EXTRA TIME
Out of office TEAM BUILDING
Just make it up
Mr Dickins. “We tell people not to try to be clever or funny. If you do, you’ll block yourself up. We like to think of improv as yoga for your soft skills, making your communication more supple.”
Comedians may make improvisation look effortless, but it’s rooted in simple skills and techniques. Learning them can help employees communicate more effectively – and there are several outfits delivering improv workshops via videoconferencing
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What can you do?
Hoopla, which pioneered London’s first club dedicated to improv comedy, runs online workshops through its corporate training arm, Hoopla Business (020 3916 5042, hooplabusiness.com). Founder Max Dickins says: “Our teambuilding sessions are about creating something that teams can sometimes be lacking – genuine human connection with one another.” Each session harnesses key concepts of improv to help team members collaborate and create ideas together. Workshops are structured into a series of exercises – whole-group activities plus breakout sessions where colleagues work in pairs. Three principles are paramount. “Firstly, it’s all about listening amazingly well, with the willingness to be changed by what the other person says,” says Mr Dickins. “Second is what we call the philosophy of ‘yes and...’. You say something to me, I accept it and add something from my own perspective. Lastly, you need to treat everything as an offer. Anything that gets thrown at you – including any unexpected mistakes, curveballs or problems – you find something useful in it.” Other outfits offering improv workshops include Hivemind (hivemindimprov.com), The Maydays (themaydays. co.uk) and overlapping troupe The Nursery (thenurserytheatre.com). 62 | firstvoice | o ct o b e r 2 02
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Q
What will the business get out of it?
What does it cost?
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How can you do it?
Workshops can be delivered via Zoom or any other videoconferencing platform. You can also learn how to use improv techniques at your leisure from Dickins’ book, Improvise! Use the Secrets of Improv to Achieve Extraordinary Results at Work (improvisethebook.com).
As well as being a fun way of bringing colleagues together, improv is excellent at teaching self-awareness about communication. Mr Dickins says: “A lot of things we think we do well, we actually do badly – perhaps we find out we’re not such good listeners, or that we have an instinct to shut down other people’s ideas. And improv provides a space where making mistakes is OK: being able to mess up for it to be funny is a very liberating thing.”
Q
What are the risks?
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Shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Mock the Week may be most people’s reference point for improv, but introverts shouldn’t worry that they’ll need lightning-fast wit and a verbal riposte always cued up. “It’s not about performance at all,” says
The online format lends itself best to short sessions of 60 to 90 minutes. A workshop for up to 20 people, using two facilitators, starts at around £700.
‘We like to think of improv as yoga for your soft skills, making your communication more supple’
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17/09/2020 16:24
