Episode 192 - Humor, Improv and Influence - Interview - Kelly Leonard

What Does Improv Have To Do With Business? With guest Kelly Leonard from

www.secondcityworks.com

 

The ability to thrive amid change requires 4 things:

 

·         The ability to recognize where you are in any given moment

·         The flexibility to choose a new path

·         A willingness to collaborate on a solution

·         The freedom to take a risk…and to learn from failure

 

Great tenets for doing business, right? But these just happen to also be the very same skills we employ in our arena. Improvisation is an art form developed from a need to enhance assimilation, empathy and collaboration.  We didn’t seek out this connection–the findings found us, to say the least. To be honest, we’re kicking ourselves that we didn’t see it sooner.

 In fact, existing academic research and data already points to the power of improvisation. Here are a few of our favorite examples:

 

Divergent Thinking – “Improvisation encourages people to break away from set patterns of thinking.” –Carine Lewis, Peter J. Lovatt; University of Hertfordshire, UK

Negotiation – “Cooperative improvisation yielded more successful negotiations.” –Paul Ingram, William Duggan; Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies

Decision Making – “Without improvisation, emergency management loses flexibility in the face of changing conditions.” –David Mendonca, Giampiero E.G. Beroggi, William A. Wallace; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Problem Solving – “Improvisation shows us creativity in action. If shows that – in art, as in life – failures and mistakes can be turned into chances for original and unpredictable achievements.” –Alessandro Bertinetto, University of Udino

 

How do we achieve all this? With two little words that can change everything:

 Yes, and.

 That’s it! Our big secret. We teach that by understanding and applying the core improvisational concept  of “Yes, And,” you can pretty much achieve anything. In business–and in life–we are constantly tasked with making something out of nothing: new products, new clients, new strategies, new bosses, new co-workers, new economies.

 You can’t do new by saying no.

 And you can’t stop at yes.

What we’ve learned over more than half a century can bring out the creativity out in anyone. We can teach you and your team how to create an atmosphere that encourages risk taking and produces better understanding, real results and measurable success.

visit secondcityworks.com for more information!