No Script Required: How Improv Builds Better HR Leaders

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

Well, Dave, you've built your career on what seems like an unlikely combination, change management consulting and improv comedy.

What led you to discover these two worlds actually complement each other perfectly?

So I got my start as a change management consultant, and we were doing workplace strategy change management, which was basically designing new offices and then helping people move into them.

So federal agencies, tech companies, and it boiled down a lot to, "We're gonna take away your private offices, put you in an open plan, and give you lots more places to be collaborative and meet." And people didn't always love that.

[laughs] So what I learned in facilitating those conversations, those workshops, those meetings, is what I was doing was helping guide people through uncertainty.

Mm-hmm.

And it was the same thing I was doing on stage, 'cause I've been doing improv since high school, and training people to get up on stage and deal with uncertainty in the moment with a, a clear set of tools, 'cause that's something we can talk about today, is improv isn't just completely making it all up.

You have a certain set of tools you kind of go back to again and again that help you deal with, "Oh my goodness, I don't know what, what's going to happen next.

I can't plan it."

Right.

So that's interesting.

I can definitely see change, right, and dealing with change and, I mean, I don't know, for me, the comedy, I always say you have to laugh and, and to stop from crying, right?

Yeah.

So kind of think about it that way.

So how do you reframe improv from that unpreparedness to more of a strategic tool for professional decision-making?