Last Friday, I was in divorce court. I shall spare you the details other than to say that my beloved ex rejected a proposed settlement, which meant an extra three hours in court and possibly continued months of waiting and paying attorneys.

When we were all done, I was chatting with my lawyer, and she gave me the biggest compliment ever: “How can you be so funny when this is so difficult?”

Now, to be fair, I was not funny in court. In fact, I only said one sentence the whole time. But we had chatted and discussed offers and swapped stories with the excellent translator.

I explained I could be funny because I accept my base reality and build on it.

What is base reality?

In improv, you have to establish your scenes. Some schools call this establishing your platform, but at Boutique Theatre Basel we prefer to use the phrase “establish your base reality.”

This is establishing the who, what, where, and why in a scene. It’s necessary to go forward. If we’re doing a scene together and I think we’re siblings and you think we’re romantic partners, it’s going to make for an awkward scene.

At the beginning of each scene, before you get to the meat of the scene, it’s essential that you establish your base reality.

Everyone in the scene and the audience needs to know the following things:

• Who the characters are to each other. Are they friends, enemies, siblings, or prison cellmates?
• Where the characters are. Are they at home, in a cafe, or on a sinking ship?
• What is going on. Are they just watching television as a family, in search of a hidden treasure, or being slowly poisoned?
• Why these things are happening. Is the world ending, the neighbor trying to take over their land, or the boss needs the spreadsheet reconciled by 4:15 pm?

Once you’ve established these things, you can get to your first unusual thing and make your scene funny. But without that base reality where everyone knows what’s going on, the scene will fail.

You need to recognize your base reality in real life

In improv, you establish your base reality. In real life, you recognize your base reality. My lawyer told me she has many expat clients like me who are utterly miserable because their ex-spouses won’t let them take the kids and return to their home countries. (Which is why I’m still in Switzerland, as well.)

The difference is I recognized my “base reality,” which is that this is where I live. And so I can either be miserable or I can build a fabulous life.

Naturally, I chose to do the latter. Many people fight against that base reality and hope every day that the judges will change their minds, or the ex will say, “Sure, take the kids and go home.” That’s not living in reality.

And when you don’t live in reality, it’s extremely stressful. In fact, one of the biggest stress factors is not accepting your reality.

For example, if you go to work every day hoping your boss will treat you nicely even though he’s been a jerk every day for the past four years, your stress level will be through the roof. If, on the other hand, you say, “I know John is a jerk, but I stay in this job because it pays my bills,” it’s much easier and less stressful. It’s that mismatch between things as they really are and your imagined better world.

Sometimes, base reality is easy to spot. And sometimes it’s confusing. And if you’re the boss, you do get to establish base reality.

Establishing base reality as the boss

So, because the world is suffering from a serious lack of podcasts, I launched a new podcast, Improv Your Future. It’s all about using improv skills to make your life better–because life doesn’t come with a script.

And this week’s episode, Episode Three: Establish Your Base Reality, deals precisely with a situation where everyone is confused about base reality, and the result is chaos.

Tristan and I answer this question:

I am on the board of a 100 percent volunteer run organization. Lately, there has been a lot of conflict among members. People are constantly stepping on each other’s toes and then people threaten to quit if they aren’t respected. I don’t feel like I can demand anything from people because it’s all volunteer. I’m not paying so I can’t really say, “Hey, I really need you to do X.” But then things don’t get done. Help.

Stop and think for a second. Do you see what is wrong with base reality here?

Yep, that’s right. People don’t know who they are to each other and what they are doing. Many of these problems can be fixed by having the boss establish a base reality. You can hop over and give it a listen (it’s short! 20 minutes!) and see how establishing a base reality makes all the difference.

Wait, this started out about you being funny

True. But it’s all because, rather than dwell on the problems and wish for things to be different, I accepted the base reality of my life. I couldn’t leave Switzerland with my children, so I say, “What can I do?” and the answer is, I can, “yes, and” everything.

