Thinking on Your Feet: Communicating in a Dynamic Environment

The tools of improvisation aren’t just for stage performers: they are equally essential in managerial contexts. The dynamic business environment requires leaders to observe what is happening in the moment, adapt on a dime, and create with whatever is at hand—precisely the same skills used by professional performers.

In this workshop participants will learn the tools of effective improvisation and integrate them into their managerial skill set. Develop a confident, “ready for anything” mindset that helps to find the right action in the moment. Adapt rapidly to changing circumstances. Create innovative ideas on the fly. Communicate compelling narratives and collaborate constructively with others.

Much of the program will be spent in interactive exercises designed to ignite ideas and develop an improvisational skills.

What You’ll Learn

• Pathways to creativity: connecting with spontaneity, using constraint as a springboard to problem solving, making effective use of surprises.
• Building team cohesion: fostering respect, developing a group mindset, playing by the same rules, adapting to change while leading and following, learning to build together, listening for silences and finding the right moment to jump in.
• Creative collaboration: techniques for collaborative problem solving, shaping ideas through active listening, making use of “bad ideas”.
• Presence and power dynamics: warming up and owning the room, power dynamics of physical presence and communications, observing and challenging power dynamics.
• Storytelling as compelling communication: narrative structures and their functions, becoming inspired to tell a great story, using storytelling to keep audiences engaged, storytelling with a live audience.