Busy? No time? Increased demand? Increasing skill deficits among students and employees? Improv is proving to be the rapid and effective tool education and business needs.
Improv to the Rescue
The economy is demanding that businesses consistently adapt, negotiate and innovate. To meet this demand, businesses expect their workforce to collaborate across departments and platforms. In response to this, the government is mandating that schools focus on the development of collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, interpersonal and performance skills. All of this, while standards and outcomes must be satisfied and interpersonal conflicts at the workplace and in the classroom addressed.
What can be done? Introduce Improv. Yes, improv, those 3-5 minutes games you might have seen on stage or on the Television show, Whose Line Is It Anyway can address numerous skills needed for both the individual and the class or organization to succeed.
So What Is the Attraction to Improv?
Improv games are known for producing spontaneous and unique performances. Although each performance is not replicable, developing the skills necessary to achieve those spontaneous and unique outcomes is. The ability of improv to rapidly develop these skills is why both education and businesses are turning to improv.
Skills developed with improv:
- confidence and self-esteem
- social-emotional and interpersonal skills
- communication Skills
- creativity and innovation
- spontaneity, flexibility and adaptability
- character, trust, respect, tolerance, and embrace diversity
- motivation, productivity, and accountability
- leadership and negotiation skills
- awareness, focus, attention, and staying in the moment
- self-awareness and regulation of behavior
- lower stress and anxiety in the learning/work environment
- increase engagement and deepen learning
It’s Not Snake Oil, It’s Yes, And!
Improv’s foundational rule of Yes, and is responsible for the development of all of these skills. What is also amazing is that these skills develop simultaneously through the practice of this one simple rule in each and every 3- minute improv game. With increasing demands and limited time, it is no wonder why improv with its 3-5 minute game structures, and ability to simultaneously develop essential and invaluable skills continues to be integrated into classrooms and the workplace.
What is Yes, and?
Yes, and is permission to explore an idea. So often people shut things down. They immediately decide something cannot possibly work before the person is even finished speaking. The rule of Yes and trains one to fully listen to another idea and explore it. Both, the spontaneous comedic performances improv is known for and the invaluable skills that businesses and educators seek, are achieved by simply following this rule. Yes, and requires the player to listen to the preceding offer and accept it, “Yes,” and build upon it, “and.” Yes, and is first introduced and practiced as an external prompt, but quickly becomes internalized, unspoken but present in every offer.
Here is an example from the game of “Yes, and-Plan.
- Audience/Class/Group: A car!
- Player A: Let’s plan a car.
- Player B: Yes, and the car can be red.
- Player C: Yes, and it can have flames on it.
- Player B: Yes, and they can be real flames
- Player C: Yes, and it can have an amazing sound system.
- Player A: Yes, and the flames can be synced with the sound system.
- Player B: Yes, and it can go from 0-300 in 60 seconds.
- Player A: Yes, and it can run on solar power.
It is important to understand that while the outcome of an improv game is unique and spontaneous, the process that created it is not. “Yes, and…” is primary to the process of improv.
Need Improv?
Knowing what improv can do for the development of essential learning and workplace skills is exciting. Knowing how improv does it is critical for implementation. This series explores how improv develops the many essential and invaluable skills which have made it such a sought after instructional tool in schools, graduate schools, and businesses . The upcoming articles in this series will explore how the simple practice of Yes, and will specifically develop the skills mentioned in this article. This understanding will help you facilitated games correctly so that the desired skills are developed. It will also help you choose games that best suit your classroom or business needs.
Links to Relevant Articles
Here are a links to just a few of the many available articles about using improv for educational and businesses purposes.”
Bluestein, Adam. “Want to Be More Creative? Think on Your Feet? Why companies like Life is Good use improv excersizes to boost collaboration and creativity.” Inc.com
Scinto, Jesse. “Why Improv Training is Great Business Training.” Forbes.com.
Educational
Berk, R. A., & Trieber, R. H. (2009). Whose classroom is it, anyway? Improvisation as a teaching tool. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 20 (3), 29-60.
Flanagan, Linda. “How Improv Can Open Up the Mind to Learning in the Classroom and Beyond” Mindshift.com
