Companies are using comedy to help their employees overcome those issues. They are hiring improv instructors to train their employees to become better listeners, collaborators andmanagers. These skills are particularly useful in office brainstorming sessions, where employees may be too shy to f loat their ideas or worried that their idea isn’t the best one. “‘Yes, and’ is about giving over your idea,” said Norm Laviolette, President and Founder of Improv Asylum. “It’s saying I have the courage to start an idea and let it get changed. As a manager, you are far more powerful if you can learn to work with everyone else’s ideas and move them forward.” Consumer robot maker, iRobot, hired Improv Asylum to host a half-day class for a gathering of its global product management team in June. Many of the employees on the team had never met before and the company was looking for a way to break the ice and ease any cultural barriers. “We got to know each other on a human level, which helped us collaborate,” said Ken Bazydola, iRobot’s director of product management. Since then, the team has been using the techniques they learned from the “Yes, and” exercise in their meetings. “It ’s amazing what you can come up with even if the initial idea is crazy, there is a kernel of opportunity you can build upon.”
Why every boss should take an improv class... Unproductive meetings, bad leadership and poor communication in the office are no laughing matter. bad leadership
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