How Design Thinking Through Improv Can Help Reframe Fear Of The Unknown
A study published in the journal Thinking Skills and Creativity showed that training that uses improv and “design-thinking” is a fun and effective approach in professions that demand rapid, creative responses to unexpected and unforeseen situations, as in health care.
Exploring different angles on a familiar thing can reduce fear of the unknown.
The paradox of change that makes it so difficult is that we need it for anything new and exciting to happen, but parts of it are simply unknowable, which can trigger fear even if the change is positive. Our brains are designed to look for patterns and make predictions so we can scan the landscape for threats and make decisions about how to stay safe. In a rapidly shifting landscape or one lacking the stability to find familiar cues, we tend to default to what has worked in the past, even if those choices do not work at all in the new scenario.
With improv, the unknown is a feature, not a bug. When ideas come to life in this “right-here-right-now” experience, it is the openness to seeing a familiar thing in new ways, to saying “yes” to the unexpected and spontaneity that make it magical. Improv exercises encourage a playful approach to the unknown aligned with the non-linear “design thinking” that is used not only to innovative systems and products, but also to train professionals in a wide range of fields who deal with the ups and downs of change in peoples’ lives.
Letting go of old ideas about the way we things should work makes space for something new to take hold. But that can be the hardest part: letting go at the very moment we feel the need to hold on just to have some sense of stability. This is where the creative/design mind — the part of us that can see the same exact thing from many different perspectives — can help us rethink old ideas, reframe cognitive distortions and re-imagine our best possible self. It starts with willingness to see even the most — seemingly — insignificant strengths in ourselves and elevate them, and to notice even the most minor positive aspects to the struggle. The improv/design mind will use everything we have, elevate and build on it.
To deal with a new reality while it is still taking shape, improv is useful for gaining skills to manage the uncertainty while design mind discovers new uses for existing roles and strengths.
An example of this in practice: When facilitating a group of health care professionals to help them address their symptoms of role fatigue and prevent burnout, we grounded the work in a creative thinking exercise with has a simple structure that prompts a subtle jostling of the familiar.
The exercise:
Take a familiar household or office item, and turn it into something else by using it in a new and different way. A long-handled flashlight becomes:
A reporter’s microphone
A plunger
A trumpet
A telescope
Different uses for the same item highlight different parts of it, recombining them. This creative action generates a character as well, in an effortless way to tell a new story. After a round of finding new uses for this same item, we level up the exercise. Find another ordinary household/office item, e.g a coffee cup. The group breaks out into pairs or groups of 3. The assignment is to rename the flashlight and the coffee cup into at least 1 new pair of items that go together. If more combinations can be found, even better.
The flashlight becomes a rolling pin, the coffee cup a sieve dusting sugar onto the rolled-out dough;
The coffee cup becomes large hair roller holding a curl in place, the flashlight becomes a blow dryer;
Each team shares their discovery — or discoveries — with the group by demonstrating in action. If a short scene evolves out of this, that’s always fun. It often happens organically. Dealing with the unknown can be approached just like this. Look at something familiar in an entirely new way. Play with the idea. Let the old story about that item fall away for a period of time. Just doing this signals to our worried self that we can do it.
Then we level up the exercise and make it a little bit weird. Design mind liberates us from the linear, literal reality and this exercise is a way to deploy it. In groups of 3, participants make a list of the ways this ordinary household item is like them in their professional roles: A flashlight is:
Reliable
Illuminating
Valuable
Dependent on an energy source that has to be checked, recharged, or replaced
A coffee cup is:
Providing an essential service
A way to get comfort and sustenance
Useful in multiple ways
By the time this group got to the list-making, they were ready to play. We gave each person on a team one of the item’s qualities to be their character’s “deal” and placed these characters in a scene: they are colleagues planning a birthday party for someone on their team who has been going through a tough time so they really want to make it special. Everyone is encouraged to say “yes” to the ideas put out there, no matter how weird or unrealistic, and each player stay true to their character’s “deal.”
