Review
Improvisational theatre may seem a far cry from modern business but in fact it is highly relevant. By looking through that particular lens this book offers a different way to engage with and respond to the complexities and uncertainties of leading organisations into an era when creativity and change are of paramount importance. This book wears its well grounded learning lightly and is confident enough to side step the more stultifying academic conventions and focus on clear communication. And therein lies a great deal of its value. --Marshall Young, Director, Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme, University of Oxford
Product Description
You have planned in detail, thought of every contingency, put back up measures in place. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, something you didn t think of, that upsets your careful preparation goes right ahead and happens, just when you least expected it. This experience is universal. The dead don't improvise, but if you are alive you do. Improvisation is part of every conversation, meeting, presentation, design, process or strategy. Business leaders, managers, teachers, cooks, parents all have to improvise, as, in fact, does anyone that works with.... other people. This book tells the story of a collision between business and the art of improvisational theater. It recounts one business person s adventure in the improvisational world and how he finds universal utility in an unlikely place, uncovering examples and stories of improvisation in action worldwide. Everything s an Offer explains how the practices of improvisational theatre can help you make more with what you have, using less effort, less energy and less resources (whilst creating less difficulty and stress). It demonstrates how this small set of practices act as the basic building blocks of communication and relationships and illustrates, with myriad examples and stories, how adopting them makes life and work simpler, easier, more fun and more productive. It suggests how anybody leading a busy and complicated life can put these ideas into action and why doing so will help them lead a more satisfying, creative and sustainable life. It extends the applications of improvisational theater far beyond it's obvious use in the business world for team cohesion and individual motivation. It explores the possibility that improvisation is a new language for business - a language that has been used by Fortune 500 companies such as Nike, Intel and FedEx to help them communicate better, build stronger relationships internally and with customers, propell people into action and get to new ideas and solutions.