Which is what I did. And my life is awesome. Because I accepted the base reality and built from there. So many people are angry and frustrated because they pretend that the base reality is something different.

But you can’t “yes, and” until you’ve accepted base reality.

So get to it. What are you in denial about?

The post It’s Time to Establish Your Base Reality appeared first on Improve Your HR.

We see this all the time in real life, and it becomes pronounced in improv comedy. When you get on stage to do a scene, you don’t know what the audience will suggest, and therefore, you don’t know what character you’ll play.

Sometimes, you see improv-ers who try to make themselves the high-status character and the main character in every scene they are in. It’s grating and annoying. And also? They tend not to be funny.

A scene will not be great if everyone is trying to be the main character.

Your office will not be great if everyone is trying to be the main character. And even though we know the office hierarchy and we know who the CEO is and who the VPs are, and we know about the little coalition of admins who choose to process paperwork or not, and have the true power. You may think that the CEO is always the main character and the rest of the staff should act accordingly.

There are plenty of CEOs who like this idea a lot. And plenty who demand it. And guess what, they are grating and annoying and tend not to be funny.

You can run a business like this. Plenty of businesses run this way. Everyone does what the CEO wants. And that’s fine. You can be successful that way.

But when you do that, you miss out on the talent and skills of the rest of the staff. Why hire someone who is an expert in their field if you will ignore their ideas in favor of whatever the CEO thinks of?

In every encounter, you may begin with thinking you’ll be the main character, or at least the key player, but you need to keep an open mind to the possibilities that someone else should take center stage.

The Answering Machine Game

Look, my improv group is all of a certain age, so we call this game ‘Answering Machine,’ but we should probably change it to ‘voicemail.’ We like it this way.

It’s my favorite game right now. (I reserve the right to have a different favorite game next week.) We get a volunteer from the audience to tell us a little bit about themselves. Their name, what they do for a living, what a good day looks like, what a bad day looks like, who are important people in their life, etc. It’s an interrogation that takes a couple of minutes. We then inform the audience that this person never checks their voicemails, but we’ve hacked their phone and will now play their voicemails for everyone.

Then we line up four or five of us on stage and one by one, we “replay” the voicemails. Each one of us picks a different character from this person’s story. And one by one, we hear the voicemail messages and build a story together.

While I love physical comedy, this one is pure story. Just messages. We often perform it with the lights off, and we turn on a flashlight when we are speaking.

In this performance, the lucky audience member, Diana, revealed she is a seamstress who sews custom children’s clothing. So her voicemails came from:

• The owner of a fabric shop in Paris, where Diana had a big order of fabric waiting to be picked up.
• A news reporter looking to expose Diana’s sewing practices.
• A fashion designer who wanted to buy Diana’s designs
• The school sports director, who was concerned that the gym uniforms Diana had designed were too tight.
• And the best friend.

I was the best friend. And remember, I love this game. I desperately want to be the funniest person in this game. But, as the story developed, it became incredibly clear that the best friend was not the main character, and wasn’t even needed as a real supporting character, so I stepped back to let the stars shine.

(Host: Jennifer Cain Birkmose, and from left to right, Martin Spedding, Jeff Donald, Tristan Hardman-Dodd, Sascha Frassini, Suzanne Lucas, and guitarist Cesare di Leo.)

The story would have been diluted if I had insisted that my character take the center position.

Additionally, if you’ll watch the video, you’ll note that I made a fatal improv sin–that is, I didn’t “yes, and.” When the news reporter said I had told him about making the clothes out of chinchilla fur, I said I had lied, and that wasn’t true. Fortunately, the rest of the team ignored my “no, but” and the scene continued.

Recognizing when to step back

Many of my readers are leaders. You are used to taking charge and ha

ving people carry out your ideas. That’s fantastic. You’ve earned your spot. But sometimes, you need to recognize when you are not the smartest or most creative person in the room when it comes to this topic.

