Uncommon Commonalities is a collaborative activity where participants work in teams to discover habits, traits, or experiences they have in common—but the goal is to find unusual or unexpected ones. Beyond the obvious, the challenge is to uncover surprising and rare connections that foster creativity, communication, and a sense of belonging.
This activity is ideal as an icebreaker for new teams or as an integration exercise to strengthen relationships within a group.
Preparation
Define the purpose of the activity
- Strengthen group connections through unexpected commonalities.
- Encourage creativity and curiosity about others.
- Develop communication and teamwork skills.
Prepare the materials
- Sheets of paper and pens for teams to write down their findings.
- Whiteboard or flip chart to share responses at the end.
- Optional: Cards with guiding questions or suggested topics.
To conduct the activity virtually:
- Use collaborative platforms to record and share responses.
- Allow interaction through video calls and group chats.
- Use tools such as polls or digital whiteboards to collect responses.
Step-by-step instructions
- Introduction
- Explain that the goal is to find unusual commonalities among team members.
- Give examples of common traits (e.g., “we all like chocolate”) and contrast them with more unexpected ones (“we all organize our books by color”).
- Forming teams
- Divide participants into small groups (3-5 people).
- Each group receives a sheet of paper or access to a digital board to record their findings.
- Finding commonalities
- For 10-15 minutes, teams must identify as many commonalities as possible, eliminating the obvious ones.
- Guiding questions can be used to facilitate the search.
- Sharing and reflection
- Each team presents their most surprising commonalities to the rest of the group.
- The most unexpected or creative commonalities can be highlighted or rewarded.
- Group discussion on what they learned about each other and how diversity leads to unexpected connections.