The idea of this exercise is stretch the participants to a level of spontaneous collaboration beyond their expectations but most importantly, beyond their fear — of looking foolish, being a bore, or that this whole thing is just a waste of time. The experience itself is the outcome. The product is the impact it has on the way participants feel and think, especially about the changes they need to make in order to stay well in a demanding job.
What deepens and quickens the learning and change potential of this approach is the way it deepens and quickens supportive relationships.
Psychological safety to take creative risks makes it more likely we can support one another when the unknown heightens stress and decisions have to be made together.
Here’s another example of these principles in practice: In a workshop for health care professionals facing unpredictable changes after the company was recently absorbed by a much larger organization, the group of 52 participants breaks into teams of 8–10 people. They stand in a circle. The facilitator identifies someone to start, and the action goes in order, clock-wise. The warm-up activity is an exercise in non — linear thinking called “That’s Right Acronyms.” Each team is assigned 4 letters of the alphabet, and are to collectively identify these 4 letters as an acroynym that describes their (imaginary) organization. Every player is to say “yes” or “that’s right” to what the previous player said when describing this made-up organization. The 4 letters are suggested by the facilitator, e.g.: WGBH, immediately before the players begin so there is only time to absorb it and make a simple creative choice. One team might go like this:
Person 1 says “yes we are WBGH, that’s W for What’s
Person 2: “That’s G for Geared
Person 3: “That’s B for By”
Person 4: “That’s H for Heart”
Person 5: “That’s right, we are What’s Geared By Heart! We only do things are care about, from the heart.
Person 6: “That’s right. We come from the heart and we treat your heart, which turns all the gears in your body.”
Person 7: That’s right. Your heart turns all the gears in your body, as each of us is like a gear doing our part on this amazing team.
Person 8: “That’s right, we each do our part on this amazing team, and we like to give ourselves fancy names.
Person 1: That’s right, we like to give ourselves fancy names, like this person next to me we call Ms. Cool One.
Person 2: Yes, I’m Ms. Cool One And the person next to me is Sir Fluffy Face.
Person 3: Yes, I’m Sir Fluffy Face…etc
Another team, given the same 4 letters might come up with:
Person 1: Yes our organization is WGBH. That’s W for We.
Person 2: That’s G for Give.
Person 3: That’s B for Big
Person 4: That’s H for Hugs.
Person 5: That’s right. We are We Give Big Hugs, and that’s what we do. We give big hugs!
Person 6: That’s right. We stand on a street corner with a sign that says “who needs a hug?” etc.
This exercise balances the known with the unknown in a way that taps spontaneity and creativity.
What’s predictable about the exercise is sufficient to make the unknown manageable:
Everyone speaks in order.
Repeat the last bit of what the last person said and add something to it.
We are using an alphabet that is familiar to everyone in the group.
What is unpredictable goes by quickly and is combined with support and positive energy: players cannot predict what four letters will be assigned, nor what words the players choose that we will be given to build upon. No one can predict what the four letters will mean by the time the exercise is complete. There is a short gap between actions and consequences, which heightens spontaneity and the risk-to-reward process in the brain. And while the task is to deal with the acronym, the goal is to work those psychological “muscles” for swimming in the emotional waters of the unknown.
In the debrief discussions, workers shared what rose up in their awareness through playing in this exercise:
Adding value one beat at a time was a helpful reminder to focus on quality support for one another.
Non-linear thinking can replace over-analysis and anxiety in the face of the unknown.
Seeing that the same suggestion could go in multiple diverse directions showed that we can adapt and adjust if we tap into spontaneity and collaborate.
The fact that we cannot predict can mess with our heads, but the emphasis on “design thinking” means the unusual, unexpected or just plain weird choices we might make are just fine, and are usually fun. The more fun, the more rewarded we feel for venturing out of linear, predictive thinking. By playing with reality in this way, we signal to our fearful self, that we can adjust. We can adapt. We can unlearn a habit of mind that is no longer useful and use a new skill in real time. By getting into this design-focused mindset — when we have the skills and the support — the unknown becomes a field of possibility.
Jude Treder-Wolff is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Practitioner of Applied Improvisation. She designs and facilitates improv and applied improv classes and workshops for personal and professional development.
