Introduction
When you think about presenting without planning ahead of time, how do you feel? Nervous, excited, anxious, stressed, happy? Take a moment to think about the following situations:
• You’re asked to give a five-minute update on a project you know nothing about at the weekly staff meeting.
• You’re asked one challenging question during an interview for a job you’re really excited about, and you’re thrown completely for a loop because you were not expecting it at all. And this isn’t a survival job, this is something that would turn into a career and make moves for you. And now you might not get it, all because of that one question and your deer-in-the-headlights look.
• You’re headed to a networking event, one that matters, not a company cocktail hour. You’re looking for people to collaborate with and who can help advance your career. You walk in, and in that moment you freeze. What do you say to them now that they are here and oh God, are you staring? Yes, you’re staring. Quick, look down at your shoes!
Do these situations sound familiar? Impromptu speaking in professional situations is tough business. How many times have you thought, “I wish I would have . . .” after a moment you were caught off-guard? Have you ever “prepared” for a situation, overthought every single moment that could possibly happen, only to be shocked when something you didn’t actually plan for happens? Cue stress, anxiety, and the would-haves.
Preparing for the unexpected is one of the best ways to handle the unexpected: “I don’t know what’s going to happen in my meeting later today. I have an idea, and I’ve prepped items I’m interested in talking about, but things could go in a completely different direction than I expected.” And that’s OK! The key to that is learning how to prepare for the things you can’t prepare for.
Sounds weird, right? Prepare for what you can’t prepare for? Get ready to think on your feet! Take a class in the flexible!
Improv is the way to prepare for the unexpected. I’m not talking about the one person on stage telling jokes to an apathetic and potentially drunk audience. I’m talking about the team sport of improvisation, specifically improv comedy. Before you chuck the book across the room, consider this: improv is a heightened reality. You take things that happen in real life, and you practice your reactions and responses—while keeping in mind the rules of improv you’ve learned along the way. Then you take those improv rules and apply them to what’s happening in your here and now.
Improv at its core is listening and responding to the world and the situation around you. Every action has a reaction, right? You’re learning how to pay attention to what’s going on around you, process that information, and respond to it. You’re not flying by the seat of your pants, but with enough practice, it may look like you’re doing exactly this while still giving off the impression that you know what you’re talking about.
Improv has a long history, much of which isn’t important to you or to me, honestly. If you are interested in the nitty-gritty backstory of improv, head down the rabbit holes of commedia dell’arte, Konstantin Stanislavski and Jacques Copeau. Modern improv is thanks to people like John Dewey, Dudley Riggs, Viola Spolin, and Keith Johnstone. Start with those great search terms; I’ve also included more resources at the end of the book for your interest.
For our intents and purposes, we need to remember that improv has rules, and improv is about listening and responding. The rules are vague yet open enough to build a place for success. You’re probably not planning to go on a traditional stage anytime soon, so you don’t need to worry about being funny. I repeat: please don’t worry about being funny. Improv is not about being funny, or witty, or telling jokes, or doing schtick or anything else. It’s about being real.
In improv, you create a reality and live in that reality. All of those scenes you might have seen on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” are all moments of reality created by the performers. While they perform, they are living in that reality. They also are not flying by the seat of their pants. They are following the rules of improv and listening to one another, collaborating on the creation of that reality. See how it might help in those impromptu moments of speaking that you didn’t necessarily plan for?
In 2012, I started what I thought would be a side hustle. I was a museum educator, and I realized that my other educators and coworkers were not as flexible as I was. They couldn’t think on their feet when students or adults asked questions they weren’t expecting. They often got rattled when plans changed, and they got stuck overthinking things. This isn’t to say I didn’t get stuck in my head, rattled, or caught off-guard. I simply knew how to recover from it.
At that point, I had been doing improv comedy for years. I also noticed several industries were adapting improv for their day-to-day work. Therapists were using it in sessions with clients, teachers were using it in their classrooms, and sales and marketing professionals were using it to practice for their pitches. So I started The Engaging Educator (EE), with the intention of focusing on improv for educators and museum professionals—I would continue being an educator, and that would be life.
This was true for a few months. Then surprise! Professionals across all industries wanted to learn to use improv “off the stage” and take classes with other professionals, and not with actors or people who wanted to perform.
Since 2012, we’ve grown and taken our brand of improv-based education and thinking to over 40,000 people in six years. We do not work with actors or people who want to be actors. Our focus is to do exactly why you bought this book: help you think on your feet in professional situations.
Like all good continuing education, you’ll have to take some time in real life, when you’re not reading this book, to reflect on things you’ve read. This book contains activities, ideas, schools of thought, research, and examples, but it’s ultimately up to you to remember everything you learn from these pages and apply them to real life. This book isn’t a cure-all—you won’t rock through it and know all of the answers. Improv is something that needs to be practiced and worked on. It’s not something you can study, memorize, and be amazing at. As with all continuing education, you have to continually educate yourself about improv.
A few how-to-use this book points:
• Improv is all about show, don’t tell. You can commit all of this to memory, memorize the ideas and rules, know this book word for word, but that won’t improve your communication skills. You’ve only memorized a book. Take the things you learn here and apply them to your real life. Whether you’re an “I need things spelled out for me from the beginning” type or someone who is looking for simple ways to adjust what you’re currently doing, improv can offer you something. Remember: Don’t just talk about doing it. Do it.
