Improv Theater Workshops: A Great Way to Learn Better Management Skills

Improv your way to better management

The improvisational theater art form has participants creating impromptu stories and scenes, with nothing more to go on other than words suggested to them once they get on stage. Showcased on television shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the art form has a long and impressive history as an essential in any actor’s toolkit.

Lately, however, management professionals have begun turning to improv as a way to hone their skills in leadership and entrepreneurship. They sign up for improv classes for help with their listening skills, their ability to observe body language, to think on their feet, and develop as people.

Whether you’re a manager or an entrepreneur, it can help to turn to improvisational theater, as many professionals do today, to better take control of your career.

Improv theater can help you with your listening skills

A keen ear is fundamental to success in improv theater. Your task is to build a narrative or a scene, based on the hints that your fellow actors offer you. You need to be receptive to these hints, and make them a part of your responses, no matter how outlandish they may have to be. If you don’t constantly listen closely to what the others says, if you’re absorbed in delivering your own jokes, you simply end up stalling the scene.

Listening skills are vitally important in business, too. It’s only through listening that managers are able to understand the objectives, goals and challenges that members of their teams talk to them about. As in any improv theater sketch, listening skills help managers better link their thoughts and ideas to what others say. Listening empowers them as they attempt to influence and persuade others.

Improv theater helps build body language skills

In improv theater, participants need to learn to pay attention to subtle body language cues from their co-actors. They use the hints there are to be seen in facial expressions, eye contact and posture, to judge what others in a scene may do next. Management teams that practice improv theater learn quickly and deeply, a habit of careful emotional reading, and are able to collaborate better with one another.

Being adept at communicating

Management professionals, when they conduct conversations, need to make their points in a clear and effective manner. An ability to think quickly, and to be comfortable making a point in front of other people, are all skills that can help in a management environment. When you face unexpected situations, improv theater equips you to respond with focus.

Learning team-building skills

An improv theater workshop can make for excellent team-building activity. In improv, participants learn to collaborate, rather than compete. The only way to look good on-stage is to help others on your team look good. No matter what the position or status of a participant back at the office, at improv, they’re able to make suggestions and offer up ideas, and are able to see them taken up.

Teams come by a sense of accomplishment by building a narrative together. While there’s no pressure to make the audience laugh, laughter is usually the result of the efforts made, and it can bring people together. In many cases, teams that participate in improv theater realize that they’ve never before had an opportunity to laugh together.

Improv theater can also help participants think creatively by helping them overrule their inner critics. Often, in improv, people realize that there’s no such thing as a bad idea — ideas that aren’t particularly good often serve the purpose of a bridge to ideas that work better.

What business schools think about improv theater

Business schools such as Stanford and Duke make improv theater a part of the curriculum. They aim to help the next generation of business leaders adapt to an environment of rapid change. Improv is often seen as the learning environment for the 21st century, because it helps participants work quickly spotting opportunities, abandoning ideas that don’t work, and being flexible and adaptable.

In the management world, it can be a huge drag on performance to constantly be beset by fear of what people may think if you say something that isn’t perfectly sensible. Becoming a good improvisational performer requires an ability to let go of all fear of appearing foolish or incompetent. Improv gives participants practice exploring new ideas to see where they go, and to accept ambiguity when considering them.

As much as businesses need strategies, budgets and deadlines, they need to be flexible to be able to take advantage of unexpected opportunities as they come up, as well. Improv teaches participants to have a plan, but to keep a light grip on it. For instance, when a business meeting is called about making cuts, but something someone says sparks conversation about investments, participants with improv experience are likely to consider that the new direction has the ability go on to something useful and relevant to the subject on hand if it’s given a chance. They look for a way to make the new direction work, rather than swat it down.

Very often, in conversations about strategy, participants feel a kind of pressure to narrow things down to one idea to go with, as early as possible. Improv practice, however, gives people practice handling multiple elements at the same time, holding them all in their minds to see if they amount to anything.

Improv helps managerial students understand that leaders, while they may be in charge, aren’t supposed to control everything, and to tell everyone what to do. They provide a minimal amount of structure alone, and let freedom and creativity rule the day, even when the discussion becomes uncontrolled, confusing and messy.

Improv games and exercises to try

The one-line story game: Participants stand in a circle, and pick an idea to build a story on. Each participant contributes one line to the story, and builds a narrative together.

The alphabet game: Two participants are given scene elements to work with. For instance, they may be told about what relationship they have to each other, and reasons why they’re angry with each other. They need to build the scene they’ve been given, but each new sentence needs to start with each subsequent letter of the alphabet.

The last word game: Two participants have a conversation, but each participant, when they get their turn, has to start with the last word that the other ended on. This is practice that helps people learn to focus on every word that others say, because they never know which one could be the last one.

With exercises such as these, participants train in completely focusing on the moment and being flexible enough to run with whatever their partners say, even if it’s completely unexpected. Improv workshops can also be refreshing and cathartic. You do need to look for a group that works well for you, however. Listings sites like MeetUp.com often organize local improv groups for management professionals that anyone can be a part of.

While improv theater management workshops can seem unconventional, they’re quickly coming a part of regular management training. If you’re in management, trying improv theater can be one of the best training ideas you’ve ever chanced upon.