When someone else is better than you are at something, recognize it, and step back. Let other people shine.

Now, this may concern you–after all, if you let someone outshine you, that person may get the recognition and opportunities you want.

That’s true. That may happen. But what’s more likely to happen is your team will work better together and you’ll be able to accomplish a lot more. And as the lead, do you know who gets credit when a team works really well together? You do.

Sometimes you need to step back, even when you are the most knowledgeable or the best equipped on this topic. One of your jobs as a leader is to train others. And that requires letting them find their own footing. We can learn a lot in a classroom setting, but until we are on stage, it’s all theoretical.

Sometimes you will be in the spotlight, but sometimes you need to step away. If you are always pushing for center stage, your employees are talking about you over dinner and it’s not complimentary. Try stepping back and letting others shine. It’s neither grating nor annoying, and it’s a heck of a lot funnier–errr, I mean better for the business.

The post Step Away from the Spotlight appeared first on Improve Your HR.

Listening is really tough.

Hearing is easy enough, as long as your ears work properly. But, listening? That’s hard.

When we’re having a conversation with someone else, we often spend a good deal of time doing what psychologists call “listening to respond.” Couples counselor Kari Rusnak, LPC, CMHC, BC-TMH wrote at Pyschology Today

When we listen to respond we are taking points from the speaker and thinking about and developing our response. But when we do that we aren’t really focusing on the speaker. We are distracted and may miss what they are saying. We also tend to jump right into our response when they stop speaking. This doesn’t show the speaker that we heard what was said or even that we understood it. This can lead to the speaker feeling unheard and unimportant and can frustrate them.

Now, heaven knows I don’t want you to pretend that workplace relationships are the same as marital relationships. (Please, please don’t!) However, the listening problem is not exclusive to couples.

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If your boss calls you into his office and the HR manager is sitting there, you immediately tense up, knowing you are about to get into big trouble. And, so naturally, you start building your defense. And as your boss speaks, you’re likely to build your counterarguments in your head rather than listening to the whole spiel of what the problem is.

This can cause you to miss what you need to hear and prevent you from actually addressing the problem. (And unlike a marriage where you’re equal, in the workplace, your boss is the boss, and as long as what they want you to do isn’t illegal, immoral, or a violation of policy, you pretty much need to do it. Dang it, if your boss wants the RFP written in Comic Sans, Comic Sans it is!)

What on earth does this have to do with improv?

We can have coherent conversations with others while we focus on our response because, let’s face it, most of the time we can predict precisely what the other person is going to say. Most meetings are not thrilling tales involving unexpected information! But sometimes there is, and sometimes we miss it because we are planning our response.

In the world of improv comedy, you have to learn to really listen because literally anything can happen. The audience may set the scene for you in a bank, and before you start, you may think, “I’m going to play the police officer who stops a robbery in this scene!” But before you can open your mouth, your scene partner throws his hands in the air and says, “You can take all the money, just don’t hurt me!”

Now you’re the robber, and you have to throw out all previous thoughts and do something entirely new. The scene will be a disaster if you say, “No, ma’am, I’m the police officer here to stop the robbery. You must be the robber!” It’s a “no, but” disaster.

So we work on listening skills. One of my favorite listening skills games is Headlines.

How to play Headlines

Person 1 gives a headline. Then person 2 gives a headline, but their headline must start with the last word of person 1’s headline. And so on and so forth.

Person 1: A Study shows HR Professionals Are More Beautiful than Salespeople

Person 2: Salespeople Are the BackBone of Any Organization

Person 3: Organization is the Key to Olympic Success

Person 4: Success Is Possible with Only Three Simple Steps!

The key is that you cannot start thinking about what you’re going to say until the other person has finished speaking. You are forced to listen.

Do this enough and you get in the habit of waiting until the end.