• Be intentional. Part of improv is making choices. Not doing something is also a choice, so remember that. The critical part of all of it is knowing that you’re making a choice to do something. That intention—the decision around a choice, response, and action—is what makes improv work. You need to be conscious of that intention. More on this throughout the specific chapters.
• Reflect. If you want to make a change, you have to start with looking at yourself. Improv won’t necessarily change the world. You might, however, change your work environment or work life with improv. The only way to see that change and actually make it happen is to intentionally reflect on what’s happening in the situations at work and in your work life, and consider a change. There are many moments for reflection in the book—like right now. Check in with yourself and see what you’re looking to work on when communicating. Are you thinking about your current job or a job you want to get? Improvement happens when you’re thinking about a specific goal, after you’ve clearly defined what success means to you. If you don’t know what you’re working toward—you will 100 percent always be disappointed. So take a moment and look at yourself: What are you looking to work on? Throughout the entire journey, think about what’s happening, what’s changing, and what you want to work on.
• Glows and grows. While you’re reflecting, you’ll discover amazing new ideas. One tiny thing can change so much so quickly! That will be a glow. Glows are also things you do really well. Maybe you are already really great at identifying what you want or keeping a conversation on track. That’s great! That’s a glow. How about something you need to work on? Maybe you’re not the best at flexibility and you really like to take control of the conversation. That would be a grow. It’s not a failure. It’s something you need to work on. I have to give credit here where it’s due. The glows-and-grows idea comes from one of our amazing facilitators, Jill Frutkin. I’ve since co-opted it in all of my workshops and talks. You can use it, too, it’s now all yours.
• Try this and this helps . . . . You’ll notice sections called Try This and immediately following, This Helps. Try This contains activities you should do. For some activities, you might need a friend, but you can do most by yourself. Do these activities! Improv has to be practiced and you’re not going to learn how to adapt it properly simply by reading about it. After you’ve read through the activity, This Helps explains the point of the activity.
I advise you to read through every section, because even if you think a chapter is not relevant to you right now, it may be useful to you in the future. Or you can adapt it for a current situation. For example, even if you aren’t interviewing for a job right now, you might be in the near or distant future. You can adapt this section for a podcast interview or an interview for your company newsletter. You also might read something in the interviewing chapter that helps you with your meeting skills. Improv for professional communication is a funny beast. I could apply just about everything to everything, so throughout the text, I’ve connected some dots between different ideas and situations. And in other places, I simply had to make a choice about what applied the “best.” As you’re working your way through, reflecting and actively thinking about the application, as well as your grows and glows, think about where else you can apply each specific tool, besides the situation given in the book.
One reason improv works so well for professional communication is because you’re planning for flexibility. Think about it like this: If you have a plan with only one path but you have to be flexible, you’re going to struggle. If you have a plan that has a few other possible plans built in, you’ll be able to flex when necessary. You’re basically stocking up on plans and ideas so when the moment comes where you need to be flexible, you can because you’ve thought about it.
You’re planning for the unexpected. Improv helps you build your “flexibility muscle.” So when you ask for a raise, you can do it in the best, most prepared way. You can be ready for anything. Again, improv isn’t about flying by the seat of your pants and being spontaneous with all of your choices and decisions. It is about being ready for those moments when your boss says no to your request for a raise, when your coworker is upset with you, when you’re trying to meet people at a networking event, and when you have to stand up for yourself.
A few more notes then we’ll dive right in. I’ve given a lot of examples in this book. These examples ground some information in reality. Learning improv from a book is a little like learning how to dance from a book. You’re reading about an active skill. It’s a little weird. Sometimes, the examples are the best-case scenarios so you can see how something works when it works. It’s often the gold standard. Although I’ve prefaced many examples with “this is the best outcome,” I want to make an overarching statement: the examples are here for you to see one way to make something happen in real life. You can take it, improv with it, and make it your own. Really, you should take all of this and make it your own. If it doesn’t work, reflect and see what happened. Move along, try again, and make it happen.
Throughout the book, I frequently say in the moment versus at the moment: this is an important distinction in improv. You are actively part of the moment at hand. You are not a spectator. You are in it, you are part of it, and you are affecting it simply by being there. Your audience is too—no one is just passive at something. Everyone is in it.
Finally, and most important, this book isn’t a cure-all. Yes, you will be better, faster, and stronger after this book, if you follow some of the ideas in it, but improvement is relative. If you’re currently terrified of public speaking and talking in meetings, and you think after reading this book you’re going to be ready to give a viral TED Talk without throwing up, I’m really sorry, you’re going to be disappointed. Will you feel a bit better about speaking up in the next meeting in a way that’s thoughtful and relevant? Absolutely.
Before every single class, with every single student, we ask: Who are you? Why are you here? What are your expectations for this class? Sometimes, they have no expectations; they are taking the class because they thought it might be fun. Sometimes, they want to be an amazing communicator after the class, sometimes they have something specific like a raise or promotion they are shooting for, and sometimes someone else signed them up for the class.
No matter what your expectations are with this book, take a moment, check in, and write them down. Don’t just think about them in your head; really dig in and think what you want out of this. Write it down somewhere, whether that’s in your phone, in your journal, in an email to yourself, in a document on your computer. Think about what you want and then dive in. This book is meant to make you better, faster, and stronger. It won’t do anything unless you know what you want to work on.
Got your ideas and expectations down?
Let’s go.