Improv actors take their techniques to work

Steel industrialist, business magnate and historically one of the nation's richest men, Andrew Carnegie, is quoted as saying: "There is little success where there is little laughter."

Today, two improv actors want to help local businesses laugh their way to success. Dann Sytsma and Brian Lam have teamed up to create Improv Effects, LLC, which uses improv in team building and professional development workshops.

Sytsma is the co-founder of the Kalamazoo-based improv troupe Crawlspace Eviction and owns Crawlspace Theatre Productions. Lam owns Lam Creative Solutions -- a PR and marketing firm -- and is a two-year member of the Crawlspace Eviction troupe. He studied improv at Chicago’s Second City.

The two have come up with variations of improv exercises that are tweaked for the professional environment and tailored to meet specific goals of each business. They suggest improv techniques are best applied in business settings that involve a lot of personal interaction, such as sales, customer service, creative teams, and management.

Lam comes from a sales and sales management background. That means he has done ropes courses, heard motivational speakers and taken personality tests, but he says nothing has made a difference in his life like improv.

"The business parallels between great improv techniques and best business practices are uncanny: active listening, creative collaboration, thinking on your feet, and the power of positive support," Lam says. "The tools you need to be successful in business are the tools a good improviser uses in each and every scene."

Workshops consist of group exercises that focus on improv exercises that have the professional applications a given business is looking for.  Each exercise begins with an explanation, a demonstration, and then an invitation to participate. After each set of exercises, there is a brief group discussion about the practical applications of the exercises we completed.

"We don’t lecture. We don’t preach," says Sytsma. "We let the participants experience their own 'ah-hah' moments."  

Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave Media
Sources: Dann  Systma, Brian Lam, Improv Effects