In 1994, Bobkulhan was in his early 20s and was on the way to a major advertising agency marketing executive. The economic stability of his flowering career reassured his parents.
That year, he began to take an improvised comedy class at the second city, a famous comedy education institution based in Chicago. So Kluhan learned from Star, such as Tina Fay, Amy Polar, and Dell Close.
“Improvisation is what I should do in my life,” he said after taking a class for a year. At the age of 24, he quit an easy job to pursue an improvised comedy career.
To make up for the little income obtained in the comedy, he found a job to carry a seat lock, replenished as a substitute teacher, and worked as a bartender in the Ligley field. He also found a job dressed as Mr. Monopoly to advertise a local casino.
However, these chores were not enough to make a living, and by the end of the 1990s, Kuruhan could not cover the $ 800 mortgage a month.
Then he discovered a more profitable side of the comedy that was growing rapidly in Chicago. It is a company improvisation that teaches an improvisation technique at work to help the employer develop so -called soft skills such as employees' effective communication. After all, many companies were eager to pay hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars to hold a team building workshop.
Corporate improvisation is a derivative of applied improvisation and is an area that explores improvised advantages outside the theater. Studies can improve their improvements, trust, trust, creativity, hearing, co -emotional power, and ability to deal with uncertainty.
“30 years ago, we realized that people were not taking classes because they wanted to be the next star of Saturday Night Live.'' However, they wanted to use improvisation skills at work, “said Tyler Deankemp, a creative director of Second City Works.
As an example, Kemp, a 44 -year -old, said that the team has been working with the national hockey league new players to prepare for unexpected questions during the press conference.
In 1999, Kluhan found an opportunity to become a corporate improvisation leader. Professors who are on the Sabbatical vacation at the Duke University Furua School of Business take an improvisation class in Chicago. When they left the classroom, Kluhan spoke on a conversation about Duke and used the opportunity to sell the first academic improvisation program for business students.
The professor liked his proposal, and introduced him to Douglas Brieden, the director of the University of Duke University's Business School, and the program began in 2000. After the early success of the program, Kullhan established Business IMPROV in 2001 and provided direct services. Employer.
Colonel Navy, who was trained by Kullhan at the University of Duke, became the first customer of Business IMPROV. His goal was to stimulate creativity and energy before the two -day strategic plan session.
Captain Kuruhan said he praised the program's influence in the planning session. He told Kuruhan that the team usually had seven or eight ideas for base improvements, one of which could be executed. After the improvisation workshop, the group created 52 recommendations, of which 12 were approved on the spot.
Few people can make a living with comedy alone in improvisation comedians, but today's improvisation careers are enabled. If you launch your own company, like Mr. Kuruhan, you may make more money. The team building session costs $ 500 to $ 3,000 per time. These sessions are often compared with escape games, bowling and team dinner. Long -term initiatives to support executives improving skills can be a 5 -digit price, and in many cases, we compete with conventional sales training and leadership training. Lectures with large -scale events and experienced improved experts can be started for $ 10,000.
The earning wage of improvised facilitators, which operates the session, is different. Part -time trainers can earn $ 60 per hour, but in many cases they need other income sources, such as teaching comedy classes. The number of full -time salary jobs is limited.
Currently, corporate in -programers nationwide provide a wide range of companies with virtual and face -to -face sessions aimed at improving soft skills. Johnny Miks, a senior academic director of Los Angeles Uplite Citizds Brigade, reminded me of being hired by a pastor group.
“They were as stupid as other customers,” said Miks, 53. “One of the pastors has changed the way of preaching as a result of the workshop. She wrote a notable note of her so much concentration and made sermons a more conversable.”
Miks said he had worked with glasses salespeople and major fashion design companies. “The improvised application range is wide,” he said.
Mr. Kemp also agreed with this and added that his customer list was long and widespread. “Second City Works has been working with more than half of Fortune. “1000 companies,” he said.
John Wind Muller had previously taught and solved conflicts at George Mason University and Baltimore University. In 2005, he challenged an improvisation in search of a community and laughter. Dr. Wind Müller said in the first year of the class, he realized that it would improvise his dispute solution.
Dr. Wind Müller brought his insights back to the classroom and let graduate students participate in improvisation. He played an improvised game called “switch”. In this game, each person plays the character, but when the word “switch” is shouted, it switches to play the character of the scene partner, imitating the manners and intentions of the partner. He discovered that this practice has improved empathy and pointed out that improvisation is a powerful educational tool.
Like Kuruhan, Dr. Wind Muller also captured a company's improvisation bug. In 2014, he left the academic world and led a program called Wit@Work in the Washington Impro Theater, which provides improvisation -based corporate training to governments, companies, and non -profit organizations.
Dr. Wind Müller has a variety of customers, but emphasized the usefulness of improvisation in dispute resolution. This is an appropriate focus for the theater -based theaters in the Colombia ward. He said he had trained improvised techniques in the FBI crisis negotiations. For difficult situations that people do not want to cooperate, the FBI uses aggressive listening and tactical sympathy. This is a skill enhanced by improvisation.
According to Dr. Wind Muller, in exercises known as “the first word, the last word”, FBI investigators create a story, start each sentence with the last sentence in the previous sentence, and share each other. He said he was forced to hear words.
“We often fall into the habit of listening to answering, not to understand,” he said.
One of the challenges for corporate improvisations is that employees are often nervous about trying to perform improvisation in front of their colleagues. Miks said that one employee had said, “If you have an improvised workshop, it is better to have explosive diarrhea.”
Karen Gray, the highest management officer of A & E Networks in New York, participated in an internal training sponsored by Business IMPROV. “I had a performance experience, but I was afraid of this session because I was a notorious actress.”
During the session with Kluhan, Gray had executives practiced robots.
“It was terrible, but in just a few hours, we didn't have to worry about built up the trust so that we could freely flow ideas, and we didn't have to worry about playing the robot pitch as an adult,” said Gray. Ta. “In this session, we showed how to demonstrate creativity.”
Erin Deal, the founder and highest executive of the Improve It in Charleston, South Carolina, has come to a corporate improvisation world after a successful career in the HR department.
According to Deal (41 years old), during the workshop, it reminds me that people wearing chickens -shaped hats to attract people's attention, taking risks and being unpleasant.
Alturo Colominas Tortolello, a manager of global culture and diversity in Bimbo, Mexico City, reminded me of the training in which senior executives were shouting at each other and laughing with the “Tyrannosaurus arm”.
“This has made everyone feel better and have a meaningful long -term relationship,” said Tort Trello, 36.