To Get Through The Tensions Of Change, Think Like An Improviser

“Creativity isn’t about guessing the future correctly. It’s about making yourself open to imagining radically different possibilities.” Angus Fletcher, Ohio State University’s Project Narrative

An improv team I was lucky enough to play on for a year opened every set with a complete nonverbal action that could be interpreted any number of ways. One or more of us would engage with it, giving specificity to it and off we would go in whatever direction would arise.

As an example, one night the suggestion was “Boggle.” A person on the team started shaking the imaginary cup. The rest of us became the letter-bearing cubes, going left, right up or down as a group, taking cues from our teammate’s movement, on the alert to take advantage of a pose, movement or accompanying sound that lent itself to the opening of a scene.

Another opening for a scene might be two players noticing they both have their arms straight up over their heads. One starts waving, the other one joins. The first player says “I don’t think they see us, that plane is just too high and this island is so tiny.” The other player takes the idea further. “I don’t think anyone is really looking for us. I mean, the boat came back without us 2 days ago and that’s the first plane we’ve seen.” And the pair becomes a stranded couple after a weird snorkeling incident.

That same physical pose could then inspire a new scene, but this time it might be two people reaching for something high on a shelf, or a football referee calling a field goal.

This ability to see the same thing from different perspectives— divergent thinking — is essential for improvisers, but also in real life situations for problem-solving and innovation. Improv is a uniquely empowering way to practice this kind of thinking — which we need most during periods of transition and high uncertainty — and studies support it as an approach to gaining skills for facing the unknowable, unfamiliar and uncomfortable aspects of change.

A 2022 study published in Journal Of Creativity shows that divergent thinking is tapped most easily and rapidly in situations with strong social support and an element of fun. And new studies find that improv training strengthens transferable skills for…