If, as the saying goes, hell is other people, then there is probably a circle of that hell reserved for work groups. When a team gets hijacked by an alpha member’s quest for world domination, and people stop contributing ideas for fear of being shut down, the work climate can quickly become toxic.

It might be time to call in the actors. Business schools like Harvard and MIT Sloan, and companies like Google and Nokia, routinely bring in improvisational theatre practitioners, to give students and employees a jolt of mindfulness.
Improv is a powerful way for team members to re-examine and change how they relate to each other, say Russell Fletcher and Sarah Kinsella, the actor duo behind the Melbourne corporate training outfit The Decent People. You don’t need to be an actor to get the most out of improv; it’s for anyone who has to communicate with others.

In their work with organisations such as ANZ and Victoria Police, they have seen how improv helps people start to see past rank and role to relate to each other more authentically.

‘Many people wear a mask at work,’ Fletcher says. ‘Many are aware of it, but they stay in that groove because it’s worked for them: it’s kept them in the organisation or in a particular type of role.’ Kinsella adds that pressure-cooker environments take their toll on communication. ‘That’s when you get people sending emails instead of talking to each other – no hello and no goodbye. These subtleties build up over time.’

The duo often use an exercise called ‘yes, but/ yes, and’, a role play in which participants organise a work function, and every exchange begins with ‘yes, but’. Fletcher and Kinsella demonstrate vividly just how defensive and even hostile an exchange can become, because of those two words. ‘Let’s organise the Christmas party’; ‘Yes, but I have a meeting in five minutes’; ‘Yes, but I am the 2IC’.

When workshop participants replace ‘yes, but’ with ‘yes, and’, the difference is startling. The negotiation blossoms into a free flow of ideas and collaborations.

‘Of course, organisations do have to say, “yes, but”,’ Kinsella explains. However, ‘You can say the same thing by saying “yes, and” — “Yes, and we’ve done that before, how do you see this being done differently?”; “Yes, and can I see the budget for that?”. That allows people to contribute and feel valued for their contributions. “Yes, but” closes people down. And after a while apathy sets in: I’m not even going to bother.’

More important than the actual words, powerful as they are, is the mindset the pair are trying to instil. Fletcher says many of the principles of improv are now espoused by many firms: team behaviours, being brave, being creative, backing your own ideas and those of other people. Creativity and innovation depend on being able to play, take risks and bounce back from failure. Improv does not work if you are shooting the other person down to make yourself look good.

‘A lot of organisations are trying to round out their people to be more creative or sales focused,’ Fletcher says. ‘And employees in departments that have not traditionally been customer-facing, such as IT, now have to present and sell.’

A lot of organisations are trying to round out their people to be more creative or sales focused. And employees in departments such as IT now have to present and sell.

Kinsella adds: ‘Tools of improvisation work brilliantly. Even if you are introverted, if you’re passionate about a topic or an idea and you need to sell something, whether it’s a new process or yourself, you need to be able to turn your ideas and thoughts into language and communicate at a human level.’

One common reaction at the start of a workshop is fear of ridicule. ‘We can see them tighten up, ‘ Kinsella says. ‘They think, Oh my god, I’m going to have to act. People are really frightened of losing face: what if they’re not a good actor and everyone else is really good at this activity?’

They warn participants that they will fail. ‘These are just improv exercises, but if you’ve never done them before, why should you get it right? It’s really important to fail,’ Kinsella says. ‘We need to be able to take that risk and, if we do fail, to stay good-natured and not be that person who punishes themselves. We all punish each other enough.’

This post originally appeared on Inside Small Business and was written by Russell Fletcher and Sarah Kinsella