There are many ways to work on the communication skills of your employees and improve teamwork in your company. It may be that you try team trips away from the office or hold regular team meetings and one to ones. You may have even tried an office move around to get employees collaborating and interacting more.

When employees engage with one another and have a great bond, teams are better able to deal with urgent situations, get more creative, and feel happier to come to work.

We’ve looked into how improv training could be the answer to uniting teams and its ability to improve teamwork in your company.

What is improv?

Improvisation is a technique used by actors and comedians that usually relies on the participation of others. It’s a style of acting and comedy that works the imagination and creativity parts of the brain.

Those who use improv in their careers or hobbies are often admired for their quick wit and collaborative approach to creativity. Actors and comedians who are skilled in improvisation are also envied for their adaptability – their courage to act efficiently in the moment.

Whilst often daunting to the uninitiated, there are many ways that improv can help your business.

Used as a tool for improving your performance as a team, improv training can help you develop better communication skills, and understand how you interact with people.

Improv training can help your business succeed by giving everyone involved more confidence and creativity.

Developing confidence and creativity

Improvisation is a great way to build confidence. It’s also a great way to be more creative, learn how to trust your instincts and listen more attentively.

That’s because improv training forces us outside our comfort zone – and then gives us tools for dealing with it.

In addition, it can help you learn how to connect with others in ways that are true and meaningful. By listening deeply, reacting honestly and using playfulness and spontaneity to connect authentically (rather than trying too hard).

It also can help to create a more positive workforce, as the key tenet of improv is “Yes, and…”, encouraging its user to respond positively to any opportunity, and develop the idea.

It’s a more productive approach than, “no, we should do it my way.”

Help your employees with public speaking and sales

You can also use improv to help your employees with public speaking and sales. Improvisation is a great way to practice public speaking, because it forces you to think on your feet and become a better listener.

You’ll also learn how to sell yourself and your ideas through improvisation, which helps when it comes time for them to sell products and services in real life.

Improv creates the opportunity to gain public speaking experience – and by extension, confidence – in a safe environment.

This helps to enhance mental agility, and gets you used to thinking on your feet. This makes any other public speaking engagement seem less daunting, as you’ll have amassed a level of comfort to make it less intimidating.

Improv teaches you not to fear failure

One of the biggest obstacles to starting any new project is the possibility of failure. Improvisation teaches you to embrace the possibility as it’s all about trying things and learning what works.

If you say something that doesn’t work, it’s ok! Shake it off and try something else. The consequences of failure in improv are small – at worst, it’s embarrassment!

Improv can help you to develop a thick enough skin not to worry about that, after which, you’re bulletproof. This level of confidence and self-assurance can then help you to be more effective in business.

Develop better listening skills

Improvisation is fundamentally about listening. It’s all about paying attention, being present and really hearing what the other person has to say.

Improvisers must listen carefully in order to respond appropriately and build on each other’s ideas in a way that makes sense for the scene at hand.

It’s a similar principle in business. If everyone brings their own ideas but no one listens to each other, you’ll hit creative gridlock. By taking the time to listen to each other, and develop an idea step by step, you may find that you’ll create something better than any one idea would’ve been alone.

Understand how you interact with people

Another way that improv can improve teamwork in your company is by teaching you to understand status. Status is a concept that’s key to improv. It’s not to be confused with ideas about hierarchical power, wealth or social importance.

It’s about how you carry yourself, the way you project confidence and assertiveness, how supportive and likeable you are. And even how respectful the feedback you give is.

Here are some ways status training can help your business:

Understanding how you’re perceived:

Only 10% of our communication is verbal. It’s unlikely that you would be fully conscious of every non-verbal action or mannerism that you make. This could mean you appear anxious, arrogant, disapproving, flirtatious or even impatient without knowing it. Status training helps to make you aware of yourself, and helps you adjust your behaviour to the situation.

Getting comfortable with conflict:

Conflict isn’t always bad – it can lead to better solutions if handled properly. Status training helps people feel confident enough in themselves to speak up when they disagree with something, without being confrontational (which makes everyone feel bad).

Improve teamwork and communication in the workplace

Improvisation is a tool that can help you become a better listener, as well as more empathetic, mentally flexible, creative and collaborative. This will help improve teamwork in your company.

As you weave together your stories, you’ll learn how to listen actively without trying so hard to make sure everyone knows what you think or feel. This frees up space for other people’s ideas as well – which may be completely different from yours, but still add value.

It also means being open-minded enough to try new things (and embracing the possibility of failing) instead of sticking with old habits that might not work anymore.

Improv teaches us how to work together effectively because each participant needs the others for success – and it teaches us how much fun it is when we do!

Bond with your team

Improvisation is a great way to bond with your team. It’s a fun way to get to know them, and it can help you learn more about each other in a setting that feels less formal than traditional interviews or meetings.

Improvisation also provides an opportunity for people who haven’t worked together before to develop a stronger dynamic, building up their communication and listening skills together.

Improv can help your business as it establishes trust between your team.

Build trust within your organisation

Trust is the foundation of any successful team. It’s not just about being honest and open with each other, though; it’s also about being in the moment, learning to listen, being flexible and adaptable, and communicating clearly.

Improv helps you build trust by requiring you to do all these things – and giving your partner assurance that whatever they throw at you, you’ll be ready to run with it.

The technique teaches participants how important it is for them to listen carefully in order for their collaborator(s) to succeed; if they don’t listen well enough, they won’t know what’s required of them for success.

As a result, improv can help your business by creating an environment where no idea is unworthy of exploration. This is a breeding ground for creativity. Even if one person only has one percent of an idea, the team can develop it into something magical.

This mindset makes it much easier for team members to trust that their ideas have merit and will be taken seriously, making them more likely to contribute.

Conclusion

There are many ways improv can help your business succeed. Helping to improve teamwork in your company is just one of them. Improv is a great way to improve your business’s collaboration and develop your employees.

It can help everyone become more confident, creative and effective team members. Improv training is also a great way to bond with co-workers… or even clients!