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Helping companies be sharp & agile

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What is Applied Improvisation

Right now in the world’s top organisations, the tools of improvisation are helping individuals and teams to deal with change and complexity. By increasing people’s capacity to be spontaneous and work together generously, these tools enable leaders to be more effective in terms of presence, agility and communication skills, often in difficult situations.

Applied Improvisation is the non-theatrically use of improvisation skills. AI is being taught in blue-chip companies and in more than half of the top business schools around the world.

The fact is, people and teams in organisations improvise the whole time – but they don’t always realise that’s what they’re doing. Applied Improvisation offers a framework and vocabulary to discuss those facets of how you work so that you can engage in improvisation with more courage and energy – resulting in faster development and better performance.

Through participating in improv exercises and games, participants develop vital professional skills. It is a part of the growing international wave of nontraditional, arts-based educational programs being used to help people become better at—and happier with—what they do.

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How it works

Improvisation works as interactive workshops where participants are involved in exercises and contexts which challenges them to practice and to develop different attitudes and skills depending on the objectives set.

It is recommended that the improvisation workshops consist of recurring sessions for 8-16 participants lasting 2-4 hours each. Learning and changing a habit takes time and perseverance.The duration and number of participants, however, are flexible.

The exercises and the debriefing discussions are geared towards the development objective set so that participants can be aware of the good things and of the ones that need improvement, and to correlate them with their activities outside the classroom in order to be able to apply them in real contexts. 

TAILORED SESSIONS

FOCUS ON PRACTICE,

CHALLENGE& FUN

SPACE FOR DEBRIEF &

REFLECTION

Competencies that AI can address

By practicing improvisational activities, participants can develop the lateral thinking and creativeness necessary for effective communication within groups and among team members, as well. The following descriptions cover some of the related delivery skills found in a variety of the improvisational structures.

ACCEPTING The capacity to immediately empathize with the existing situation, regardless of preconceived notions. This enables a presenter to recognize diversity and tolerate adverseopinions.

ACTIVE LISTENING

the level of attentiveness to audible content and patterns of speech. A goodlistener hears the sound of silence between spoken phrases in order to grasp the pace of a person’s voice. This avoids interrupting, overlapping, or cutting off the dialogue

ADAPTING the capacity to acclimate to a particular situation, although not necessarily accepting the circumstances. This aids a presenter during those times where a sense of logic and common sense appear to be lacking.

CLARITY the flair for simplifying an issue without overstating or underestimating relative importance.

COOPERATION the quality of effort that always adds value toward a common goal.

CREATING ANALOGIES

the ability to find similar, real-world applications of defined parameters for a given issue.

FEEDBACK The ability to give and receive suggestions for improvement in a constructive manner.

FOCUSING the aptitude for finding the center of attention at any given moment of asituation, being in the moment. The lack of this skill causes participants to drift off-topic and get sidetracked.

NON-VERBAL the aptitude to read non-verbal cues and to express

ROLE REVERSAL taking on opposing character traits in order to understand a situation. Participants who can play “devils advocate” (opposing their own concepts or ideas) can develop stronger arguments to support a line of logic.

The inside of a session

Sample exercise: Counting to 30 / One word storyThe group must count to 30, everybody saying one number at a time, from 1 to thirty, in no particular order. They are not allowed to talk and when two persons say the same number at the same time they have to start over. The exercise practices active listening and collaboration.

Another similar exercise it to have the participants build a story using one word at a time per person. The story has to make sense - in the first attempts the participants tend to be each in a different story. Through improv practice they can manage to discover the rules of making this exercise to work.

Take outs:• helps participants to feel more confident working

together - team bonding• good practice of “listening skills” (direct - when

receiving feedback, indirect - because you need them to reach the objective of the exercise)

• helps them practice feedback in a more natural environment (the focus is on another objective not on the feedback itself so it makes them incorporate it as a habit)

• It’s fun and the team relaxes, this stimulates the brain to learn easier

• usually inside jokes are born during these exercises so it adds to the organisational culture

Companies that improvised with us

Testimonials

One of the most beautiful experiences that I have been through, from which I learned a lot of things about myself and other people. The improvisation workshop was for me an excellent opportunity to open, develop and especially to change and restructure my own life experience.

