Improvisation is an unplanned and unstructured experience. Improv is about solving a problem within a set of constraints while discovering new things. Doesn’t this sound a lot like your business world?
Business has a lot to learn from improv. Most importantly, improv can improve your creative problem solving skills. Improv helps you build better active listening skills, encourages more collaboration between colleagues and develops your ability to think and act on your feet. All of these skills work together to strengthen your creativity and engage your imagination. These are essential skills for entrepreneurs and rising leaders in today’s economy.
For those of you unfamiliar with improv, here are the basics. At its core, improve is about responding to the stimulus in your environment at that moment. Because it is so spontaneous, improv exercises tend to lead to more intuitive responses and the invention of new thought patterns and connections. There are many forms of improv exercises, but basically think about getting a group of people together and asking them to create a scene or solve a problem in the moment without preparation or prior knowledge. The audience may give the group a theme and the scene will unfold as the exercise moves forward.
The beauty of improv is that it is an intuitive journey that often takes surprising twists and turns. The road between start and finish is typically not a straight line. Improv tends to be circuitous because of the new thought patterns and connections created. And, not having too much time to think through what’s going on really engages the “gut reaction”. In improv we are allowed to trust our guts and act on it. Again, to loop it back to business, our guts are another data point we often ignore, when in fact, they’re a tremendous source of valid reactions and ideas. That intuitive response is your brain pulling together experiences and knowledge in a non-linear way. Improv fosters that trust in the gut and business could use more of it.
I love using improv to break up a mundane meeting where the ideas have gotten stale. It’s a great way to break out of ordinary thinking patterns that often weight us down. I always go into a meeting with a few improv exercises in my back pocket. The minute I see people spinning their wheels I whip out an improv exercise.
If you haven’t been to an improv show I encourage you to do so. If you are willing to take it a step further I suggest you incorporate improv into your meetings. It doesn’t matter if your meeting is a Monday morning team huddle, brainstorm or company retreat, improv will make an impact. Incorporating a few improv exercises will get the creative juices flowing.
My favorite improv exercise for business is what I call the Silly Circle. This one works wonderfully to get people out of their comfort zones and recognize bad listening habits like thinking what to say next versus really listening. The movement and in the spur of the moment responses work to get the creative energy up.
The Silly Circle goes something like this:
Set Up:
• Break out into groups of 5 to 8 people
• Ask each group to form a loose circle with plenty of room in the middle
Structure:
• Have each person sound off a number starting at one and moving up until everyone has a number. This is the order they will go in. You will start and end with person number one. They get two times in the circle so that everyone is given the opportunity to actively listen.
• Each person receives a one minute turn in the circle
• When inside the circle your only job is to talk out loud about whatever comes to mind while moving. That movement can be dancing, jumping or even making silly gestures while moving your feet. The key here is that the person in the inside of the circle can’t recite a poem or try to be clever. They must say whatever comes to mind in the moment.
• Those on the outside of the circle have only one job…listen! No thinking about what to say when it’s their turn or what’s for lunch.
• At the minute mark the next person takes their turn in the circle and here is where the active listening pays off. When the next person goes into the circle they have to start where the last person left off. If the person in the middle of the circle before them said, “the carpet in this room is blue and I didn’t notice that before” then they have to start a train of thought based on that comment. They might say,” The carpet is blue with red dots in a pattern,” or they may say, ”I didn’t notice the chandeliers hanging down.” The train of thought can go anywhere, but it must start by actively listening to the person before you.
The best part about this exercise is that it’s a ton of fun and will set a nice tone for your meeting.
To bring it back to reality and make the link, I suggest asking the following three questions of your team:
1. How did it feel to be in the middle of the circle?
2. How did it feel to be on the outside of the circle?
3. What did this exercise teach us about our world?
Remember, all you have to do to make improv successful is to show up! Couldn’t be easier than that! If you are eager for some more improv exercises go to amazon.com and check out the range of improv books. I’ve used many of these books to craft the perfect improv exercise.
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