The Best Improv Classes In Newark

A remote team working for a major Bank was meeting in Newark, NJ for a few days of in-person meetings and I was brought in to provide a 2-hour long improv-based team building workshop. The senior executive who hired me thought it would be funny to surprise his colleagues wit the improv workshop. I'm not sure why but the idea of treating an improv comedy workshop as if it's a type of prank is popular among the professional class that organizes these sorts of events.

Having worked in the space now for over fifteen years, I can tell you that it's a bad idea. People participating in an improv comedy workshop at work often feel like they're being put on the spot and while it's good to challenge employees with new experiences it's bad to overwhelm them. You can take it from me when I say most people in an improv based workshop at work are going to feel challenged and will learn from the experience because of this challenge. You don't need to put extra weight or extra surprise into the experience.

I shared these thoughts with my client, but he batted them away as unimportant. He knew his team after all, and I did not. He felt he knew better than I what would be accepted as appropriate by his colleagues.

I was still concerned so I decided to take an additional step. I built a little reference list of my past clients who had felt similarly about presenting an improv workshop as a prank. Because I always work to maintain good relations with past clients i knew they would be okay with a call or email asking for a reference.

But this list would only provide once very special type of reference.

I gave the list to my client and asked him to reach out. Ask them how their pranks went when we worked together.

Three days later my client called. We would skip the prank, my past clients had convinced him.