Why should you do this at work? Well becaues your coworkers deserve your respect and your listening ear. And maybe you’ll learn something. If, instead of having your brain go straight into response mode, you try going into learning mode first.

It’s okay to have a pause in the conversation while you ponder what you’re going to say. It’s okay to ask a question for clarification before you respond.

What’s the payoff? Doesn’t this just take more time? I know what they are going to say!

Do you though? You think you do! You say you want to have new ideas! You want people to “think outside the box!” And then you assume you know precisely what other people will say and cut them off (either literally or in your head) before they can present a new and exciting idea.

If you wait until the end, you have so many more opportunities to learn new things. So many opportunities to come up with new ideas. You can stop being defensive. It’s an amazing thing.

So, in your next staff meeting, play a round of Headlines and get people to wait to think. It has great benefits!

The secret pro-method of mastering this skill

Headlines is a fun game, but other methods can help you in the moment. You can do the same thing in a normal conversation, but force yourself to start your sentence with the last letter of the last word the previous person said. It works the same way and is generally not obvious.

And special other secret pro tip: If you don’t repeat the same word or letter, but do reiterate the same idea the previous person said, they start to think you’re really smart. For example

Person 1: Q2 has been kicking our behinds. We should seriously consider revamping our marketing plans for Q3 to ensure we’re on track to meet our year-end goals.

Person 2: Year-end goals are super important. Let’s take a look at the current marketeing.

NOT

Person 1: Q2 has been kicking our behinds. We should seriously consider revamping our marketing plans for Q3 to ensure we’re on track to meet our year-end goals.

Person 2: So what you’re saying is we should revamp our marketing plans to ensure we’re on track to meet our year-end goals.

This way is super-duper annoying and condescending. Don’t do it.

Now, go forth and listen before you speak!

The post Yes, And… You Missed Half the Meeting or How to Improv Your Listening Skills appeared first on Improve Your HR.

One of the things I love about Improv is ridiculous physical comedy. Big hand gestures, ridiculous yoga poses, and eye rolling are designed to be seen by the last row of the audience. It’s amazing.

Not every scene lends itself to the dramatic or melodramatic. And that means, when I’m in a scene that isn’t well suited to big gestures, I rein it in.

Why? Because I’ve got to play the scene I’m in.

Well, duh. It would be pretty ridiculous if I were doing yoga poses when the scene called for me to be an uptight waitress in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

But what’s the practical application? Well, are you playing the scene you’re in or are you trying to play a different scene.

Focus on the now

You know which people are miserable? People who wish they were in another scene.

Sure, we all wish we were in that scene where we just had so much free time and so much money that we had no idea what we would possibly do with it all! But that isn’t your scene. It’s not my scene. We have different scenes.

And sometimes those scenes are terrible. Your scene may be a bad job, a bad marriage, or a bad case of toenail fungus. Whatever it is, this is your scene.

You have to play it if you want to get out of it.

If you instead sit down and cry and wail that you wanted to be in a different scene, guess what? It’s like a cruel twist of fate, and you’ll never get out.

You don’t, after all, treat toenail fungus by making friends with a yacht owner. Maybe you’ll get a ride on a yacht, but your toenails will still be icky.

You can’t get out of a bad marriage or a bad job by complaining that you wish you were in a different job or a different marriage.

You have to play the scene you’re in.

You have to focus on what your situation is, not what you wish it would be.

What does playing the scene you’re in look like?

Great question, thanks for asking.

If you are suffering from toenail fungus, you go to the pharmacy and ask for toenail fungus medication, then use it as instructed. If that doesn’t work, you go to the doctor and follow the doctor’s instructions.

