Improv Games For Collaboration

Two separate clients recently inquired about an improv workshop for the office designed to increase collaboration among their teams. Well, they didn’t exactly say that, but in both instances what my clients were after were improv workshops chock full of improv games for collaboration. 

Before we look at the skeleton of a curriculum, let’s dig into what they were looking for.

Three Men Collaborating Hard On Building A Letter With Their Bodies

One client explained they had a kickoff event coming up in Dallas for a newly assembled team of leaders (note the slight, but critically different wording from the more standard leadership team) who would be working closely together over the next year. Although no collaboration had yet begun, the fear was that this team of alphas wouldn’t play together nicely. She explained she was looking for team building.

But I was suspicious there could be a deeper need (because of several obvious clues, I’m not like Sherlock Holmes or something) so we explored her goals in a discovery call. She had never participated in a workplace improv class but had heard of YES AND… and improv had come recommended by a colleague.

That was enough to lead to our conversation.

I expanded on YES ANDs impact on teams by introducing the common improv ethic of striving to make your teammates look like poets and geniuses, even when their contributions are misguided (think: mistakes). That excited her, she was looking for the team to believe in each other and to gain momentum and a sense of group confidence that this ethic would speak to.

We also discussed the self fulfilling prophecy of one’s attitude towards one’s team. Think your team is a group of geniuses and behave that way? Your team will grow confident and individuals will fully participate in the work they are tasked with, increasing the likelihood of impressive performance. 

Think your team is lackluster and poorly composed? Your team will most likely notice your attitude and begin to regard full participation as unwise, leading to suboptimal performance. Who wants to go out on a limb when someone else will immediately think to saw the darn thing off?

We agreed the improv workshop curriculum would address all these points, framing it as a workshop on collaboration skills.  

My other client was similar with slight, important differences. 

Her team had been together for a while and there was a brewing dispute between two subgroups with different functions within it. So while every other element of the first client’s concerns were also important, for her workshop in Denver she wanted something that might lead them to gain more trust in each other and realign the groups into a functional whole.

A little trickier, but I did have one exercise in particular I thought would prove effective.

What follows is the curriculum I built for both workshops with links to facilitator guides for all exercises. After the straight curriculum I’ll explore a few of the more important exercises for their particular goals; the whys and how comes.

Improv Workshop For Collaboration - Two Hour Duration

Intro - 5 Minutes - A brief retelling of the Why Improv page, designed to create and calm nerves.

Ice Breaker - 10 Minutes - This can be any one of a slew of exercises that gets everyone up on their feet and used to the idea that they will be talking and interacting throughout the workshop. Badada, the Name Game, Yes And Point, even Zip Zap Zop all work, but the Zombie Rescue Game is particularly fun and speaks right away to trust and group reliance, so that is recommended.

One Word Story - 15 Minutes - Yes a bit common and maybe even overdone at corporate events, but the act of creating a story together speaks directly to collaboration. If going well, the instructor may add extra fun/challenge top the proceedings by switching to Made Up Story Hotspot or Couple Sentence Story w/ Lead Ins.

YES AND  Conversations - 15 Minutes - The quintessential exercise for all corporate improv exercises, but we can enhance its impact on collaboration and building trust among groups by advancing to extra variations like YES BECAUSE and YES EXACTLY.

ABC Bodies - 20 Minutes - A high impact exercise for collaboration and teamwork, discussed below. You should scan over the facilitator guide here before getting to that explanation for full impact.

Mind Meld - 20 Minutes - Another high impact exercise explored below. As before, scan the facilitator guide before reading the exercise exploration below.

Environment Charades - 15 Minutes - One of my favorite communication and collaboration exercises that puts a premium on clear communication, non verbal listening and backing up every contribution. (Could be cut for time)

Guest Panel or World’s Best Coach - 20 Minutes - Both these exercises can act as capstones for a standard corporate workshop, in part because they are very funny generating lots of laughs and in part because of their collaboration. For the group of alpha leaders, World’s Best Coach has particular application.

