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The Improvisation Edge: Secrets to Building Trust and Radical Collaboration at Work
All kinds of books have been written about building trust and teamwork. But The Improvisation Edge is the only one that draws on the knowledge of experts in trust theatrical improvisers. Think about other than combat, no situation requires more extreme trust than improv. You have no script, costumes, or set—nothing but your fellow actors. Improvisers must manage risk, collaborate radically, create deep trust, and turn disasters into opportunities—which are also vital business skills.
Karen Hough describes four secrets that help leaders, trainers, managers, and frontline employees adopt the improviser’s mind-set. You’ll learn techniques to create a positive environment, encourage fearless participation, and turn “Oops!” into “Eureka!” The Improvisation Edge offers a hands-on way to build an organizational culture that makes breakthrough business results possible.
Karen Hough describes four secrets that help leaders, trainers, managers, and frontline employees adopt the improviser’s mind-set. You’ll learn techniques to create a positive environment, encourage fearless participation, and turn “Oops!” into “Eureka!” The Improvisation Edge offers a hands-on way to build an organizational culture that makes breakthrough business results possible.
- GenresNonfictionBusiness
165 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2011
4 people are currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
Karen Hough
10 books4 followersKaren Hough is the Founder & CEO of ImprovEdge, and the author of “The Improvisation Edge: Secrets to Building Trust and Radical Collaboration at Work.” Her book was a #1 Bestseller on Amazon and also made the Top 25 Business Books on 800-CEO-READ. ImprovEdge received the silver Stevie International Award for “Most Innovative Company of the Year 2012” for Women in Business. She has been using improvisation as an engaging learning tool for business for over 12 years, is the recipient of the Athena Powerlink Award for outstanding woman-owned business, the author of the Yes! Deck, in addition to articles and blogs. Karen is working on her second book which will be published in 2014, "Be the Best Bad Presenter Ever: Break the Rules, Make Mistakes and Win Them Over."
She speaks nationally on diversity, negotiation, leadership, sales, presentation and women’s issues. She trained with Chicago’s Second City and enjoyed a career in stage and film, performing in over 100 live and filmed productions. Her next life involved working as a successful executive in network engineering for many years, and finally she became an entrepreneur. ImprovEdge has a presence in six cities nationwide and a client list including ESPN, Turner Broadcasting, Coach, OhioHealth, Jones Day and Nationwide Insurance to name a few.
She is a graduate of Yale University and La Sorbonne, Paris IV, and she lives with her husband and three children in Ohio.
She speaks nationally on diversity, negotiation, leadership, sales, presentation and women’s issues. She trained with Chicago’s Second City and enjoyed a career in stage and film, performing in over 100 live and filmed productions. Her next life involved working as a successful executive in network engineering for many years, and finally she became an entrepreneur. ImprovEdge has a presence in six cities nationwide and a client list including ESPN, Turner Broadcasting, Coach, OhioHealth, Jones Day and Nationwide Insurance to name a few.
She is a graduate of Yale University and La Sorbonne, Paris IV, and she lives with her husband and three children in Ohio.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 18, 2011
Building on a combination of appreciative inquiry and improvisation, Karen Hough makes suggestions for how to improve trust and collaboration in a work environment. The analogy of an improvisation troupe was interesting, I thought, and a good perspective for managers trying to get groups to stretch their thinking.
The concept of "Yes, and.." to aid in brainstorming and problem solving was probably the best idea I came away with - the exercise of letting an idea breathe and attempting to build on it before rejecting it. I also laughed at the bunny bunny game, although I am not sure that would work well with every group.
Like most workplace strategies, these require the people in leadership to buy into them, to be consistent with them, and to be able to facilitate their implementation. And let's be honest, sometimes that is the real problem.
The concept of "Yes, and.." to aid in brainstorming and problem solving was probably the best idea I came away with - the exercise of letting an idea breathe and attempting to build on it before rejecting it. I also laughed at the bunny bunny game, although I am not sure that would work well with every group.
Like most workplace strategies, these require the people in leadership to buy into them, to be consistent with them, and to be able to facilitate their implementation. And let's be honest, sometimes that is the real problem.
July 21, 2016
This book examines how skills in improv can improve your ability to build trust and collaborate in creative ways. The main tenants are: accept other’s suggestions, explore and build on those suggestions, everyone contributes, and use mistakes as a platform. She also emphasizes how play is crucial to creativity.
All of these ideas are good, and all are very basic to stage improvisation. “Yes, and” is the first thing you learn in improv classes, and that is the first half of the book. The first half. Unfortunately, even with that amount of space, the author does not really go into the challenges to “Yes, and”. Her focus is on the argument that improv works, rather than improv works, and here is what you have to go through to achieve it.
Part of this is the examples she chose to include. Honestly, I could have used less “my company has big name clients and here are CEOs that go through our workshops”. That was a lot of the book. Unfortunately, these examples are almost exclusively about how enthusiastically said CEOs embrace the concepts in the book. What about when people are resistant to the idea of play in the workplace? If you don’t have active participation in this type of interaction, it just doesn’t work well. Attitude is very important when working with other people, and I felt like that could have been examined more closely.
I am not talking about outside challenges, by the way. That was covered beautifully and was probably the best part of the book. Improvisation is really a very good way to tackle unexpected circumstances and the latter third of the book looks at how to do so.
All in all, this is a decent book and would be worth reading for those of you who have no background in improv at all. If you have some experience, though, you will already be familiar with the ideas and implementations described here.
All of these ideas are good, and all are very basic to stage improvisation. “Yes, and” is the first thing you learn in improv classes, and that is the first half of the book. The first half. Unfortunately, even with that amount of space, the author does not really go into the challenges to “Yes, and”. Her focus is on the argument that improv works, rather than improv works, and here is what you have to go through to achieve it.
Part of this is the examples she chose to include. Honestly, I could have used less “my company has big name clients and here are CEOs that go through our workshops”. That was a lot of the book. Unfortunately, these examples are almost exclusively about how enthusiastically said CEOs embrace the concepts in the book. What about when people are resistant to the idea of play in the workplace? If you don’t have active participation in this type of interaction, it just doesn’t work well. Attitude is very important when working with other people, and I felt like that could have been examined more closely.
I am not talking about outside challenges, by the way. That was covered beautifully and was probably the best part of the book. Improvisation is really a very good way to tackle unexpected circumstances and the latter third of the book looks at how to do so.
All in all, this is a decent book and would be worth reading for those of you who have no background in improv at all. If you have some experience, though, you will already be familiar with the ideas and implementations described here.
July 4, 2017
A good book that relates how improv can help in one's career. It provides some practical advice as to how to be more spontaneous, creative, and brave. I would have rated it higher if it would have been written for a wider audience. I felt like it was written for mid-level office workers.
I still would recommend it to you.
V
I still would recommend it to you.
V
December 11, 2021
For a business book recommended to me at work, it was pretty easy to get through (even if I took my sweet time to read it). The bottom line is, trust is key, and working with what you've got and getting creative with it (whether or not it's a surprise) is the way to go. If more people assumed positive intent at work, there'd be more trust and better outcomes all around. This book wasn't groundbreaking, but it was fascinating to see another example of someone taking art (improv) and using the skills learned from that discipline to improve a completely unrelated facet of their life - their 9-5 job.
November 18, 2013
Just the right tone to introduce the improv mindset to folks using it for a serious purpose. Karen Hough introduces the core concepts of applied improv with examples of both real-life case studies and a few sample exercises to make it real. It's an easy read at only 150 pages, but it's full of powerful soundbites to stealthily introduce the concepts to the workplace in order to make good practice part of the daily vernacular and practice.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews