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Funny Motivational Speaker and Change Management Speaker Avish Parashar
Improvise, Adapt, and Innovate in an Ever Changing World!
“Business Improv.”
Sounds a bit weird, right? Can ridiculous comedy techniques help your business? If you have ever seen an improv comedy show, the last thing on your mind was probably, “Hey, that looks like it would be really helpful to me and my business.” After all, a typical improv comedy show will often have performers doing and saying some truly ridiculous things. However, the underlying skill-set that allows an improviser to do those ridiculous activities can be tremendously beneficial to any business or any professional.
Improv comedy is an art form where performers take the stage with nothing prepared in advance and then use audience suggestions to create comedy right there on the spot. Nothing is pre-planned. However, the performers have developed a skill-set that allows them to react in the moment very quickly to create comedy as they go.
The Improv for Business Professionals seminar is simply a business training program where business professionals are taken through a series of corporate improv games and exercises, taught the fundamentals of improv comedy and then shown how they can use the skills learned from those corporate improv games and exercises to improve their work and life and organization. If you have never seen improv comedy check out these videos.
If you’ve never seen an improv business seminar before, you might be a little confused. So here is an example of one my favorite corporate improv exercises. I’ve intentionally picked a simpler one that you can facilitate with your own group right away without needing an experienced improv facilitator.
The Two-Word Story:
Assign each person a partner and then have the pairs work together to create a story – each person contributing two words at a time. For example, the first person says, “Once upon” and the second person says, “a time.” The first person now says, “There was,” and so on and so on until they have a complete story. The end result is that the two people create a weird, wild, funny, and crazy story. (To see this game in action, check out this video).
The key here is that I tell them to go as fast they can and not overthink it, which is what leads to greater creativity and greater humor. I also tell them not to stop if either of them accidentally say three or four words. They should try to keep it to two. But it’s more important that they go with the flow than that they correct themselves.
There are many lessons you can pull out of playing this short improv game (it takes no more than a minute). You can talk about creativity. You can talk about collaboration. You can talk about dealing with change and getting unexpected results. You can talk about stress because some people feel stress playing this game. This simple improv exercise, which is funny, very easy, and fun to play has tremendous applications and benefits.
What are the benefits and applications of an improv business seminar? There are many.
Business improv is a powerful skill that you can use in your team, department, or organization to greatly improve creativity, decrease stress, improve leadership, more readily accept change, and many, many other things.
If you are interested in learning more here’s what you can do:
By Avish Parashar. As the world's only Motivational Improviser, Avish uses techniques from the world of improv comedy to engage, entertain, and educate audiences on ideas around change, creativity, and motivation. Connect with Avish on Google+