Unforeseen challenges are never new in business. There always have been and will always be issues that could not be anticipated, no matter how much time and effort went into planning.
What is new, however, is the speed at which professionals are being forced to overcome those problems. A global pandemic that brought the world to its knees was just one element that sped up the VUCA world we now find ourselves in. Standing for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity— VUCA is a state of constant change brought on by global instability, a radical shift to hybrid work models, and increasing social pressure. It’s not merely a trend but the new normal.
According to Angus Fletcher, Thomas L. Gaines, and Brittany Loney writing in the Harvard Business Review, “These are the four challenges of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. They’re the reality of business today. But they’re not new. They’re intrinsic to markets, sales, manufacturing — and life in general. So why do some organizations respond better? How do they succeed when others struggle or even surrender?
Adding fuel to the fire is that traditional methods for dealing with professional challenges are not equipped for our modern business climate. Amid unprecedented uncertainty and unpredictability, professionals have only one solution: throw out the script and expect the unexpected. To do so requires the ability to improvise.
What Is Applied Improvisation?
In my academic research, I’ve looked at many different types of teams, at a wide variety of organizations all over the world,” explains Francesca Gino, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. “The group that communicated best, with everyone contributing and learning, wasn’t in a corporate office park; it was in an improv comedy class (Gino, 2019).
Looking to improvisational theatre to solve business problems is not as radical as it may appear. After all, the role of a professional improv performer is to actively listen and successfully collaborate in any environment. Unsurprisingly, Google, Meta, McKinsey, and Kearney have all been exploring it, and leading universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Columbia, and Michigan are researching and teaching the methods. The crucial distinction is that leading organizations utilize Applied Improvisation, not theatrical improvisation.
Applied Improvisation, or AIM, is a training and facilitation approach that uses improvisational principles and applies them in other contexts. These nine principles—agreement, awareness, connections, creation, initiations, presence, simplicity, value, and vulnerability—form a framework for professional staff to rethink their behaviors to improve management competencies.
For HR executives and business partners, this means developing professional staff’s capacity to adapt to the unknown and become better communicators, collaborators, and innovators. AIM drops the humorous nature of improv in favor of focusing exclusively on improving professional capabilities and enhancing organizational performance. And since its lessons can be adapted to solve myriad modern problems, it can be used across the IT, life sciences, manufacturing, higher education, and financial services industries, among many others.
How It Works
Specialized programs led by proficient facilitators are essential to reaping the full benefits of AIM. Organizations typically gather their professional staff in the office, during an off-site gathering, or at a strategic retreat for an AIM program tailored to specific organizational needs. During this program, participants learn specific types of thinking and behaviors that can be implemented even by those new to improvisation. Each in-person workshop lasts a few hours, though since it is a learning tactic, reinforcement through an ongoing program is critical for comprehension and retention.
Though its goals may differ, every professionally delivered AIM program adheres to a specific structure consisting of introductions, activities, and debriefs. A facilitator will begin by creating a psychologically safe, judgment-free space to diminish anxiety and where effective learning can occur. Subsequently, the program’s focus and learning objectives are clearly delineated and discussed. Participants then engage in a series of carefully selected exercises and activities, each designed to involve the participants together, reveal strengths and weaknesses, and highlight and boost a specific professional competency.
AIM’s value as an educational tool lies in the crucial interactive debriefs that follow each activity. The facilitator asks participants about their specific choices, forcing them to reflect on why they said what they did, how the interaction made them feel, and how the lesson can be applied to their daily business functions.
Using AIM To Address VUCA
Just as an improv comedy troupe learns to leverage the nine principles of improvisation to produce a highly regarded team-based performance with no script, no initial characters, no location, no costumes, or props–and in a constantly changing environment of ambiguity and uncertainty–a business team having learned and applied the same fundamental principles can produce better business results in a challenging VUCA situation.
Leveraging AIM principles results in a higher-performing team. An AIM program centered on improving team function will explore the importance of attaining group synergy, building mutual trust, and managing conflict. As participants work together on the activities, they are challenged to think on their feet and take decisive action even when it’s uncomfortable. Importantly, they also learn how to assess all available resources to find creative and innovative solutions in the face of uncertainty.
“Improvising has ingrained in me the ability to say “yes,” acknowledge the reality of a situation, “and” then do whatever it is I need to do because of it,” says Mary Lemmer, founder of Improve. “Just like there’s no denying in improv, I’ve adopted not denying the reality of my life. This equips me to be a more creative problem solver and adapt to changing circumstances.”
Conclusion
Since the days of relying on comprehensive strategic planning to solve business problems are long gone, the only practical path forward is to expect the unexpected. But as AIM’s nine principles show, being aware of a challenge, though necessary, is only one aspect of many needed to overcome it. In helping professional staff become better improvisers, an AIM program teaches methods for using existing knowledge to respond quickly and in the moment and better find an appropriate solution. Inevitable as change might be, confidently improvising ways to adapt might just be the 21st century’s most coveted skill.
References:
- How to Be a Better Leader Amid Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity; Angus Fletcher, Thomas L. Gaines, and Brittany Loney; Harvard Business Review; September 28, 2023.
- Using Improv to Unite Your Team, Francesca Gino, Harvard Business Review; May 16, 2019.