If you are in a terrible job, you can play that scene any number of ways. You can

• Work your hardest and hope for a promotion
• Quit
• Find a new job and then quit
• Acknowledge that this is the best you’re going to get right now, so be thankful you have a job at all.
• Acknowledge this is the best you’re going to get right now so you are going to gain additional skills so you can get out.
• Undermine your boss so she gets fired
• Get yourself fired so you are eligible for unemployment payments
• Any combination of the above

Now, I don’t recommend undermining your boss. That makes you a rotten person. But you have to address the issue of your job head-on

I receive emails from people who are in terrible jobs. Sometimes, I ask how long they’ve had this terrible job, and the answer is something like, “Eight years.”

This is a person who is not playing the scene they are in. They are not doing what it takes to take a bad job and make it better. Instead, they are complaining, wishing they were in a different scene, and hoping the job fairy will magic them out of there.

Whatever you do, acknowledge this is the scene you’re in and then start the yes and process. It’s how you’ll succeed. It’s how you turn a bad scene into a good scene.

The post Play the Scene You’re In appeared first on Improve Your HR.

Every once in a while, we hold what we call “Pop Up” improv shows. These are 45-minute free shows in the basement of a local bar (Valhalla at 7:30 on April 24, 2025, for those of you who live in Basel). We practice new material in these shows before we put it into our paid shows. We want to work out the problems, and as improv is a performing art, it helps to have an audience.

We also reserve about 10 minutes of this show for our students to come and do an improv game. Anyone who has taken a class at Boutique Theatre Basel from me, Jennifer Cain Birkmose or Carrie Aikman is welcome to come up on stage and do a “Pan Left” or “Numbers”*

We believe that performing arts require a chance to perform. Nothing is more exciting than seeing students grow as they move from classroom to stage. It’s spectacular.

For an upcoming performance, I told the students that they would need to commit to two practices before the performance. And one asked me, “Why do we need to practice if it’s improv? Don’t we just make it up on the spot?”

Here’s why

Improv isn’t about just standing up on a stage and saying stuff. Anyone can do that. But improv comedy, done right, requires you to build skill and after skill. The better you know your ensemble the better your performance will be. And all that takes practice.

We don’t focus all our practice time on the performance pieces. We focus on the skills that make up the performance pieces. Let me describe the performance pieces and the skills we will build in practices.

Pan Left: This is a four-person game. The participants stand in a square, facing the audience: Two people in the front, two in the back. The audience gives a suggestion for a scene with the first two people, for example

• A career both people share
• A relationship between the people
• A hobby they picked up during COVID
• A line in a song
• A word that feels good in your mouth
• A street name

Then the director says, “Pan left,” and everyone rotates one position. The audience then gives a second suggestion for a scene with the two people in front. This is repeated until there are four scenes set up. Each scene is independent, and every participant appears in two scenes with two separate characters.

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Each side of the square plays part of a scene, ending when the director says, “Pan left.” The new scene begins.

In our basic format, there are three rotations. In the first rotation, you establish the who, what, where, and why. In the second, you heighten the situation. In the third, you resolve the issue.

As you get more skilled, there may be additional skills added in.

Numbers: This is a three-person scene. Each person is assigned a number, ideally one low number (1-3), a medium number (5-9), and a large number (15-20). When each person speaks, they must use their allotted number of words.

We ask the audience questions designed to elicit responses in that range to get the number. For example, I might ask,

For low numbers

• How many siblings do you have?
• How many times did you accidentally text the wrong person this week?

For medium numbers

• How many colors of lipstick do you own? (This sometimes backfires and I get an answer like 30)
• How many unread books are sitting on your shelf right now, silently judging you?

For high numbers

• How old were you when you got your driver’s license?
• How many different passwords do you have floating around in your brain?
• How many times have you hit snooze on your alarm this week?

With these two games in mind, we’ll practice skills and the actual games.

The skills we’ll practice

• Establishing the who, what where, and why in a scene

• Making everything bigger. Either more exciting or more terrible! It doesn’t matter–escalate
• Making bold choices
• Establishing hierarchy
• Character building
• Observing and responding to ensemble members.

