The document discusses how employing improvisational techniques can enhance employee wellbeing and workplace performance by fostering an environment of creativity, focus, and collaboration. It outlines the benefits of improvisation, such as improved listening, creativity, and rapport among coworkers, while encouraging a shift from a traditional workplace to a more playful atmosphere. Key takeaways emphasize the importance of adaptability, self-reflection, and the collective success of teams in an improvisational context.

1. IMPROV(EMENT)
WORKPLACE
ritain’
Benjamin Kent
linkedin.com/in/benjaminatkent

2. Britain’s Department for Business Innovation & Skills
Improving employees' subjective wellbeing is linked
to improved workplace performance.

3. MY OVERALL GOAL
To consider exercising the rules
of improvisation on a regular
basis so it can help us get to a
state of presence, focus,
concentration, and awareness
in the workplace.
From Workplace to Playspace, Pamela Meyer

4. To consider “exercising the tenets of
improvisation on a regular basis so it can
help us get to a state of presence, focus,
concentration, and awareness” in the
workplace.
From Workplace to Playspace, Pamela Meyer
MY OVERALL GOAL

5. To consider shifting your belief
and experience of a workplace
environment and transform it
into a play space environment.
From Workplace to Playspace, Pamela Meyer
YOUR TAKEAWAY

6. To consider shifting your belief and
experience of a workplace environment
and transform it into a play space
environment.
From Workplace to Playspace, Pamela Meyer
MY OVERALL GOAL

7. WHAT IS IMPROVISATION?

8. IMPROVISATION
1. Create and perform
spontaneously or without
preparation (usually depicted
from the arts).
2. Produce or make something
from whatever is available.
Dictionary.com
Origin
From Latin improvisus ‘unforeseen’, and the past
participle of providere ‘make preparation for’.

9. Britain’s Department for Business Innovation & Skills
“All of the various
evaluations (positive and
negative) that people make
of their lives, and the
affective reactions of
people to their
experiences.”
SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING

10. IMPROV BENEFITS
Auditory : Better listening.1
Vocal : Clearly enunciate and understanding of volume control.2
Creative : Encourages thinking outside the box to solve a problem.3
Work load control : Frees us up from stresses. Allows dynamism.4
Thought leadership : Reduces extensive planning for an emergency.5
Cultural : Improves workplace satisfaction for you and your coworkers.6
Social : Helps build rapport with coworkers, clients, and everybody else.7

12. IMPROV(EMENT) CRASH COURSE
RJ Metrics

13. Exploring new ideas with a “yes, and…” conversation forces a
deeper level of scrutiny, leading to questions like “if this is true,
what else is true?” It’s about listening to your scene partner
and exploring your shared reality together.
“YES, AND…”
IMPROV CRASH COURSE | 1:5

14. In an improv scene, 100% of the context is created on the spot.
You have no background, no props, and no established
relationships. If you don’t communicate an idea clearly, neither
the audience nor your fellow performers can be expected to get
it.
STATE THE OBVIOUS
IMPROV CRASH COURSE | 2:5

15. Invest in self-restraint and the ability to keep the long-term
vision in mind. The best improv teams accomplish both:
keeping the audience entertained with each step forward, while
continuously building toward a strong finish.
Play the Long Game
IMPROV CRASH COURSE | 3:5

16. If a teammate’s performance is either good or bad, it is a
product of the group and not individual performers.
THE TEAM IS THE STAR
IMPROV CRASH COURSE | 4:5

17. Through a series of group games and scenes, transform a
simple audience suggestion into a set of overarching themes
and explores them through seemingly independent scenes that
are eventually revealed to coexist in a shared universe.
BLOW THEIR MINDS
IMPROV CRASH COURSE | 5:5

18. RJ Metrics
“Improv and entrepreneurship are delicate mixtures
of art and science that require harmony between
the left and right sides of the brain to master.”

19. When your environment is safe to take
risky responses, organizational innovation,
and efficiencies, productivity increases.

20. THE BIG TAKEAWAYS
Don’t talk yourself so seriously.1
Laugh at yourself.2
Have your own back first.3
Know your audience, be adaptive & think on your feet.4
Be responsible for your career.5
Workplace transformation can be the play space.6

21. YOU ARE INVITED!

22. THANK
YOU
Questions?
QUESTION!