to be perfect. And now, something very strange will
happen. It is as if the crystal will behave like a living organism. The
imperfections (dislocations) will migrate within the individual crystal
from the centre of the crystal towards its rims. So the centre is made as
perfect as possible. It might be that the new core, clear of dislocations,
may have a slightly different crystallographic orientation than before the
stress started on the ice crystals. So this process causes an increasing
number of dislocations in the rim areas of the crystal. When the number of
defects in the lattice is too high, new tiny crystals start to grow (as
new babies along the edges of the old ice crystals). These new
crystals are initially clear from dislocations.
This process of migrating dislocations and recrystallisations is a
continuous process, due to the continuous stress on and in the glacier. By
this process the glacier acts as a kind of fluid. The new crystals have
neutralised the displacements in the glacier and this is the way the
glacier flows. No liquid water is involved, the glacier will be always
pure ice.
On this microscopic scale there is a continuous process of emergencies:
the number of dislocations near the edges of individual ice crystals
becomes so large that the distorted lattice reaches the edge of chaos, and
then an emergency happens: the birth of a tiny new crystal.
However, on a larger scale (in fact it is mathematically a smaller scale,
but this is always a matter of confusion of tongues; I mean here less
detail) the total glacier shows laminar flow; no macroscopic emergencies
occur.

Is this what the meeting and the starter likes to happen? Cohesion and
group feeling is preserved, but the individuals (the individual ice
crystals) generate continuously the birth of new emergencies. However, as
a whole it may look like the slowly boiled frog: only laminar flow, no
group-emergencies.

The other way to make ice fluid is the obvious: with increasing heat the
ice will melt and becomes one with its environment (the water whereon the
ice was floating). The trouble with this way is that the total group has
disappeared and even no individuals are left. But also, if the heating is
done slowly, no emergencies will occur, only more chaos is created.
If the introduction of heat is severe, convection cells may develop
(emergencies) and a new order in the fluid may develop (hexagonal pattern
of convection cells). In this case we may wake up the frog in the heated
soup, and the frog jumps out for escape. In that case at least one
individual is saved. Maybe all the individuals may escape. But this
process is like pushing and results in spreading into all directions of
the individuals. The facilitator will have a hard time to get the group
under control again.

As a conclusion of the icebreaker-metaphor, we end up in confusion. Do we
like to break the ice, do we like to create flow with or without the
saving of the individuals? Do we like to preserve the coherence of the
group?
Maybe, the warming-up of the session (since heat is involved in all cases,
also in the glacier, due to deformation) could be started be a short
discussion on this theme: does the group like breaking apart, does the
group like to be coherent, does the group likes to splitup in divergating
individuals, does the group likes to be one with its environment.

Just some philosophies triggered by a metaphor.

dr. Leo D. Minnigh
minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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-- 

Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>

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