Improvisational Leaders

This book aims to increase the level of consciousness, communications, and authenticity in the business world. It advocates mindfulness, self-awareness, creativity, improvisation, and a cooperative nature for workers at all levels of the organization to facilitate greater leadership and enhanced organizational performance. Part One presents an observation of the business world, describing the concept that integrating nonlinear (right-brain) practices with predominant linear (left-brain) practices will improve both personal and business success. Part Two presents wide-ranging topics of awareness, including self-understanding, mindfulness, various styles of meditation, psychological modalities, and the application of these practices into daily life. Part Three delves into the art form of improvisation, discussing its principles, benefits, and applications, including exercises for both personal and business use.

Leadership, teamwork, creativity and storytelling are hot topics in contemporary training and management. They are also an integral part of applied improvisation, which as a result gives us a valuable stock of exercises and methods to impart these skills. In Applied Improvisation for Coaches and Leaders: A Practical Guide for Creative Collaboration, Schinko-Fischli provides a complete introduction to applying the principles and techniques of improvisational theatre to working life. Schinko-Fischli uses her wealth of experience to illuminate how trainers and managers can add new stimuli to their work through applied improvisation. The book begins with a general introduction to the development of improvisational theatre and to applied improvisation, defining the foundations of improvisation and how we can usefully apply these methods to teamwork. It then focuses on how we can use creativity, with a particular focus on co-creativity, to pave the way for new visions of the future and innovative solutions, and explores how storytelling can be applied to teamwork and presentations. Finally, Schinko-Fischli examines status, examining how we present ourselves and appear to others, and how we can influence and control this. This unique book takes a fresh and nuanced look at many soft skills and presents a complete overview of the areas in which applied improvisation may be used by coaches and managers. It contains practical exercises throughout and clearly explains relevant theory and terminology. Applied Improvisation for Coaches and Leaders: A Practical Guide for Creative Collaboration will be essential reading for coaches in practice and in training, particularly executive coaches, and those who work with leaders in teams and organisations. It will also be a key text for leaders, trainers and managers seeking to enhance and expand their soft skills and make learning gainful and enjoyable.

You already know that there's no script for effective leadership... That's why Improv Leadership reveals five skills that will help you unleash your own leadership potential on every unexpected challenge and status quo. Anyone can read books and apply lessons, but only the best can develop what they know to bring out the best in any person or circumstance. These natural leaders understand the key principles of connecting, coaching, and communicating and use these ideas to build strong teams. In Improv Leadership, Stan Endicott and David Miller share five leadership competencies that all great, improvisational leaders have: Story Mining--how to uncover a person's story and let it shape the way you lead them Precision Praising--how to craft praise to inspire, motivate, and even course-correct your team Metaphor Cementing--how to create concrete illustrations to "cement" an idea in someone's mind Lobbing Forward--how to challenge people to look beyond today to what might be in the future Going North--how to use indirect influence to redirect a person's perspective IMPROV leaders apply these five competencies to initiate powerful conversations, create memorable moments with forward momentum, and craft personal coaching strategies that help people, and teams, grow. The five competencies of IMPROV Leadership are not rigid steps to follow. They are fluid and can be applied to any industry of field. You can't predict every challenge you'll face. There's no playbook that covers every decision. But you can cultivate teams of people who love their work (and each other) and who perform at a high level. And you can lead well in any situation.

“It’s my hope you’ll enjoy Improv to Improve Your Leadership Team as much as I did. I am grateful to creative thinkers like Candy who challenge us to learn and grow in ways we may never have considered.” –Quint Studer, Healthcare Solutions Group, Author, The Calling: Why Healthcare Is So Special “Dr. Campbell has done something truly remarkable. By combining the fun and creativity of improv with documented, empirical research, she has written a user’s manual for building a cohesive, energized, and effective team. Leaders, take note: when you follow Campbell’s blueprint, your team will feel more valued, more respected, and more engaged.”–Bill Stainton, CSP, CPAE, 29-time Emmy Winner, Hall of Fame Innovation Speaker You’re a leader with a problem. There’s a fungus-like growth in your organizational culture you can no longer ignore. It starts slowly with a few people feeling maligned and/or excluded, spreads resentment, leads to disengagement, and finally...resignations. What a nightmare! But WAIT! You have stumbled onto the exact solution you need! With this book, you can QUICKLY discover how to use the principles of applied improvisational exercises from the arts to help teams effectively connect and communicate, creatively problem-solve, increase workplace safety and employee retention, and guarantee client and stakeholder satisfaction. It’s all contained here.

