According to the Wall Street Journal’s “Market Watch” column today, Fortune 500 companies are using Improv Comedy training to improve communications.
Chicago’s famous The Second City, made famous by the original Saturday Night Live cast, is being hired to help marketing & other professionals become better communicators.
Tom Yorton, CEO of The Second City Communications, claims that B-schools, while important for many types of skills and thinking are not including certain soft skills such as:
- How to listen
- How to read a room
- How to build trust within teams
- How to create & innovate
- How to resolve conflict
One such game involves improving listening skills. You repeat the last word your partner says and make a new sentence. Then your partner begins the next sentence with the last word you say and gives the next sentence.
Yorton says that listening is core to being a good improviser, and hence, a good communicator, so the classes usually start with this one. We all tend to be thinking about what we want to say next, rather than focusing on what the other person is saying.
As an executive search consultant in the online marketing niche, I took up improv comedy classes for fun and happily found the classes to improve my telephone communications.
Improv comedy classes can be found all around you in community centers, as well as meetup.com groups, all of whom have online catalogs and scheduling websites.
I highly recommend improv comedy not only to improve your communication skills, but also for an evening of pure fun and laughter.
Janice Litvin
JLitvin@MicroSearchSF.com
www.MicroSearchSF.com
