Improvising to success

So, you've landed a new position. It's helpful to be able to draw on prior experience when learning the ropes. Using transferable abilities to decrease the time it takes you to learn anything new, whether it's information, an activity, or a relationship experience, may make you a hero on the job. Improvisation is one of the most useful transferrable abilities.

Improvisation is a transferrable talent that allows you to rapidly adjust to whatever comes your way in the present. Improvising on stage is similar to bridging a gap and continuing on. Using real-time information can assist an actor rescue a performance, driving the production and its goal forward.

Improvisation may be useful in the workplace. How many times have you had to deal with technological issues? I learned how to make the best of any circumstance and get through it since I come from the arts. After all, the show must go on! For example, your PowerPoint was on the 'other' thumb drive, and you're rummaging through it furiously.

The smart TV isn't reflecting your presentation, and the Wi-Fi connection is spotty at best. Perhaps a drink spills on your speech just as you're about to address a crowd. When unexpected situations happen, you'll be considerably more likely to rapidly recover and alter course if you can improvise.

Drawing on prior experiences to develop connections that make their work more human and distinctive is another transferrable talent that performers have. When you see an actor perform, you can immediately tell if their performance is one that you can connect to and if they are credible. They put a little of themselves into everything they do, which strengthens their interpretation and capacity to suspend disbelief in the audience.

When you add a piece of yourself to a task, your work bears an obvious mark or signature. This distinguishes you and helps you generate value, which is yet another excellent transferrable talent to have. Who doesn't appreciate a good deal?

Everyone believes that to be an improviser, you must be lightning fast. “You people are so fast,” someone says after every concert. We always smile and accept the compliment, but this isn't the case.

The fact is that we are excellent listeners. And we don't simply listen; we listen actively. You must be present, at the moment, and nonjudgmental in order to be successful. All you have to do now is follow your instincts. And the way to accomplish it is to first listen and then expand on what you've heard.

We've discovered as company leaders and entrepreneurs that being a better listener makes you a better communicator. You've heard everyone, so you can make judgments without missing anything. You're not thinking about what you're going to say next; you're focused on the present moment.

We don't know where we're going in improv; we just know where we've been. As a result, it's critical that we all remember that knowledge since it has an impact on our decisions, just as it does in the economic world.

One of our guiding principles is that there are no such things as bad or wrong ideas and that no one's ideas are better or worse than anybody else's.

When you understand that every concept has worth, you'll be able to be more creative. What we've discovered is that occasionally those low-percentage options turn out to be really innovative ideas that we would never have thought of otherwise because we would have discarded them as incorrect. These suggestions can help you get started.

When you do that in your company, you create a culture where employees know they'll be heard and won't be judged or dismissed.