Five Life and Work Lessons From Improv
By: Nikhil Vaish
Tags: Diversity, Work, Improv, Courage, Teamwork

I recently took an improv class because I felt the urge to shed some of the adult layers I have accumulated over the last forty plus years, or maybe it was to deal with a mid-life crisis as my wife says. Either way I was keen to get back in touch with my inner child and rekindle the fearlessness and curiosity I had as a kid. I decided that improv would be a good way to re-ignite that innocent wonder about the world, the one that gets jaded under the weight of every bad boss, client meeting and recurring monthly bill.

Of course, I was nervous at the thought of performing, without preparation, in front of a group of strangers. On the first night, an hour before the class was due to start, I thought about being a no-show.

My mind went back first to the day I was standing, as a five year old, on the edge of a swimming pool with the teacher urging me to jump into the deep end for the first time. And more recently to when I was being strapped into the safety harness for the highest, longest and fastest zip line in the world, trying not to think about the 90 miles per hour I was about hit or the 850 meter drop, over the 1.4 mile journey.

I summoned my inner-child, and when that failed I looked at my wife desperately. It was only after she convinced me that I had nothing to lose apart from my dignity that I boarded the downtown train. Much like jumping into the pool and zip lining down a mountain, this also turned out to be a great decision.

When I arrived I was immediately reassured to see a dozen other faces looking as apprehensive as I felt inside. After the teacher made us do introductions, we realised that everyone in the class was an Improv virgin. Into the shallow end of improv we dove, trusting that we would all sink or swim together.

Before I jump into the lessons learned, I have to give a shout out to our amazing teacher Katie Hutch. She is single-handedly responsible for creating a space where twelve strangers felt comfortable enough to shed their adult layers and find their inner child. She is equal parts teacher, philosopher and comic genius.

Lesson One: Get used to screwing up

This is an important and humbling lesson to be reminded of as we get older and more risk averse. We all mess up and do it frequently, both in life and at work. It is not worth beating yourself up over it.

I wrote earlier about “My Worst Day at Work” that entailed a mess of monumental proportions, and that was not the end of the world or my career. But I am also talking about slips we make every day. Whether it is saying the wrong thing to a prospective in-law, going off script in the middle of a major presentation, or flubbing a point during a Presidential debate — it will happen to the best of us.

The key is to accept that it is going to happen to you, no matter how well prepared you might feel and to remind yourself that nobody is immune. Like when candidate Barack Obama proudly told a group of reporters that he had just finished campaigning in all 57 states.

The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people are forgiving and not likely to dwell on your flubs. Of course, there will always be a few people who will try to embarrass you, but keep in mind that they are usually assholes and there is nothing you can do to change that. Besides, they have to live with that fact — not you.

Lesson Two: Draw on your experiences, not your limitations

Like in life, in improv we were often thrown into the deep end of things. We have to dive into scenarios where we lack both expertise and experience needed to navigate the task at hand. We are all creatures of conditioning and react to every situation we face based on how our personal experiences have shaped and informed our perspective.

The key is to accept this fact and play into your strengths, using existing knowledge to improvise and to build on. This is not about the right or wrong way to do something but simply about realising that the best way to tackle a problem is by drawing directly on your past experiences rather than trying to wing it or completely fake it.

You are more likely to fail when you try the latter because you will be focusing on your limitations, rather than relying on your existing skills and knowledge, using them logically as building blocks to move forward and figure things out.

Similarly, at work if your boss asks you to perform a task that is completely alien to you, ask for guidance rather than assuming that you will be able to figure it out. The latter will lead to wasting time or worse, failing to complete the task. Most bosses will appreciate that you asked and are willing to guide you.

Lesson Three: Never try too hard

I know we are all taught to try harder but that pertains to genuine effort and not fake effort. This one is connected to the earlier lesson, in that you are better off staying within your limits of comfort, experience and expertise, and stretching those in sensible ways, as opposed to trying to fake your way into solving a problem.

For example, if you know about crypto currency but don’t really understand the underlying blockchain, you are better off staying within the limits of your understanding when discussing it during a presentation or panel discussion. Use your knowledge to answer questions genuinely, and admit what you don’t know, instead of trying to show off how smart you are.

The same holds true when performing on stage. The harder you try to make your audience laugh, the less likely they will. Trying too hard in most situations will backfire because your lack of integrity and authenticity will come through more than anything else. People can smell bullshit a mile away.

Lesson Four: Get over yourself

One of the advantages of being human is that we have high functioning brains, but that is also a curse. We spend a lot of time in our own heads. An experiment conducted in 1997 to study the topic and content of human conversations found that 78% of conversations involved talking about ourselves and our perceptions of the world.

A more recent study from 2018 concluded that the reason human beings spend so much time thinking about themselves is due to an area of our brains that functions as a default button which gets activated when the brain is not engaged in external demands. In other words, the brain’s default is to think about ourselves.

Given that we have not yet discovered an off button (no doubt Elon Musk is working on one) the key to not constantly think about yourself is to remember that nobody else is spending time thinking about you.

The fact is that nobody really cares too deeply about what you said or how you said it, because guess what — they are too busy thinking about themselves!

Lesson Five: Yes and…

In improv there is rule of thumb to “Yes, and…” The idea is that you accept whatever your partner suggests and build and expand on it rather than shut it down. It is a great way to ensure that you are open to ideas and contributions from everyone, and it pushes us to build rather than blow up or start over.

In a business setting this is a great way to ensure that you are receptive to multiple viewpoints, and this behaviour then helps instill diverse thinking into the organisation. It will lead to much healthier debates and discussions, and to richer collaborations. There is tons of evidence showing that diverse teams produce better results than homogeneous teams do.

We can take this idea one step further by incorporating another lesson from improv, about making others look good. If you spend more time thinking about how to build on other people’s ideas versus being focused on pushing our own, you will find that your mind actually becomes more fertile and rich, coming up with far more interesting solutions than when we are singularly focused on our own contributions.

Ultimately, by thinking about what we offer our partner to work off, rather than focusing on ourselves, allows the brain to relax and find that elusive quiet mode that leads naturally to more expansive and interesting ideating.

It also leads to many more laughs from the audience.

In improv, we were also taught to constantly make eye contact with our partners. Doing this helps make the audience disappear, makes us less conscious of our own performance and puts our focus on what we are offering our partners to work from in that scene. It is another great lesson in teamwork. Looking directly at the person in front of you forces your brain to be present in a way we rarely are in our ever distracted world.