How can you use improvisation to encourage risk-taking?

In my opinion, there are 3 key elements that must be present to be successful in improvisation. 1. Creativity As it is spontaneous, one will have to tap into their creative mind to create something meaningful. 2. Resourcefulness During improvisation, one will have to work with their available resources. 3. Willingness to be different We may run the risk of being laughed at especially if it is something out of the norm.

While improvisation is a great way to ensure that the team is creative and exploring solutions that would work, an important requirement is use of available technical knowledge or experience/expertise of subject. That way taking risks is more calculated and has a higher percentage for success. For instance, compare asking an Undergrad who knows nothing about coding, IT or even accounting to improvise in creating a soft tool for staff payment portal. And on the other hand, having an Entry level (doesn't have to be a top tier personnel) accountant or a tech developer to improvise on same subject matter. The later will produce a more useful result, I daresay.

Improv isn't just about fun; taking improv for over 10 years has made my work more impactful for clients. I was Advertising Strategic Planner, and Improv helped me inspire more creative work and collaboration. Now I'm a Market Researcher and Human-Centered Design Facilitator. I can read the room better, and adapt on the fly. It has been key to push participants to take risks and dive into the unknown world of innovation. As a researcher, I have discovered improv skills to be a secret weapon to get participants to dig into their subconscious and provide authentic answers that lead to insights you can't find in traditional focus groups Pd-knowing improv adds a dose of lightness to keep things fun and help people work together better.

This year my class theme is "The Art of Improvisation" through this theme I am helping students to develope better problem solving and critical thinking skills. I find that learning improvisation helps students to practice being in unfamiliar situations and techniques for identifying their fears and moving past them. This is an important quality that risk takers have. It's not that they are not fearful, they just have the tools/mindsets needed to deal with the fear and take the plunge.

Aren't "Never deny", "Yes and...", and "Explore and heighten" pretty much the essence of risk taking? How can one who has experienced the joy and exhilaration of following these precepts not be far more open to taking risks in any context?

I learnt early in my career to allow focused freedoms. I try to establish boundaries early with new entrants and then allow them and others to be creative within those spaces and improvise. Check-ins are only really required when issues are about to cross the boundary lines or are somewhat on the fence. Then we need collective insights.

Following the original purpose of this article, I believe improvisation can be spontaneous in attempts to take risks, however one needs to be well prepared and versed in the “rules” and important information to be successful. Setting the stage to improvise is a very different phase that calls for preparation to create effective moments favoring improv. For example, improvising a response during an interview requires subject knowledge and understanding of the audience. Information on topics and panel researched beforehand will allow one to adjust and present a response that is both creative and effective.

You need skills to be able to improvise. And a framework to improvise within. In music improvisation you need skills in playing the instrument, and being able to recognise and play in the key, set the right chords, playing the scale, rythme and riffs. The framework is a tune or a set of bars in a key i.e. a blues scema in Bb minor. If we are to improvise in other areas and produce or create something, we need similar premises such as competence within a topic, a well defined and facilitated process and tools to make contributions. Within that frame, improvisation can be productive.

Many of us think improv is just performing without a script, being spontaneous. But it's a lot more than that. The rules of Improv help participants ingrain some of its core philosophies: - Yes, And - Build on others' offers - There are no mistakes, only opportunities - Make statements, don't ask questions

In my perspective, improvisation can happen in group moderation when a certain level of trust between participants has been reached. Before improvisation may not deliver its full potential. We are all different and depending how people know and trust each other within the group there is high need for preparing by relaxing or using serious games to open people acceptance to open to the others...

Spend a considerable amount of time doing warm up activities (basic games such as word association), since most participants take time to open up. Make learning fun and reiterate that this is a safe space - doing this can help others let go of their inhibitions to take on more risks as time progresses.

Align the exercises with the goals of the team or project. This shows active leadership and intentionality. Trust build is probably a must.

I love improv and include it in all of my design and innovation training, classes and workshops. I would be careful about choosing some physical activities - I've seen groups reacting very negatively when they had to bodily improvise since it was too far away from the task at hand. There are a lot of word activities that help you build on each others' ideas and to let go of control - those help a lot.

When I want people to get out of their standard ways of behaving I use some Agile based exercices and workshops. Serious gaming can help people to develop their fields for options and consider them. I like a an example Prune the product tree where people can map what they do and then can cut a part of the tree if they want to drop that activity... This then can be followed by a storyboard to explain what will be next in a new world /reality.

An improv facilitator can pause the exercise at any point to gather lessons learned and ideas. This is the power of such an event. It's unscripted, even in the way the team decides to record its takeaways.

In my experience having little non threatening ice breakers where participants actually have to leave their seats and move around can really help get people working in small groups. One thing that works for me to shake up a big group dynamic is what I call triplets (I think I discovered this in the world of education many moons ago). This is basically where you give your participants a card with a word on it and they have to find the people with the two corresponding words. For example, snap, crackle and pop or earth, wind and fire. Its always a bit of fun and rejigs the layout of the room whilst also gently getting your groups up on their feet and active.

Always sharing across the participants. Start small, move from individual to pairs to teams. It also needs to be done regularly. It’s like oxygen for an organization.

If you're facilitating in a workshop format, remember to reinforce that there are truly no mistakes in Improv. Participants will surely fail if it's their first time attempting it. Be gentle and provide them opportunities to make changes as they update their learning. Celebrate every little win and show how mistakes can open doors to new possibilities .

Build a lot of activities and ensure all participants are involved to make the session lively and safe . Use facilitation to encourage group learning

The aim is not to produce great actors but to instill a sense of confidence and a willingness to embrace the unknown. Over time, participants will likely find they are more willing to take risks in other areas of their lives as they have developed a resilience to uncertainty and a trust in their ability to adapt.

when I design a workshop I always alternate between diverging workshops where participants can bring all their ideas, even the most crazy ones... and then converging workshops where people recenter on the ideas that are possible within a certain time and reasonable frame. Finally what is important is to measure progress, so coaching is nice to see how commitments are fulfilled afterwards. Iteration and adaptation are key when it comes to designing new ways of working using for example improvisation. Do and then iterate.

Embracing divergent and improvised approaches gives teams room to explore ideas from different perspectives. To bring their own personal inspiration and context into the room in order to find solutions. We use this technique with clients early on in creative projects to help them overcome blocks in their thinking, to see their problem from other angles and find connections that they had previously missed.