The Best Improv Classes In Wilmington, NC

Since 2016 I've been steadily migrating South, moving from NYC to Baltimore, then DC, and finally landing in Virginia Beach. North Carolina is definitely a target for me in large part because of how beautiful and well planned out I think the greater Wilmington, NC area is, which I know well from my trips to the area to work with local companies.

Just recently I had an interesting conversation with a client about an upcoming workshop in Wilmington. She asked me to use improv to help her team feel comfortable saying No by using Yes. That surprised me because the request is diametrically opposed to what improv teaches and what most people think about when they consider bringing improv into their work environment.

At this point, most people are familiar with the main improv axiom, Yes And... So improv is all about saying yes, right?

Well, in a word, Yes it is. But my client had good reasons for her request. Her team was being pushed around at work and the bottom line was being hurt as a result.

First of all, improv teaches us to be supportive and say yes to other people's ideas, but it also teaches us to make our teammates look like geniuses. If someone suggests an absolutely terrible idea, improv teaches us to resist it.

But what if the idea isn't absolutely terrible, such as, "Let's burn down the factory." What if the idea in front of you is just confusing or seems sub optimal in some way?

In such instances improv teachers us how to accept the idea and then build on top of it until it is useful. I'll give an example.

I once led a very successful sales team for an improv theater in NYC. After years of double digit revenue growth my company hired a new comptroller. He was from a different industry and often felt confused by many of our larger contracts.

Once contract in particular worried him. Verizon was paying us over $75,000 annually for a series of improv based training sessions. How could we know they would honor the commitment when many of the events were months away, he wondered.

Consequently he requested multiple confirmations of the business and my sales rep was worried the client would grow irritated. It was a pickle because I wanted to support the new comptroller but I also understood my sales rep's concerns.

All three of us sat down and discussed how to proceed. We said yes to our comptroller's request, that we consistently reconfirm upcoming annual events on a monthly basis so that he could accurately predict upcoming revenue. But we added to it.

Instead of just reaching out to confirm, we created a new program that sent a newsletter about what we had learned at recent events with different clients. We framed the monthly newsletter as an opportunity to incorporate these learnings into upcoming events. Would Verizon like to slightly shift May's event?

The client loved the attention and opportunity to improve original plans and the business grew to over $100K the next year. That's how you Yes And strategically instead of blindly. That's also an example of workplace agility.

I shared this story with my Wilmington client and she loved it. At present we are planning to bring an awesome agility workshop to her team.