Mimed Tug Of War - 10 Minutes - Final exercise for the workshop with the two dysfunctional subgroups. Discussed below.

So that’s the spine of the workshop, but as I indicated in it, several of the exercises have unique application to the goals of these workshops. We’ll start by looking at ABC Bodies. 

First, the exercise is positioned at the 45 minute mark, following the intro, an ice breaker and two verbal exercises. At this point there have probably been a lot of smiles and giggling, but ABC Bodies is such an absurd exercise it often leads to loud laughter. This brings with it buy in, excitement and joy for the participants, making the rest of the workshop much easier.

Run the exercise too soon and people won’t participate. Run it too late and the workshop may be irretrievably tame with a flavor of academia. I like it (or some other exercise with a similar impact) anywhere in the 30-50 minute zone of a two hour workshop.

On one level the exercise is great for both clients because it reinforces communication skills, because it is not enough for one player to contribute some of a letter’s form. It is important that every contribution makes clear the player’s intention or their partner won’t know how to successfully add onto their move.

I say that a little tongue in cheek, because oftentimes the most joyful and successful “letters” look nothing like they are supposed to. After all, most corporate professionals haven’t practiced building letters with their bodies, so they are terrible at it. Even so, it is still good for your communication muscle to try to bring clarity to your moves during this game and the impossibility of the task only means that muscle is going to get a really good workout.

This element, of all but certain failure, is perfect for the team looking to build trust. 

When I go into a scene with another improviser I think about our collaboration as being less important for that scene and more important for the next ten we work on together. If my partner makes a contribution to the scene, maybe a location or a relationship, and I have any reaction other than full acceptance, then I am dooming myself for the next ten scenes. My partner will learn that I will not support their moves, meaning they’ll stop making them and I’ll need to make most of the contributions in our scenes moving forward.

My partner will have learned not to trust me.

Now flip that. If my partner makes a terrible contribution and I support it immediately and fervently, well… My partner will learn that they can trust me. They will learn I have their back even when their performance isn’t the best it could be.

Few exercises hammer home this truth as well as ABC Bodies.

Another exercise from the curriculum that I wanted to highlight is Mind Meld. In Mind Meld players attempt the telepathic feat of blurting out the same word at the same time with only the faintest clues to work off of. It’s nigh impossible and people fail again and again and again and again.

And that’s great right? Because if we can fail together and support each other and laugh through it, then we are building the trust that will keep our team sprinting forward.

Even more important though is that Mind Meld really puts you in a collaborative frame of mind. It’s obvious right away that creativity and unique ideas are your enemy in this exercise. The only way to guess what your partner is about to say correctly is to ask yourself what you think they are thinking.

It is truly a great exercise for working your collaboration muscles.

Finally I added the Mimed Tug Of War exercise to this curriculum. I use it very rarely but it can be a very powerful exercise for groups at odds with each other, especially when there is a departmental divide. 

Players in this game realize quickly how easy it is to be seduced by a fiction. The truth is that everyone in this exercise is on the same team and has the same goal: to create the illusion of a tug of war. The fiction is that they are on different teams competing to win a tug of war.

BUT THERE IS NO ROPE!  You can’t be stronger or win this tug of war. There is no tug of war.

Instead there is a theatrical scenic challenge and even though that is explained up top, people will immediately get lost thinking that winning this absurd tug of war is their true purpose.

Is it any different when an individual prioritizes the needs of The Customer Success Team over the needs of The Sales Team? Or Human Resources over Accounting? Or… pick many two departments.

Companies are just one big team, departments are useful for organization but ultimately everyone in a company is on the same team with the same macro goal.  So departments need to be able to give a little from time to time. Just as the two tug of war teams cannot succeed if they only pull the rope in their direction without either team ever giving ground.

So those are thoughts on improv games for collaboration. I hope you enjoyed them and found them helpful!