Improv and Leadership
RewireU Training @ Second City
Second City Works is the corporate education division of Second City, the legendary Improv comedy theater company in Chicago, IL. They offer a learning lab/course titled RewireU. The experience is a 2.5 day course that has four modules: Ensemble, Authenticity, Resilience and Innovation. The course is ~$950.00. My goal was to participate in an immersive experience that helped me explore unlocking creative thinking, reacting to situations in the moment more effectively and ultimately preparing for several large speaking engagements.
Improv for Business
There is significant research connecting the benefits of Improv training principles and to their adaptability to critical leadership business needs. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business has a dedicated program in collaboration with the Second City. The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University has a program focused on communication science to empower scientists and medical professionals to help the public better comprehend complex subjects. Bob Kuhlman, the author of “Getting to Yes, And” says that “organizations are using improv training to foster teamwork, collaboration, positive engagement and mindfulness” in a Knowledge@Warton article. Also the amazing Kelly Leonard wrote a book “Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses No, But Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration.”
Differentiator
Prior to taking this course I had taken a one day workshop at the Washington Improv Theater. It was a fantastic experience and I wanted to experience more. We were exposed to a lot of different improv techniques and learned about the science of communication and correlation to the professional world. The RewireU program provided a multi-day experience and I was eager to try it out. The program accomplished this by focusing on four core topics. Working as an ensemble, authenticity, resilience and innovation. The extended experience over 2 1/2 days gave the attendees more time on specific exercises and additional time to analyze.
Conclusions
My goal was to participate in an immersive experience that helped me explore unlocking creative thinking, reacting to situations in the moment more effectively and ultimately preparing for several large speaking engagements. It was a truly collaborative experience beginning with the creation of an ensemble from strangers in about one business day. This led to a group that was capable of solving problems together, at times non-verbally. The group felt safe in being themselves around each other. Finally, we had fun innovating and doing rapid prototyping trying to solve real problems. The flow of the course is purposeful in helping the trainee to see the path to a culture of innovation.
Following the course I experienced higher levels of engagement with complete strangers at various conferences (external and internal). I spoke in front of 350 people at DevOpsDays Montreal (2019) and over 250 people at an internal DevOps event very comfortably. Within my team we have been focusing on supporting each other, specifically with the language we use during team meetings and demos. We “Yes, and” by supporting work through thoughtful suggestions and encouragement. This has resulted in numerous automation tools and frameworks to help our teams and clients deliver more efficiently.
Not too long after I took this training we were hit with the pandemic. The team mindset and resilience helped us adjust immediately to the remote workplace and variety of challenges that faced each of our teammates. We transitioned with ease, while many others struggled.
I do not believe the RewireU program is still available but there are other terrific programs from The Second City here.
