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Similarities

Teams race to find 6 things every single member has in common — height and hair color don't count. Ruling out the physical stuff is the whole point: it pushes the search into the kind of conversation that actually tells you something new.

15–30 min8–30 peopleEasyNo materialsIn personClassroom ✓
By Jon Zajac · Founder & Chief Icebreaker · Last updated February 19, 2024

What is Similarities?

Similarities is a team race in one breath: split into teams of about 5, and each team has to find 6 things every single member has in common — nothing visible allowed, so height and hair color are out. First team to 6 wins; if time runs out first, whoever's found the most takes it.

It works because the ban forces teams past the obvious. Once "we're all wearing jeans" is off the table, teams end up asking about summer jobs, favorite disasters, the stuff people actually remember about each other later. For groups that don't want the head-to-head race, there's a built-in alternative: skip the teams and sort the whole room into shared categories — favorite color, least favorite movie — for a quick mixer with no winner at all.

Skip the standard version if you can't get to at least 4 teams — a single team hunting alone loses the urgency that pushes people past the easy answers. That's exactly what the alternative version is for.

The rules

  1. Split into teams of about 5 people, with at least 4 teams total.
  2. Each team has to find at least 6 things every single member has in common.
  3. Physical traits — height, hair color, anything visible — don't count.
  4. It's a race: the first team to 6 wins, or the leading team wins when time's up.
  5. Alternative: skip teams and sort the whole room by shared categories instead — no winner, just a fast large-group mixer.

Before you start

  • Group size: 8–30, in teams of about 5. Split into at least 4 teams with a minimum of 4 people each for the standard race — bigger groups just add more teams.
  • Rule out physical traits up front. Height, hair color, anything visible — say it's off-limits before the clock starts, so teams go looking for something real.
  • Paper and a pen are optional. Nothing's required to play — a sheet per team just makes counting to 6 easier to track.
  • Pick your version: race or mixer. Run it as a timed competition with a winner, or use the category-based alternative for a quick, winner-free icebreaker with a big room.

How to run it

  1. Split into teams 2–3 min

    Divide the group into teams of about 5, with at least 4 teams of at least 4 people each. Decide the team count before you explain anything else.

  2. Set the ground rule 1 min

    Say it once, clearly: no height, no hair color, nothing visible counts as a similarity. This is the rule that makes the whole game work.

  3. Teams hunt for 6 10–20 min

    Each team talks until they've found at least 6 things every single member shares. Optional: set a time limit to add urgency.

  4. Call the winner, or run the mixer 2–5 min

    In the race version, the first team to 6 wins — or whoever's furthest along when time's up. In the alternative version, skip the scoring entirely; the sorted groups are the whole game.

← no hair color, no height, no shortcuts.

Facilitator tips

Ban physical traits before anyone startsSay it out loud before teams start talking: no height, no hair color, no eye color. Naming the rule early is what pushes the conversation somewhere real.
Feed a stuck team a category, not an answerIf a team's stalled, point them at a lane — travel, food, weekend habits — instead of naming the similarity for them.
Split a job to every teammateA timekeeper and a scribe keep the whole team in the search instead of one person doing all the work.
Call out every team's finds, not just the winner'sNaming what each team found — not just announcing first place — is what makes the whole room feel like it played, not just watched.

Variations

Large groups (20+)

Run the alternative version: skip teams and racing altogether, and sort the whole room into groups by shared categories — favorite color, least favorite movie. No winner, just a fast mixer for a big crowd.

Fewer than 4 teams

Cut the race and let the one team hunt for its 6 anyway — you lose the competitive urgency but keep the conversation.

Why it works

The ban does the workCutting out height and hair color means the six matches a team finds have to come from actual conversation — habits, stories, opinions — not a glance around the table.
The clock keeps quiet people talkingBecause it's timed and competitive, no one person can carry the search alone — teams end up talking over each other in the good way, just to hit 6 before the other tables do.
HELLO, MY NAME ISJon

"This one needs nothing but a room and a rule: no physical traits. Watching a team dig past hair color and height into the stuff that actually connects them is the whole reason I keep it in rotation."

Jon Zajac · Founder & Chief Icebreaker

Reflection questions

For classrooms and teams that want the debrief — a few of these turn the race into something that sticks.

  1. What was that experience like for you?Gets at how the search felt in the moment, before anyone overthinks it.
  2. Did you learn anything new about your teammates?Names the actual point of the game: what got learned, not just what got won.
  3. How did it feel to search for non-physical similarities?Surfaces why the physical-trait ban mattered, not just that it existed.
  4. What strategies did your team use to find commonalities?Turns the game into a case study on how the team actually talks to each other.
  5. How might you apply what you've learned from this game to other group activities or projects?Moves the exercise from icebreaker to something the team can reuse on purpose.
  6. Did any moments stand out to you during the game? Why?An open invitation for the story that's still going to come up at lunch.
  7. What challenges did your team face while playing, and how did you overcome them?Worth asking when a team struggled to hit 6 — the stall is usually the interesting part.
  8. How do you feel about the connections you've made during this game?Closes on the relationship, not the score.

If this fits, so will these

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Everyone names the strength they'd bring to the team, superhero style.

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Lost on a Deserted Island

Everyone names one object to bring to a desert island, then small groups combine picks into a survival plan.

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.

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