Abstract
Emotional intelligence (EI) is emerging as critical to success in today’s workplaces. Business schools must, therefore, equip students with techniques to develop their emotional intelligence. EI is learnable, and research indicates that active and experiential approaches are more effective in developing EI than lecture-based methods. We, therefore, suggest that the highly engaging style of improvisational theater can be used as an effective training technique to develop EI. Furthermore, improv’s foundational “yes-and” principle requires participants to listen nonjudgmentally and actively support each other. We present six improvisational exercises that will enable students to identify and develop some of the social skills relevant to EI, namely, empathy, collaboration, and understanding the emotional cues of others. Our detailed instructions to run and debrief the exercises ensure that instructors with no prior experience with improvisational theater can also easily use them in their classes.
The rising importance of emotional intelligence (EI) for professional success (Goleman, 1998; Mattingly & Kraiger, 2018; Sigmar, Hynes, & Hill, 2012), makes it imperative that business schools equip their students with the skills to develop their EI. Active and experiential approaches appear to be most effective in developing EI (Mattingly & Kraiger, 2018), and therefore, we suggest that the highly engaging techniques from improvisational theater (also called improv), because of their focus on active listening and collaboration (Huffaker & West, 2005; Robson, Pitt, & Berthon, 2015), can be effectively used in the classroom to help students develop their EI.
We present six improvisational exercises aimed at developing some of the social skills relevant to EI. The second author, an experienced improvisational instructor, helped develop these exercises, but no prior experience with improvisation is necessary either for the instructor or the students to use or participate in these activities. These exercises can be used both in the MBA and undergraduate organizational behavior or leadership courses after students have discussed concepts relating to leadership and EI.
Theoretical Foundation
EI broadly refers to the skills and abilities of an individual to appraise and manage their own emotions, as well as those of others (Goleman, 1998; Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2001; McClellan, Levitt, & DiClementi, 2017). Because EI is positively related to many desirable organizational outcomes such as leadership, performance, and collaboration (Daus & Ashkanasy, 2005; Goleman, 1998; Joseph, Jin, Newman, & O’Boyle, 2015), it has become an essential criterion in the business world for hiring, leadership development, and team building (Mattingly & Kraiger, 2018). EI is highly responsive to training and short-term interventions (Abe et al., 2013; Mattingly & Kraiger, 2018) and therefore, developing the skills related to EI must form part of the business school curriculum.
Managing interpersonal relationships using emotions is an essential component of EI (Goleman et al., 2001; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; McClellan et al., 2017). In this article, we focus on developing three important social skills relevant to managing interpersonal relationships using emotions, namely, empathy, collaboration, and understanding emotional cues of others (Bar-On, 2006; Goleman et al., 2001; Ioannidou & Konstantikaki, 2008; Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Empathy refers to the ability to understand the emotional makeup of others (Goleman, 1998), while collaboration, in the context of EI, refers to creating positive emotions through increased emotional attunement (McClellan et al., 2017). Finally, understanding the emotional cues of others is important in the context of EI to label emotions and interpret their meanings (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Techniques such as attention and listening are essential for these social skills, but developing them is proving to be challenging in the classroom because of technological distractions, lack of emphasis on “other-oriented” skills such as active listening, and the inadequate time spent on practicing these skills (Abe et al., 2013; Fall, Kelly, MacDonald, Primm, & Holmes, 2013; Spataro & Bloch, 2018).
We suggest that improvisational theater and its fundamental rule of “yes-and” (Aylesworth, 2008; Robson et al., 2015) makes it an ideal experiential technique to overcome the challenges mentioned above and help students develop some of the social skills associated with EI. The “yes-and” principle involves unconditionally accepting your partner’s or team’s suggestions (yes), and then actively building on that suggestion (and). The goal of an improviser is to make their partner or ensemble shine (Robson et al., 2015), and therefore, attention to one’s partner’s emotions, interpreting one’s partner’s emotions, and positive collaboration are all essential components of effective improvisation.
As discussed earlier, these are also critical social skills relating to managing interpersonal relationships, and therefore, EI. For example, active empathic listening, or active emotionally involved listening, and EI are positively correlated (Pence & Vickery, 2012). Furthermore, improv’s focus on creating positive emotions through increased emotional attunement to others is also relevant when discussing EI in the context of effective leadership and collaboration (McClellan et al., 2017).
The findings from a recent meta-analysis examining the relationship between training and EI (Mattingly & Kraiger, 2018) indicating that active and experiential approaches are better than lecture-based methods in developing EI further support our argument about the usefulness of improv in developing EI. Improv is already being used in classrooms and organizations to enhance various aspects of learning and creativity (Aylesworth, 2008; Huffaker & West, 2005; Vera & Crossan, 2005). We build on these efforts by focusing on some of the social skills associated with EI. We present six improvisational exercises that address the following learning objectives.
Learning Objectives
After completing this set of six improvisational exercises, students will be able to:
Identify some specific social skills associated with managing interpersonal relationships using emotions, namely, empathy, collaboration, and understanding others using emotional cues.
Apply improvisational techniques such as active listening and “yes-and” to develop these social skills.
The Six Exercises
This section provides an overview of each of the six exercises. Detailed instructions for the exercises, debriefing questions, and sample student responses are available in the appendix.
