IMPROV your business skills
Justin Olynyk, The Manitoban (U of Winnipeg)

Normally, when businesses feel the need to upgrade the skills of their employees, they will register their workers in university courses or bring in high-priced consultants to teach a highly specialised seminars. But some businesses take a more unique route-they head to the theatre to learn improv. Stephen Sim, an improviser in Winnipeg, holds improv workshops for theatre students, the general public and business people.

"Improv really is about communication," says Sim, who has been performing improv since 1992 and teaching it since 1998.

In his workshops and classes, he stresses basic communication skills, including active listening, thinking on your feet and being able to carry a conversation forward. Depending on the group and what they want to learn, Sim adjusts his teaching.

"Who I have in the class and what type of cross-section of society I have affects where the class goes and how the class is taught," he says.

Sim believes everyone has her or his own improv style, and he encourages students to define their own style by taking whatever knowledge is applicable to them and disregarding everything else. "It's about you improvising, not about following the rules," he adds.

As president of Bieber Securities, a Manitoba-based, full-service investment firm, Greg Bieber was interesting in improving his communication skills.

"My desire was to get in front of groups of people in my industry and not speak from notes. I thought improv would assist me in that," he says.

Bieber also recognised the importance of interpersonal skills when dealing with clients. "I'm in the business of communicating a message to a client to ensure that I gain trust from them to do a proper job for them. I'm asking a family to trust their life savings to me."

As the director of the Asper Centre for Entrepreneurship and a marketing professor at the University of Manitoba, Rob Warren knows how important communication skills are in the business world.

"Every manager everyday has to be an improv specialist because you are constantly faced with new problems and you have to be able to adapt in a variety of ways," Warren says. "A manager has to be able to react quickly to problems and come up with a solution. If you say to somebody, 'I'll get back to you,' that's not the answer they want to hear. They want to know what you can do right now."

Even though Bieber does not have a theatre background, he registered for the beginner improv class Sim teaches at the Prairie Theatre Exchange (PTE) two years ago. Bieber enjoyed the beginner improv class so much, he registered for the other class taught by Sim at PTE, an introduction to long-form improv.

Bieber enjoyed both classes so much he invited Sim to teach improv workshops for his staff at Bieber Securities. Sim taught three improv workshops there, using games and exercises to emphasise the importance of basic communication skills. The staff of Bieber Securities practiced speaking gibberish, an exercise involving two people speaking in a made-up language and a translator who must translate the conversation. The translator must pay special attention to the non-verbal aspects of communication.

"With gibberish, you lose the meanings attached to words and you have to rely on tone, inflection, emotions and body language. To open yourself to these levels, you get way more information than in the language," observes Sim.

Another exercise frequently used by Sim is speaking in one voice, in which two people must slowly speak every sound until they are speaking the same dialogue. Speaking in one voice emphasises the importance of listening when conversing.

"You're not thinking and you're not worried about what you're saying. You're reacting in the moment and building words with other people," says Sim.

Improv fever
"I used to think you couldn't teach improv, you just had to do it-because that's how I learned it. I didn't take any classes. I learned it on a stage," Sim says.

His mindset changed as he traveled all over North America, visiting improv hotspots such as Seattle, Chicago and Vancouver. Sim took workshops in these cities to find out how people there taught and performed improv. "There was a definite language for concepts that we were already doing in Winnipeg. They had the tools really defined, whereas we just did it. After that, things became a little clearer. I better understood how improv works," he says.

Since returning to Winnipeg, Sim has been on a mission to share his knowledge and passion for improv with others. In addition to the classes he teaches at PTE, Sim teaches improv to high school students and is the current president/co-director of the Manitoba Improv League-an improv competition for high school students.

Sim also holds a weekly drop-in improv workshop for graduates of his classes looking for opportunities to hone their skills. He takes pride in the fact that former students have formed two new improv troupes in the city-Andalusia Dog and the Yellow Pages. Other new troupes are also in the works.

In October, Sim was the festival coordinator of the first annual Winnipeg Improv Festival, a four-day affair showcasing the city's top improv talent. And Sim feels that improv fever will infect more as time wears on.

"Every person has their own improv style, [and] each troupe is different," Sim says. "More people will discover improv and want to do it."

What works onstage works in business
Bieber believes improv has helped him in both his personal and professional life. Professionally, he has become a more animated and articulate speaker because he feels more secure trusting his thoughts.

"It's okay to enter a conversation not knowing what I'm going to think, say or do at any moment," he says.

Personally, Bieber admits he has become more relaxed because improv has taught him to live in the moment.

"For me, living in the moment is a great place to be. It's taking what shows up and being able to deal with it at that time."

"Improv is communicating in the moment," adds Sim. "People get lost in the routine of everyday life and they forget that every breath that they take is happening in the moment."

Mick Howland, marketing coordinator at Bieber Securities, has noticed an improvement in his listening skills after attending the workshops.

"I used to do three-quarters of the talking, one-quarter of the listening. Now that's reversed," he says.

Howland also credits improv for improving his ability to converse with others.

"What improv is about is setting up the other person so they have something to say and they do the same for you. It works well in improv and it carries over into real life," Howland believes.

Warren advises other companies to follow the lead of Bieber Securities and look for ways to enhance their employees' interpersonal skills.

"Most companies will send employees to courses for something very specific to their job, because companies tend to reward more on technical skills than interpersonal skills. [But] every study we've ever seen says interpersonal skills are much more important for an employee's success and an organisation's success than technical skills," Warren says.

Aside from work, Bieber has taken his new skills to the stage. But he admits to being more nervous performing improv on the stage than in the business world.

"It's a challenge, but anything worthwhile is."

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