Gripe of the Day

A past colleague of mine had the brilliant idea to begin each meeting with a Gripe of the Day. It replaced the cheery icebreaker, but in a productive way. Each person at the meeting had to state their gripe of the day, and once that was completed the group had a sense of moving on. So once you got your chosen gripe out of the way, you were more likely to get down to business and leave your other gripes behind for the duration of the meeting.