Much has been researched and written about the emergence of improvisation processes within organizational contexts. Although still scarce, research on organizational improvisation has evolved from a jazz and theater metaphor to empirical and conceptual organizational frameworks, creating a consolidated organizational theoretical body. This Elgar Introduction discusses major theoretical advances in organizational improvisation, which the authors view as the process of improvisation that occurs within an organizational context, whether at the individual, team, or organizational level. Grounded in rigorous academic work to date, this book speaks both to scholars interested in developing research on organizational improvisation and to managers who face rapid change with crucial consequences.

This innovative volume provides a comprehensive overview of improvisation as a pervasive organizational process, essential in ever-changing business environments. Exploring theories of organizational action as well as contemporary challenges, it highlights improvisation’s rich potential in theory building and practice. The value and relevance of improvisational capabilities and processes in organizations are more apparent than ever: the global pandemic has forced organizations to reinvent themselves and to adapt to dramatic change on a massive scale. This surge in improvised activity starkly illustrates how the capability to improvise is key to organizational resilience: organizations that are able to improvise effectively are better prepared to bounce back and even thrive. From the latest thinking on improvisation in organizations to future avenues for research, this volume demonstrates the rich potential for both theory building and practice and provides a valuable resource for researchers and advanced students in organizational strategy, entrepreneurship, product development, information systems, disaster management, and HRM.

Creating innovative products and game-changing processes, and adapting to new cultures and communication styles, have all become imperative for business survival. Today’s business leaders, from Fortune 500 companies on down, have discovered the value of improvisational theatre techniques to develop creativity and collaboration skills they need.Since publication of its seminal first edition, the principles and techniques pioneered in Training to Imagine have been widely adopted by organizations around the world, and have given rise to the field of Applied Improvisation. This new edition builds on the characteristics that made it the most comprehensive and most easy-to-apply resource for using improv in organizations. As before, this book translates the theories and exercises of improv into language that is familiar to business culture, and provides guidelines, case studies and exercises intended for use by individuals for self-development, for small groups, and for facilitation by corporate trainers.This revised edition places more emphasis on the development of leadership, in particular adding activities designed for individuals to develop skills on their own, or outside formal training environments. It builds upon what has been learned since 2001, presenting examples of practice, and research on the methods, that have proven to be most effective in the workplace. Kat Koppett has added a whole new section on instructional design to help users make informed choices in selecting activities to best support their objectives and corporate context, as well as numerous new exercises.This is a vital resource for trainers, executives, and leaders at all levels who want to increase their personal communication and creativity skills, and in inspire and motivate their teams. The enhanced e-book edition will incorporate video of sample activities and exercises, as well as interviews with leading Applied Improv practitioners. This material will also be available free on the Stylus Web site.

While much has been written about what democracies should look like, much less has been said about how to actually train citizens in democratic perspectives and skills. Amid the social and political crises of our time, many programs seeking to bridge differences between citizens draw from the surprising field of improvisational theater. Improv trains people to engage with one another in ways that promote empathy and understanding. Don Waisanen demonstrates how improv-based teaching and training methods can forward the communication, leadership, and civic skills our world urgently needs. Waisanen includes specific exercises and thought experiments that can be used by educators; advocates for civic engagement and civil discourse; practitioners and scholars in communication, leadership, and conflict management; training and development specialists; administrators looking to build new curricula or programming; and professionals seeking to embed productive, sustainable, and socially responsible forms of interaction in and across organizations. Ultimately this book offers a new approach for helping people become more creative, heighten awareness, think faster, build confidence, operate flexibly, improve expression and governance skills, and above all, think and act more democratically.