Using Improvisational Performance to Shift Mindsets, Liberate Creativity, and Get Great Results.
You need better performance? Get your team unstuck. Start by summoning your inner Tina Fey or Steve Carell. Improvisational performers know how to improve collaboration. Improv isn’t just about making audiences laugh. It’s a powerful tool to smash through the barriers that keep your team stuck.
Getting stuck is a nightmare. Improv wakes you up with two positively powerful words: “yes … and.”
Yes, the principles of improv can get your team unstuck. And they’ll take you down paths you hadn’t thought to explore (or even knew existed). We’ve found the cardinal rule of improv so potent that we named ourselves for it!
The Science of Stuck-edness
Our brains are hardwired to keep us safe and alive. Perceived threats trigger instinctive urges to fight, flee, or freeze. When teams are stuck, dominant people fight for their ideas and shoot down rivals; others flee, hiding in silence. Some freeze, checking out, intellectually and emotionally.
Maybe these feel familiar...
- We get trapped by default thinking.
- We're blocked by emotional barriers: fear of failure, rejection, disapproval. We self-judge, filter, and reject our own ideas, deeming them not good enough.
- We’re stymied by external factors—deadlines, budgets, rules—we don’t know how to deal with.
When we ’re stuck, we enter the realm of “NO,” a place that’s comfortable; and limiting.
Here are a few improv tenets that help us become more creatively tenacious:
- Say “yes ... and.” When an idea is offered to you, accept it, then add to it.
- Take risks. Improv tells us that “mistakes” are good. Too often, we try to “do it right.” There is no right, because “right” is what we’ve always done … Success is where you land after a lot of trying. Open doors. Be brave. Allow yourself to be absurd.
- Make your partners look good. When we do that, there is no leader. Hierarchy squelches creativity, so trying to be the star is usually counterproductive.
- Listen. Don’t plan. Hear what’s said in the moment. Take it in. Then send something out.
- Let go. If we think we know the answer from the start, we’re probably pursuing something we've done before.
Improv Games for Getting Unstuck
Improv helps us move beyond “pause” to “play.” And the more we practice, the better we’ll be.
Here are simple improv games to encourage a more positive, creative space:
- “What Are You Doing?” A/B-style. A good warm-up to loosen up the room. The first person asks a teammate “What are you doing?” The two-word response must use a first word beginning with the letter “A,” the second word starting with “B.” (Question: What are you doing? Answer: Analyzing breadsticks.) The game moves around the room until everyone has had a turn. This is one of many improv games that imposes parameters to force creativity.
- The Vacation Game. Two people plan a vacation, accepting whatever their partner offers and adding to it—with unexpected outcomes. If you’ve ever planned a vacation with a partner, you know that both parties accepting whatever is offered never happens. In this game, it does, demonstrating the value of “Yes… and.”
- The Limerick. The first person creates the first line of a limerick, handing it off to the second person for the second line. Five people, five lines. Built-in parameters (rhyme scheme and meter) generate results that are wildly creative and unexpected.
- The Gibberish Expert. One participant, a presumed expert on a topic suggested by the audience (e.g., horse plumber), speaks a suggested language (German, Russian, Walrus, etc.). The Walrus-speaking horse plumber answers an interviewer’s questions while another improv partner translates.
- Enter the Incongruous. This exercise requires team members to write ad copy for a product (e.g., a zero-calorie bagel) using an incongruous photo, such as an image of astronauts on the moon. This exercise could set you free.
Conclusion
Conclusion? There are no conclusions. Only possibilities. So, the next time someone has a great idea that you think you can’t afford, don’t say no. Because “no” kills the scene. Try a reset: “Hey. That’s a great idea. Yes, and what if we shot it on an iPhone? Yes, and with the money we saved on studio fees we could get Beyoncé to write a jingle. Yes, and my cousin knows Jay-Z Yes, and …”
You get the idea.
Next Scene
We’d love to engage your team in an improvisation workshop. Josh Golden, Yes&’s President and Chief Creative Officer, has often used improv techniques to get his team unstuck. Before becoming a marketing exec, Josh was an actor, writer, director, professor, historian—and, yes, an improv performer.
