Effective communication plays an important role in everything we do, helping us to form relationships, complete everyday tasks, and achieve our personal and professional goals. It is also at the heart of planning, marketing, and executing successful events. Being able to communicate effectively with your teammates, vendors, and partners can help you find better solutions to common problems and make planning your event less stressful and more enjoyable.
For this week’s blog we got together with our friends from Laugh Boston and their sister company, Improv Asylum, to bring you three fun (yet very effective) practical exercises that you can try with your team to increase the quality and effectiveness of communication skills, teamwork, and creative thinking. These exercises are part of the innovative corporate training offered by Improv Asylum.
The exercises focus on how to listen and respond to others instantaneously to create more effective one-on-one communication. The skills can also be applied to teamwork and driving to bigger, better ideas and solutions. They can also be incorporated as an approach to dealing with conflict, selling ideas and improving leadership.
Warm-up Exercise: Logical Word Toss
This exercise will help everyone warm up and begin thinking differently. The exercise stresses listening and responding in the moment, passing focus, and working off of other’s ideas. It also focuses participants on being present, in the moment, confident and engaged.
Exercise One: Electric Company
This technique teaches us to listen and work off of someone else to create a new idea and working with someone else’s idea rather than forcing our own idea through. This demonstrates that a better interaction or idea can occur by listening to a co-worker/client and then building off of that.
Exercise Two: Story in One Word
This exercise focuses on listening and building within a group setting. Participants will notice what happens when they stop listening or try to force their own ideas in without a natural fit/flow. It also explores creating ideas and decisions in a realm of constant change.
>>Download a PDF with instructions and more information about each exercise here.
Improv Asylum’s corporate training program, delivered by its training division, IA Innovation, is a fully customizable training experience than can be tailored to your organization’s specific needs and problem areas. IA Innovation has delivered impactful, engaging and interactive program all over the world and for most of the globe’s largest organizations. The training uses improv comedy techniques to inspire your team to work together, flex their creative muscles, and produce more innovative ideas… all while sharing a few laughs in the process.
Improv Asylum is also available to hire for a personalized improv show as part of your off-site event in Boston. The show features 4-6 actors, a musician, and a technician. You fill out a custom corporate show questionnaire that asks for insider information about your organization, industry, and the people that will be in the audience. Improv Asylum’s actors then study that information and subtly incorporate it into the show. They’ll also bring volunteers up on stage, ask the audience for suggestions for their scenes, and interview someone you select and then reenact their story on stage.
In addition, Laugh Boston has private event space just steps away from the BCEC inside the Westin Boston Waterfront:
• 5,000 square feet with venue capacity of 400 (main showroom, bar room, green room suite, and shower)
• Staff to help with your event – servers, box office, bartenders, runners, security and management
• Full-service bar
• Seating for 300 attendees
• Built-in registration kiosk for your check-in needs
• Pipe and drape if needed
• Laugh Boston Audio and Visual Equipment package with an A/V technician including: body microphones or hand-held microphone; stage and podium; 13 flat screen TVs for branding, logo and images; 8-feet tall projector screen
• Option for a private stand-up show with national or local headlining stand-up comedians
>>Download Laugh Boston’s fact sheet for more information.
And if you’re looking for a more casual [group] activity before, after, or during your event, Laugh Boston has live comedy shows almost every day of the week and offers group rates on tickets for parties of 20 or more, with the option to rent out the bar and lounge before any of their existing shows.
To learn more about IA Innovation and Improv Asylum, contact Bob Melley at bob@iainnovation.com and 508.726.1968/212-203-5435 or visit:
iainnovation.com
improvasylum.com
laughboston.com
Leave a lasting impression on your attendees by hosting your private event in a unique Boston space. From within the BCEC and Hynes or The Lawn On D, to a ballgame in historic Fenway Park, Boston’s many cultural venues are sure to add a spark to your event! Learn more about our Special Event Venues or explore our Interactive Map to help you find the off-site venues and restaurants best suited for your group.
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