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Quantum Leap Business Improv
Improvisation,
Storytelling and Theater-based Organizational Programs for Leaps in Thinking, Being and Innovating
We are pioneers in the field of Applied Improvisation.
Since the late nineties, we have been using Improv-based Principles and Practices with business organizations, non-profits,
business leaders and professional development groups. CEO Michelle James has been doing improv since 1996, is a member of
the Applied Improvisation Network and performed full-length improvised plays with a professional improv troupe from 2001-2010.
Go to our Media page for interviews with Federal News Radio and others. We customize programs based upon your learning objectives and business goals
in areas such as:
• Team and Community Building • Creative
Thinking • Innovation • Product Development
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• New Solution Finding • Change Management • Idea Generation • Vision & Strategy Development
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• Jumpstarting Inspiration • Risk Taking •
Innovative Culture • Organizational Storytelling
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Why Improv?
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Improv
and Inspiration
• Raises energy, alertness and positive feelings • Engages & integrates different parts
of the brain & body • Unleashes an aliveness only found in the moment • Increases self awareness
and expands self concept • Becomes self motivating because it’s fun • Awakens & focuses previously
dormant creative potential • Generates edge-of-your-seat excitement
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Improv
and Ideation
• Creates new neural pathways and releases endorphins • Fosters the ability
to think on your feet & under pressure • Develops confidence in navigating the unknown • Generate
more novel ideas in a shorter amount of time • Develops flexible thinking • Activates the imagination
in new and surprising ways • Expands the "playing field" of the mind
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Improv
and Innovation
• Enables more risk taking and spontaneous behaviors • Shakes people out
of traditional ways of doing things • Increases ability to add to other’s ideas in inventive ways •
Challenges assumptions • Breaks habitual patterns of thinking, being, and doing • Fosters experimentation
without fear of failure • Allows new patterns, directions & prototypes to emerge
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Improv
and the Creative Team/Culture
• Instantly equalizes every member of the group • Breaks
down barriers quickly and non-threateningly • Sets the stage for ongoing generative co-creation • Increases
trust between team/group/org. members • Fosters thinking in terms of OURS. “Look what WE did!” •
Enhances the skill of supporting; giving and receiving • Engages the whole person & whole team
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Once people feel comfortable, there is no end to what
they can accomplish. Improv-based learning helps people feel comfortable with their creativity: putting ideas out there, taking
more risks, making mistakes and accepting others.
Workshops and Programs
We customize
our improv-based workshop or program for you. Topics have included improv for leaders, innovation and implementation, inspiration, team building, creative thinking, thinking on your feet, the act of
discovery, creative culture and the principles and
practices in action among others. Our workshops run
anywhere from a half-day in-house to a 5-day off-site retreat, and we have ongoing programs with coaching as well.
Performances and Live Industrials
Quantum Leap Theater uses scripted live performances
as a tool for creativity, innovation, and team building/group co-creating. From live industrials to interactive performances
to part scripted/part improvised learning performances, we use theater and storytelling in whatever way best suits your organizational
development needs.
Improv Train-the-Trainer
We offer a program called Creative Facilitation Using Improv for anyone who leads or trains groups. We come into your organization or do an off-site retreat and train your facilitators
and trainers to use easy-to-apply improv techniques with your staff. This is also one of our public workshops.
Improviganza! Events Office parties, holiday soirees, awards ceremonies, executive
retreats...you name it. If you have an event, we can design an improv-based program to bring it to life! Who needs to
hire outside entertainment when you've got the creative goods right there within your organization's people?! Your collective
creativity IS the entertainment. We just create the context for that to happen in fun, safe and easy ways - and ways that
make people feel good about themselves and each other. It will be the talk of the water cooler...
How We Work
Call us for a free consultation and tell
us your issue. We'll discuss options and recommendations, and how we would approach the issue. It may be just one person coming
it to facilitate, or it may be a team of performers. It depends on your needs and choices.
Our
Pioneering Clients
Organizations who have used our improv-based programs include Panasonic, Deloitte, Microsoft,
RAPP, GEICO Insurance, World Bank, Kaiser Permanente, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Invest Northern Ireland,
National Institutes of Health, Center for Nonprofit Advancement, Create Express, MoCo Council of Arts & Humanities, Association
of Performing Arts Presenters and Service Employees International Union among others.
Michelle's
Improv Story
I have studied and practiced
improv since 1996. I’ve experienced short-form, long-form, and "tornado" form improv, and performed full-length,
completely improvised plays for from 2001 to 2010. Each week, a unique and different play emerged from our troupe of 4 or 5. When it worked, it looked like magic.
Our audience would say, "That HAD to be scripted." It wasn’t. But when it didn't, they'd say, "That looked
hard." It was.
I became fascinated
by what mades improv work. What creates peak level creativity in our group and others? What allows a coherent, sense-making
structure to emerge from nothing but a location? Why did it work sometimes and not as well at others? I discovered it was
all about being present, committing to the good of the whole and adhering to the improv principles and "ways of being"
(i.e., Make everyone else look good and Yes And).
If the improvisers adhered to certain ways of being, creativity would skyrocket. And so would the coherence
of the play. The brain is naturally a meaning making system, and I observed a self-organized logic that would show up in the
better plays that was lacking in the others. The more in-the-moment the performers would stay (in other words, getting out
of our own way), and the more supportive of their team, the more coherent and organized the play would be.
I became a serious student of improv theory - reading
the seminal books in the field and observing the patterns in my group and other groups. I soon recognized the connections
between adhering to the principles of improvisational theater in a performance and being able to adapt, create and improvise
effectively in the work place. The same principles that allow a performing group to create a 90-minute play out of nothing
but a location are the same principles that allow groups, teams, and organizations to solve problems in new ways and reach
peak levels of creativity and innovative thinking, and become a more cohesive team. The principles are the container that
allow individuals to innovate and the self-organizing creativity of a group to get to the next level.
Passionate about the transformative power of improv outside
of the performance setting, I teamed up with other like-minded souls who do similar work and established Quantum Leap Business
Improv.
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