(Mihaela Joian, Recruitment Manager InnerLook)

(...) to be frank I could see the outcomes very quickly in myself. My main goal was to be more spontaneous and decrease my stress while speaking in public, and I have achieved this in only 16 hours/ 8 classes of improvisation. It is unbelievable, but true! And besides the real benefits that improvisation could bring to your life, both personal as well as professional, it is fun, it energises and brings out the child in you, lets you play, test, try and learn, learn the way we started out when we were kids, which I believe is the most useful and lasting way of learning. Would I encourage people to attend classes, or workshops, or events of Improvizatie.ro? From all my heart yes!

(Carmen Agapi, AVP, EU Project Delivery Leader in GENPACT)

It is a pleasure for me to recommend Corina and Bogdan and I am glad to do this. I worked with them in 2 projects, L&D and CSR dedicated ones and both were successful and much appreciated by both employees and management. What makes the difference in the way Corina and Bogdan work is their involvement in the whole L&D process and interest to understand the client's needs in order to build the best solution. A plus is also the training method that both of them master in a professional way.

(Ioana Jenssen, HR Manager, COMPUTARIS)

The workshop improved my well-being, my vision about the world, my appreciation for little details. It made me think differently and to relate differently with people around me. It is amazing how you can get to know some people without having essential data about them – but to be able to know a part of them, hidden, that maybe not even they knew they had it. (Bogdan, IT Specialist)

“I had the pleasure to work with the team from business improvisation (Bogdan Grigore and Corina Anghel) during the series of workshops delivered to our Oracle Premier Support Sales team.The program was well received by the participants who appreciated the novelty of the concept, the interaction with the trainers and their other colleagues, the innovative way to look at and put into practice concepts like self-knowledge, emotional intelligence, communication and collaboration and problem solving and solution finding for complex business situations.

(Carmen Serbanoiu, EMEA Sales Effectiveness Leader, ORACLE)

Visual Testimonials

The team

BOGDAN  Grigore  bogdan@improvizatie.ro  +40  756  199  250  www.bogdangrigore.ro

CORINA  Anghel  corina@improvizatie.ro  

+40  727  814  607  www.corinaanghel.ro

Corina has experience in HR, in recruitment and management consultancy. She was involved in learning & development programs for companies such: ERRICSSON, ORANGE, BCR, PETROM etc. She is involved in building an Alternative University (student centered, first of its kind) with CROS, developing the Autonomy in learning program (the objective is to teach students how to learn, be responsible and own their learning process), having experience in Self Directed Learning.

She gained experience as a Training Manager in GOTHAER and now AVON Cosmetics. She delivered workshops on well-being, communication, creativity etc.She finished both Management Faculty and Psychology.

She can deliver programs on self directed learning, creativity, change management, feedback etc.

Bogdan is an experienced trainer, delivering qualitative trainings for over 8 years. Now he is also Apple Sales Academy Trainer, delivering sales and soft skills trainings for Apple in Romania.He’s also a senior consultant, working for different consultancy companies on development programs for individuals, teams and organisations.Previously he worked as internal trainer for BOOM TV and PEPSI. He was involved in BiblioNet (a project of IREX – the foundation that managed the $27mil donation of Bill Gates for Romania). He has some experience in recruitment, earned while working as a consultant for Lugera.

Bogdan can also deliver programs on persuasion, sales, charisma, public speaking, NLP etc.

Long story, short.

Improvisation is a multidisciplinary method, playful, which applied successfully in business helps people and companies to keep up with the world, teaching them to be flexible, more creative and to better work together.

We identify in a meeting the development objectives and after that the working structure, the duration and the frequency of the improv sessions.

We held sessions using appropriate exercises, we analyse in the debriefing session, we launch challenges between the sessions and we recalibrate according to the group’s evolution.

If the case, we organize follow-up through discussions or forms and we propose future actions. Team takes off to

new achievements!

corina@improvizatie.ro + 40 727 814 607