How on earth does this matter to my business?

Selling isn’t one skill. It’s a whole bunch of little skills you can build.

Resolving employee conflicts isn’t one skill. It’s a whole bunch of little skills you can build.

Presenting isn’t one skill. It’s a whole bunch of little skills you can build

I can continue this pattern all day. Building core skills helps us do our jobs. We fail in front of a live audience when we neglect those core skills. Now, failing with joy is also a necessary skills, but if we fail too often at work, our paychecks tend to suffer.

The post Why Do We Need Improv Practice? appeared first on Improve Your HR.

Through the blessings of fate, I learned that the same venue had booked a friend’s stand-up show simultaneously.

Oops.

Now, I have two options:

• Pitch an absolute fit! Blow up relationships with everyone and demand that the person who screwed this up FIX IT RIGHT NOW.
• Laugh and move on, grateful it wasn’t worse

Just FYI, there’s no good way to fix two shows that are expecting to be on the stage simultaneously.

So I asked my friend what was going on, and she confirmed that she had a stand-up show on that date and that they had already sold tickets. Our show was a free, unticketed show– we practiced new materials at these pop-ups and we don’t charge for untested material.

The answer was clear: We would step back and support the stand-up show, and we’d run our pop-up in April.

And do you know about the venue booker? Well, before I could even reach out to them, they reached out to me and apologized profusely. Asked what they could do to help.

And I just said, “I understand. Snafus happen. We’ll do the pop-up in April, and don’t worry about it.”

Why? Because mix-ups happen. They do! And we’re just so happy we found out about it before we all showed up at the venue and had to fight each other for the stage.

Failing with joy is a key principle in Improv comedy and allowing others to fail with joy as well is a key principle in life.

It would not benefit me to be angry over a calendar error. Making this person feel worse than they already do would not fix the problem.

The best thing to do was simply to laugh, be grateful we learned now and not then. And move foward with life.

If mistakes stress you out, join HRLearns and Neelie Verlinden tomorrow for When There Is No HR for HR: How to Prevent Burnout and Improve Your Well-Being Starting Today.

The post Letting other people fail appeared first on Improve Your HR.

What does Employee Appreciation Day have to do with Improv-ing Your HR? Well, everything! Because improv is all about service! Service is about making employees’ lives easier.

And if you want to make your life easier, join Neelie Verlinden and HRLearns for a training session on reducing burnout. Register here: When there is no HR for HR: How to Prevent Burnout and Improve Your Well-Being Starting Today

There are many acts of service you can do with employees and here are 10 things you can do to make their lives easier.

1. Dump a stupid rule.

You have a stupid rule. I almost guarantee it. What kind of stupid rule? How about a doctor’s note for every absence? How about making your exempt employees (who aren’t billing time to clients) track every minute? How about docking PTO time from exempt employees for every hour they aren’t in the office, but not giving them additional PTO when they work more than 40 hours in a week? These are all dumb rules. Dump them.

2. Fire the horrible employee.

You probably have one. For whatever reason, you haven’t dealt with this person. Maybe she’s a slacker, maybe he’s a gossip, maybe she’s a bully, maybe he’s simply incapable of the work. Whatever the problem is, getting rid of your problem employee makes your other employees feel appreciated.

3. Acknowledge your employees’ extra efforts.

For whatever reason, we decided that a 40-hour work week was standard. Lots and lots of exempt employees work a lot more than that on a regular basis. It’s expected in many industries. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say thank you. Non-exempt people get overtime for their extra efforts. Thank your exempt employees for going the extra mile.

4. Listen to an idea.

Sure, you’re the boss, but you hired people because you needed their ideas. So, listen to them. Encourage them. Consider implementing them. Your employees feel appreciated when you consider their ideas and hard work.

