Employing Improvisational Role Play to Train the Limbic System to Enhance Emotionally Intelligent Awareness and Behavior (2014)

INTRODUCTION In our work teaching emotional intelligence to MBA students, we make extensive use of 60-year-old T-Group (or training group) format which involves repetitive work sessions, each 8 to 10 minutes long, where participants sit a tight circle and are coached to remain in with their colleagues. The T-Group is one of few approaches that we know of to directly engage and train limbic system to modify in-the-moment responses to interactive stimuli. As we have written elsewhere (Weis & Arnesen, 2007; Weis, Arnesen, & Hanson, 2009; Weis & Hanson, 2008), T-Group is a highly frustrating process on first encounter, as participants resist counter-cultural and often counter-instinctive mandate to address their fellow participants with their clear and authentic truths, while remaining steadfastly present moment. T-Group leader interventions and interruptions often spark anger, resentment, hostility and opt-out by participants who find format more challenging than they are comfortable with. With time available, T-Group participants generally adapt to format and replace their initial resistance with acceptance and even enthusiasm, as they eventually appreciate value of this challenging exercise. However, key variable here is ample an MBA course time is limited and too often gestation period for acceptance and enthusiasm phase comes at end of our course experience. Is there a way to front-end that buy-in and enthusiasm with a methodology that mixes initial frustration and challenge with fun and levity? We believe our initial experimentation with role play and improvisational technique offers promise for such a new and less-threatening approach to T-Group work. IMPROVISATIONAL THEATER: THE BASICS Have you ever attended an improv night or theater sports competition? Were you surprised at how adeptly improvisational actors spontaneously created a coherent, entertaining play, often building merely upon a word or phrase tossed to them from audience? Skillful improvisation teams are keenly connected to the when they are at their finest, and are able to weave spontaneous wit and imagination ways that seem almost pre-scripted. How do they do it? Obviously they develop a vibrant repartee from working closely with each other over time--and they each begin with a flair for spontaneity and imaginative extroversion. But they also adhere to a set of fundamental principles way they react to one another on stage. If you were to take a beginning course on improvisational acting, you would likely be introduced to some variation on following guiding principles at your first meeting: PRINCIPLES OF IMPROVISATION 1. Be Present 2. Listen--Really Listen! 3. Let Go of Personal Agenda 4. Yes, anding.... No butting (or blocking) 5. Make Others Look Golden For an improvisational performance to work, actors must remain riveted on present (Be Present), paying concentrated attention to what is being said, how it is being said, who is saying it, and so on. It is not easy to remain so steadfastly present--you are enviable exception if you spend much of your time there. But improvisational actors must be there, all time, order to react and respond a way that feels integrated and coherent to a critical audience. By listening (Listen--Really Listen!) with every sensory tool actor has (hearing, seeing, feeling, intuiting, etc.), he or she can best understand exactly what other actors are conveying (and that audience is watching and interpreting) and can respond spontaneously and logically to that has just been presented. We use word gift because improvisational actors must accept with gratitude whatever has just been conveyed on stage, and respond appropriately to that special gift, regardless of what one's personal agenda might be. …