Course description

As a BRM your environment may change hundreds of times within the scope of one day. Understanding the nuances of each of these environments has a tremendous impact on your ability to perform at your peak and provide maximum value to your business partners. Practicing improvisational techniques will allow you to quickly analyze changing conditions and communicate quickly and effectively as they are happening. Improvisational leaders enhance their ability to interpret and adapt to their ever-changing surroundings. This is done with an omnipresent focus on their goals.

This course develops your ability for “yes and” — we’re all highly skilled and practiced at critiquing, judging and defining. We are adept at saying no. The “yes and” approach gives us the ability to respond to potentially stressful situations in a more relaxed, productive, and relationship-building approach. These two words have a powerful effect in all relationships, motivation, and creativity. “Yes and” can be used to positively refocus unproductive conversations, and to redirect brainstorming to be more effective. As a wonderful side-benefit, these skills help us be more amicable, popular, and influential in personal relationships as well.

Who should attend

This course is targeted toward business relationship managers and those with business relationship management tasks.

What you will achieve

• Build a stronger presence.
• Develop and practice positive attitudes.
• Demonstrate healthy risk taking.
• Build on strengths.

What you will learn

• Gain skills to handle complexity and ambiguity.
• Increase innovation in everyday interaction.
• Enhance morale with business partners and providers.
• Gain skills to create a more energetic culture.

Course Outline

Module 1: Improvisational Leaders

• Great Leaders in Action
• Five Improvisational Keys
• The Many Advantages Improv Leaders Have

Module 2: Our Brains on Improv

• How our Brains React to Leaders

How to Enable Good Brain Responses

Module 3: Art of Agreement

• “Yes And”
• Developing the Agreement Muscles
• “Yes, Lets”
• Developing the Ability to Build on Others’ Ideas
• Positively Leading and Redirecting Conversations with These Approaches

Module 4: Innovation

• Using “Yes and” for Greater Creativity
• Practice Brainstorming in Various Conversations with Several “Yes And” Tools
• Redirecting Poor Quality Thinking Without Diminishing Enthusiasm
• Goal Clarity
• The Power of Diversity for Rich Brainstorming

Module 5: Creative Conflict

• Preventing Conflict
• Using Improv Methods to Keep People Focused on a Common Goal
• Using “Yes And” to Redirect (and Avoid) Unnecessary Conflict
• Purposefully Using Creative Conflict to Help Shift Perspectives and Find Common Ground

Module 6: Using Improvisational Leadership in Our Daily Lives

• Brainstorming Application Ideas
• Planning to Use “Yes And” at Work and at Home