5. Don’t play favorites.

Personalities exist, and you like some personalities better than others. Don’t let your like or dislike of the person determine the work and rewards you assign. Instead, look at the performance and productivity. Reward success, not similar personalities. And remember, while it’s legal to prefer people based on their personalities, it’s not legal to shower goodies on people because of race, gender, or other protected classes.

6. Give people some breathing room.

Don’t hover over someone who hasn’t messed up before. Sure, guide that new employee, but stand back and let people do their best. Unless you’re a complete idiot who consistently hires poorly, your employees are capable of doing the job you hired them to do. (Everyone makes hiring mistakes-even experts, but if you are consistently making hiring mistakes, that’s a problem.) Let your employees do their job and let them know you’re available if they need help. That’s it.

7. Take responsibility for your own mistakes.

I will never forget when I repeatedly warned and cautioned the head of compensation that his plan for pay raises would fail. He insisted he was right. When it collapsed on his head, he blamed me as the person who was responsible for carrying out the plan. While he wasn’t my boss (thankfully), I never, ever trusted him again. If he had been my boss, that would have been the moment I started looking for a new job. He screwed up. I didn’t. Don’t be like him. Say, “Yes, Suzanne warned me, and I overrode her. This is my fault.”

8. Have their backs.

Look, your employees will make mistakes. Sometimes big ones. Got it. But, if the mistake is an honest one, support your employee. Give her the tools to fix it; don’t let it be career ending. You want employees who are risk takers. If you punish any failed risks, you’ll soon be out of people who are willing to try. Let your employees know that you’ll reward their efforts and support them, even if things go poorly.

9. Give deserved raises and bonuses.

I know I said these were ideas that wouldn’t cost you a penny, and here I am talking about money. Do you know how much a 3 percent raise on an employee earning $50,000 a year is? Quick, do the math: $1500. Do you know how much it costs to replace an employee earning $50,000 a year? Estimates vary wildly but are more than $1500. It costs you less to reward a good employee than it costs you to replace them. In your head, count on the cost to the business for replacement at 25-50 percent of salary for regular employees and 100-200 percent of salary for executives. Reward wisely.

10. Be honest.

There are some things you can’t tell your employees. They know and understand this, but these things are few and far between. Most of the stuff that management keeps secret are simply because it’s easier not to have to explain yourself to your employees. This makes employees feel as if they can’t trust you and that you don’t trust them. How can you have a positive work environment where you don’t trust each other? Just be honest about what’s going on. If you truly can’t say- like you’re in the middle of contract negotiations- say so. “Right now, we’re in the middle of negotiations, and we’ll let you know when things are resolved.”

(These 10 tips originally apeared at Inc.)

The post Improv Your Employee Appreciation Day appeared first on Improve Your HR.

I teach improv comedy classes. It’s just regular improv comedy–no HR included. (I also teach improv for leadership development, but this story isn’t about this.) Monday is my favorite class: The final performance.

Classes are 4 weeks long, and on the last night, we set aside 30 minutes where friends and family can come, and the students do a little performance. I’ve been teaching these classes for a long time, and without fail, the students are spectacular in this performance.

While they are funny in class, having an audience there really ramps it up. Their characters are stronger. Their “yes, and-ing” is more enthusiastic. Their physicality jumps levels.

Every single time.

Also, every single time they say they are nervous and don’t really want an audience. But, an audience they get.

And I explain to them you won’t see what you are really capable of until you raise the stakes.

Have you raised your stakes?

Athletes at last summer’s Paris Olympic Games set 17 new world records. That number is low for an Olympics. In Beijing in 2008, athletes set 30 new world records. Indeed, if stakes didn’t matter, we’d expect people to be setting records in practices. Now, I get that timing isn’t official in practices, so they wouldn’t count even if they did. But there’s something different about competing that makes you go a bit higher and a bit faster.

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So, if you’re feeling stuck, I asked, you: Have you raised your stakes?

Have you tried something new? Said yes to a stretch assignment? Opened your mouth in a meeting when you normally sit silently?

