Life & Business Lessons From Improvisation
“The rules of improvisation apply beautifully to life. Never say no - you have to be interested to be interesting, and your job is to support your partners.”
At its core, the study and performing of improvisation is the study of becoming.
When we improvise, we become a communicator, an artist, or even a poet. Improvisation requires a meditative focus on the present moment. Because of that simple fact, practicing improvisation helps us to become more present humans.
Improvisation provides the structured practice of how to spontaneously create dialogue in fictional situations to help us become better humans in real situations. Improvisation provides the structured practice of how to build spontaneous relationships when improvising so that we can become more attentive partners in real situations.
But some have forgotten these core tools in favor of… a quicker way. A shortcut, which - as it turns out - isn’t a shortcut at all.
Our culture places an unusual (and misguided) priority on being “efficient”. But the pursuit of efficiency over all else is misguided. Most of us remember the tale of The Tortoise and The Hare, a classic story from “Aesop’s Fables”. The lesson from the story was clear:
Being the fastest doesn’t guarantee that we’ll get to the finish line first.
Think of any job that requires more than one person to be completed:
building a house
performing open-heart surgery
raising children
engineering a new piece of software
Completing the job faster than everyone doesn’t guarantee success; success is ONLY guaranteed when the team members invest time in discovering one another. That investment of time results in a far better (and, ironically, far faster) team that is capable of creating longer-lasting results.
Improvisation is one of the best tools for learning how to forge and deepen our relationships. It’s also one of the best tools for learning how to communicate with patience, kindness, and attentiveness.
It’s also a tool that brings tremendous fun.
Remember the old Fairy Tale and then ask yourself: “Who was more efficient?”
Arthur Rackham, from "The Hare and the Tortoise", from Aesop's Fables. Published 1912.
By: David Koff