If you have ever watched a skillful improv comedy group in action (for example on the TV show Whose Line is it Anyway?), you've probably walked away shaking your head and wondering how they were able to craft dialog, action, and plot out of thin air with just a few audience suggestions. There's a lot of talent and practice that goes into making it work, but there are also some underlying rules that everybody on stage is following. These agreements allow everyone to trust each other and move the action along. One of them is incredibly important to understand if you want to be successful as a sales professional in our modern, … [Read more...]
Why Was That Brilliant?
Some of the most useful (and entertaining) professional development classes I’ve ever taken have been improv-comedy classes. Besides making me a little less unfunny at parties, I’ve learned some powerful and practical communication skills in these classes. One of them came from a brilliant teacher, Tim Whetham. (He was the teacher who pointed out on the first day of class that, “everyone is already good at improv, we do it 24 hours a day). In a class on performing an improvisational scene with a partner, Tim pointed out that your focus in the scene should be to validate the choices the other actor makes. In the heat of the moment it’s … [Read more...]