Safe is fine, but you won’t achieve greatness

An improv class is super fun and I highly recommend it for everyone! And an improv class room is a safe environment. Everyone is in the same boat and one of the basic principles is “fail with joy” so everyone tends to be supportive. (In my classes, they are for sure! YMMV.) But you will never make an audience laugh without taking that risk to get on a stage in front of an audience!

It’s the same with your career. You can take a safe job. And, literally, there is nothing wrong with that.You maybe very happy with that, and that’s fine. But if you’re not happy with that, you need to raise your stakes a bit.

Or a lot.

And if you’re in Basel on Monday, come see my beginners improv their hearts out. I guarantee laughs. Because they always perform better when the stakes are high!

The post Nobody Sets a World Record in a Practice appeared first on Improve Your HR.

If you prefer to listen, you can listen here: Diabolically Funny

And I actually had a real improv performance the same night we recorded this. Here are some highlights!

 

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The post Diabolically Funny: Evil HR Lady Does Improv appeared first on Improve Your HR.

What is Festivus? Seinfeld writer Dan O’Keef created Festivus and made it part of the show in the 1990s. It has three main elements:

● Airing of grievances

● Feats of strength

● Festivus miracles

At HRLearns, we know more than anybody just how many grievances HR has to deal with and what feats of strength we have to perform in these jobs, and we see miracles regularly!

HR Festivus is a free, fun day of knowledge and complaining! You can pop in and out. Attend it all, or only attend the parts you can. (If you want HRCI or SHRM credit for the eligible sessions, you’ll have to attend that hour!) Sponsored by HRLearns, with our Partners:

But what does this have to do with Improv-ing your HR?

Well, Improv is fun and this will be fun as well. But at 4:00 Eastern I’ll be teaching you some games that you can use in your business!

Here’s the schedule:

#1: 11:30 AM Eastern: Opening Ceremonies: Airing of Grievances

A lively introduction to HR Festivus 2024, setting the tone with humor and camaraderie. Includes an anonymous grievance-sharing session and live voting on categories such as “Most Relatable Grievance” and “Funniest Grievance.”

#2: 12:00 PM Eastern: What the Legal Landscape Looks Like for 2025

A pre-approved HRCI/SHRM session featuring, Amy Epstein Gluck , and Michael Elkins, covering key legal updates for 2025.

#3: 1:00 PM Eastern: Feats of Strength Challenge (Sponsored by Snappy)

A Kahoot-based trivia game testing HR knowledge, from FMLA to OSHA, with Snappy-sponsored prizes for winners.

#4: Michael VanDervort: Managing Grievances in your office. 2:00 PM Eastern. Michael is a labor and union expert who can walk you through everything you need to know about grievances. A pre-approved HRCI/SHRM session

#5: 3:00 PM Eastern: Festivus Miracles Panel Discussion

Panel discussion with Kara D Kelley, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Victoria Purser, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, and me, Suzanne Lucas, highlighting key HR accomplishments from 2024. Audience members can share their own “HR miracles” in the chat.

#6: 4:00 PM Eastern: Let’s Build Those Teams!

A team-building improv session hosted by me and my Boutique Theatre Basel ensemble member and public speaking coach Tristan Hardman-Dodd. Learn some improv games you can implement for team building and brain expansion in your office. You can participate or watch silently. Either way, you’re guaranteed to laugh!

#7: 5:00 PM Eastern: Closing Remarks and Final Contest Results

Wrap-up of the day’s events, announcement of contest winners, and final thanks to attendees and sponsors.

So please join us by registering at HRLearns:

HR Festivus

You can join for 15 minutes or all 6 hours! Pop in and out. Drink your favorite work-approved beverage and have fun while learning and gaining SHRM and HRCI credit.

The post HR Festivus: The Holiday You Didn’t Know You Needed appeared first on Improve Your HR.