The Name Game (Group Size 15; 10 Minutes)
This exercise is an icebreaker and focuses on collaboration. Student groups form a circle and attempt to learn each other’s names by repeating their classmates’ names after them. In subsequent rounds, students also have to recall their classmates’ names. In the first round of the exercise, students take turns in a clockwise direction to say their names, but in subsequent rounds, students decide who goes next by making an eye contact with another student (please refer to the appendix for detailed instructions).
Desired Learning Outcomes
This exercise allows students to identify the importance of active listening and attention in relationship building by learning each other’s names. These are social skills relevant to the relationship management component of EI (Learning Objective 1). Often, students go through an entire semester without knowing their classmates’ (or professors’) names. This exercise allows students to discuss and reflect on the importance of attention and listening in the context of learning names. Students can then apply these skills for effective collaboration and relationship building (Learning Objective 2).
Conducted Story Exercise (Group Size 15; 10 Minutes)
This exercise focuses on collaboration and introduces students to improv’s “yes-and” principle. Students form a group and stand in a circle and are asked to tell a story, but each student is allowed to add only “one” word at a time. The first student starts the story by saying one word, and students take turns in the clockwise direction, adding one word at a time. The exercise ends when the group generates a plausible story (usually in a couple of rounds; please refer to the appendix for detailed instructions).
Desired Learning Outcomes
This exercise allows students to identify the importance of active listening and the usefulness of improv’s “yes-and” principle in collaboration, an essential social skill related to the relationship management dimension of EI (Learning Objective 1). Students also learn to apply improv’s “yes-and” principle in collaboration (Learning Objective 2). The conducted story exercise can also be used to summarize the day’s topics in subsequent sessions to practice the application of these skills.
Planning a Party (Student Pairs; Three Rounds of 5 Minutes Each)
This exercise focuses on collaboration and uses real-life scenarios to allow students to compare the advantages of improv’s foundational principle of “yes-and” versus other approaches for effective collaboration. Student pairs are asked to plan a party using three scenarios where they add to each other’s ideas using the phrases “no-but,” “yes-but,” and “yes-and” (see the appendix for detailed instructions). Students discover that the most effective way to plan a party is the third scenario where the student pairs used the connecting phrase of “yes-and.” During the debriefing (please refer to the appendix for questions), students are easily able to relate these three scenarios to real-life situations.
Desired Learning Outcomes
This exercise allows students to identify the importance of active empathic listening and positive emotions in collaboration, and therefore effective interpersonal relationship management (a dimension of EI; McClellan et al., 2017; Learning Objective 1). Actively experiencing the advantages of the “yes-and” principle in collaboration allows students to apply it to other situations such as their team projects (Learning Objective 2).
Face Reading Exercise (Student Pairs; 10 Minutes)
This exercise focuses on understanding the emotional cues of others. Students are paired up, and one student is instructed to express an emotion, and the other student attempts to identify their partner’s emotions from their facial expressions. Students can identify their partner’s emotion by either labeling it accurately or by describing a situation that might have led to that emotion (please refer to the appendix for detailed instructions). Students reverse roles after they have correctly identified their partner’s emotion.
Desired Learning Outcomes
This exercise allows students to identify the social skills such as attention and empathy that are necessary to understand others using emotional cues (Learning Objective 1). This exercise can also be used to discuss cultural differences in expressing emotions. For example, in some cultures, nonverbal cues form an essential part of communication, while in other cultures, verbal content is dominant. Students also learn how to apply these skills to identify emotional cues in others for effectively managing relationships (Learning Objective 2). During the debriefing (refer to the appendix), students realize the importance of both understanding and expressing emotional cues for effective relationship management.
Creating Characters (Groups of Three; 5 Minutes per Round)
This exercise focuses on building empathy by using improv’s “yes-and” principle. Three students are randomly selected and asked to stand in front of the class. Student A first states an actual opinion or belief they have. The other two students, B and C, then put themselves in A’s shoes and follow up by stating another belief or opinion Student A is likely to have based on their first statement. Or Students B and C could state the reasons why Student A might have that opinion or belief (please refer to the appendix for detailed instructions).
Desired Learning Outcomes
This exercise allows students to identify the skills necessary to build empathy, namely listening and actively putting themselves in the other person’s shoes (Learning Objective 1). Through this exercise, students also learn how to apply improv’s “yes-and” technique to develop empathy (Learning Objective 2). During the debriefing (please refer to the appendix) students often mention that intentionally using the “yes-and” principle to think about another person’s perspective allowed them to appreciate widely differing opinions and beliefs.
Synchronized Clapping (Groups of 15; 5 Minutes)
This versatile exercise focuses on collaboration and can be used either at the beginning of this series as an icebreaker, in the middle to reenergize the students or as a wrap up. Students stand in a circle and try to clap in unison as pairs. This exercise sounds easier than it is because synchronous clapping requires students to be attentive and make eye contact (in subsequent rounds students decide whom to clap with by making eye contact; please refer to the appendix for detailed instructions).
Desired Learning Outcomes
This exercise allows students to identify the importance of attention and listening for collaborating, a social skill associated with the relationship management dimension of EI (Learning Objective 1). Repetition of these exercises in class allows students to apply these skills to other situations involving collaboration (Learning Objective 2).
Conclusion
We believe that these improvisational exercises are valuable in the context of EI’s rising relevance in organizations and its responsiveness to experiential training methods (Mattingly & Kraiger, 2018). However, like any other skill, improvisational techniques must be practiced regularly to benefit from them, and therefore we recommend that instructors spread these exercises across multiple classes or repeat them in subsequent classes with different student combinations.
Footnotes
Appendix
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
