Many trainers, facilitators and coaches use such techniques with
corporation and organizations as part of facilitated events or
one-on-one coaching session.
Increasingly, professional theaters such as Chicago's Second City have developed specialized corporate improv teams to meet the demand. And, a growing crop of multi-disciplined facilitator-artist-improv types are blending management consulting, design methods and performance in truly innovative ways.
Second City offers:
- Live Messaging and Corporate Entertainment,
- Corporate Training and Workshops,
- Customized Video Services.
Gary Hirsch is co-founder of On Your Feet (a collective that custom designs events and workshops incorporating improv techniques. He has led programs with Nike, Warner Bros. FedEx, Intel, Saatchi & Saatchi, and others.
He has been teaching and performing professional improv for fifteen years. For the past nine years he been a core member of the national touring group- Brainwaves Improv Comedy. At the same time, he is a voracious doodler, illustrator, painter and founder of Doodle House.
OYF emphasizes that their method is not about just mucking about on the corporate dime, instead they emphasize:
This way of learning is a lot of fun. Our work produces a ton of laughter, reflection, adrenaline, action, learning, change and energy but our primary focus is not comedy, it's discovery. Fun and laughter emerge naturally when a group discovers how to work well together. That's what interests us. Our goal is to create the conditions where this happens.
From the Applied Improvisation Network comes very useful articles on the use of theatre techniques to accelerate innovation.
ABOVE: OYF in action at the 2003 Singapore Learning Festival.
Mary Crossan is a professor at the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business. In her article, Improvise to Innovate, Crossan looks at what leading thinkers like Henry Mintzberg, author of Managers Not MBAs and Arie
deGeus, a former senior planner at Royal Dutch Shell, have to say about the importance of innovation and spontaneity.
The article looks at how Improv can contribute to the process of developing creative solutions through:
- Intepreting the environment
- Crafting strategy
- Fostering teamwork
- Developing individual skills
- Cultivating leadership
- Assessing organisation culture
Second City describes the link between improv and business as such:
Business, like life, is improvisational. You can plan all you want, but in the end, business is often about building relationships and adjusting to change as fast as it happens. As the world’s premier improvisational theatre, we know a little about that. You can learn how to become a better communicator, build a stronger team, create a more positive work environment, and stimulate creativity.
The Applied Improvisation Network is a community of practioners and
clients who value the use of improvisation skills in organizations. AIN is currently developing a new leadership team to take the field forward, and has acquired formal non-profit status. They have an extensive list of member/practioners who work in fields ranging from healthcare to the music industry to innovations in cyber-security.
Their 2005 conference is being planned for New York from Thursday September 29th to Sunday October 2nd.
[thanks to Tony Goodson for the link to AIN!]
.One of my favorite quotations on leadership came from Carl Icahn who said "A great company in the media business needs visionary leaders, not a conglomerate structure headquartered in Columbus Circle that second guesses." That's good advice for the great majority of enterprises in the United States...
Posted by: Leadership Thinking | August 19, 2008 at 05:17 AM