Your Workplace, you’re Centre-Stage: Improvisation Skills to Elevate your Connection and Impact at Work
“Improvisers don’t have time to hypothesise about the future of an idea. If you bring me an idea or a brick, I can’t consider if it’s viable for the rest of the show; I just have to trust that it is and know the process will land us somewhere interesting. In businesses, leaders often assess the future of an idea instantly and may deny it, rather than just saying, ‘Yes, and let’s build on this idea.’ The improviser remembers the past, honours the present, and cares not for the future.”
Broni Lisle
Broni Lisle, a seasoned improv performer with decades of experience, shares how the art of improvisation can radically reshape the way teams communicate, collaborate, and innovate. Drawing from his work both on stage and in business settings, Broni Lisle reveals how improv helps individuals embrace spontaneity, listen deeply, and create a culture of trust and openness. Whether he’s guiding a corporate team or commanding a live audience, Broni shows how improvisation can break down barriers, foster creativity and bring fresh ideas forward where traditional methods fail.
Tune in to discover how you can apply these game-changing improvisational techniques to your business. Broni’s insights are sure to spark creativity and open new doors for your team’s success. Listen now!
In this episode you’ll hear about
- Building stronger communication in your team
- Fostering trust through vulnerability
- The importance of spontaneity and playfulness
- Overcoming your inner critic and embracing innovation
- The importance of listening to connect, not to respond
- Redefining the standard ‘Yes, and’ to a ‘Hell Yeah’
Key links
Broni Lisle LinkedIn
Improv Conspiracy podcast
Growth Factory website
Spontoon TV on YouTube
About our guest
Broni has been a professional performing artist and creative for 23 years. A theatre practitioner, writer, actor, songwriter, musician and all the et ceteras in between. Over a career of thousands of stage shows, international and national tours, radio play and countless hours in rehearsal rooms, Broni has distilled his values and passion in the performing arts down to a few things; authenticity, trust, and whimsy. These values dictate the projects and the people worth collaborating on and with.
In addition, Broni holds degrees in Theatre and Education and is an expert teacher, director and facilitator of improvisation, theatre and music.
Broni works with corporate individuals and teams on becoming better communicators, collaborators and improving their creativity, ultimately creating a happier workplace.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.
Transcript
Chris Hudson: 0:07
Hello and welcome back to the company road podcast where we explore what it takes to change a company and what people like you, the listeners need to do or can do to change those companies. And I’m Chris, your host. And today we’re in for a treat as we dive into the world of improvisation and its surprising applications for business in the corporate sphere. And our guest today is Broni, who’s a true maestro of the unexpected, and for over a couple of decades, Broni has been captivating audiences as a professional performing artist. And he wears many hats, including actor, writer, musician, songwriter, but what really sets him apart is his mastery of improvisation. So you might know Broni from his work with the renowned Theatre Company in Melbourne that’s famous for their unique approach to live performance. And picture this, so the audience provides just one word. And from that moment, the entire show just unfolds in front of you, and it’s completely improvised on the spot. It’s a real testament to the power of thinking on your feet and embracing the unknown. He doesn’t just keep his improv skills on the stage, he’s taking his expertise into the corporate world, and he helps teams and individuals become better communicators and collaborators and creatives, and it’s all through the magic of play, really. So I can personally attest to Broni’s transformative power. And Methods, I had the privilege of participating in one of his improv workshops with the leadership team of a digital consultancy a few years back. And I can tell you it was, yeah, one hell of a ride, really challenged us and it pushed us out of our comfort zones and opened our eyes to new possibilities in ways that you wouldn’t really expect. So today we’re going to look at how entrepreneurs like you, innovative people and spirits working within established companies can really harness the principles of improvisation to drive change and foster creativity in your organisations. But without further ado, let’s welcome. Broni to the company road podcast. Broni. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Broni Lisle: 1:47
Hello, Chris. Thanks for having me. That was a lovely introduction. Yeah. Thank you. Very interesting.
Chris Hudson: 1:52
Are we ready to improvise or let’s go. That’s plenty for me to work off. Yeah, that’s all we get. Tell us a bit about you and you know, how did the worlds of business and improv come together for you?
Broni Lisle: 2:03
I used to work in a high school for about a decade, and whilst I was there I began doing improv as a hobby. And more and more I just got enamoured by the art form and the philosophies around it, and the community that it builds, and the collaborative spirit, and the like, internal structures of support for one another, and making each other feel valued, and just found that I just felt better at improvising. That, in that environment, like, as a whole person, I just felt warmer, if that makes sense, than I did at work where we were supposed to be also collaborating and sharing ideas and building on each other’s ideas together. And it became really obvious that I knew that improv applied to corporate work and had been doing so for years, especially in the U S I have some friends who do it. I knew of it as an idea. It wasn’t until I was really feeling the juxtaposition between the two environments that I was like, a necessity for businesses. Just the mindset of making each other feel good for existing in the space and earnestly pursuing a goal together is such an important thing for building a culture where people want to come back with ideas every day. Waking up in the morning excited to bring ideas to work is not something I had felt at my job. It seemed like essential and that’s why I started pursuing it.
Chris Hudson: 3:21
Yeah, yeah. All right. How’s it going for you? I mean, as you made that transition and you were looking into presumably like a number of unknown businesses where you’re basically just launched into a room and a room full of people. What’s going through your mind when you do that? And how do you kind of open it up and where do you start?
Broni Lisle: 3:38
It’s going well. I’ve never had a bad experience, yet, so that’s very fortunate of that. I kind of love it in terms of throwing people out of their comfort zone. It’s a short venture out, I think, and it’s very easy to bring them back into a different form of comfort. I reckon maybe, maybe not. 80 percent of people who hire me, the bosses, the leaders of whatever group I’m working with, they’ll inevitably pull me aside and say like, oh, you’re going to have trouble with my group. Like they’re not very talkative or they’re very closed minded. These managers have these very like fixed ideas of their team. And I relish in that comment. Like, cause I’m usually like, I don’t think that’ll be true. If we play for, 20 minutes I’ll get them out of their shells. And then, like, it’s just not true. Once we start playing and I open up the stakes free environment without those hierarchical structures, it kind of is revealing that, oh, they might be closed minded to you, the manager, but look at them now in an environment where play is at the, at the heart of it. So it’s usually this euphoric experience most of the time. I have a ball doing it. And also, you know, I think some things that are like kind of commonplace and obvious to an improviser are seemingly profound to a lot of corporate teams. Sometimes I’ll just, people’s eyes will go so wide and they’ll be like, Oh, I should listen. I need to listen better. And it’s like, yeah, isn’t that obvious? It’s a great joy. Even if I taught the same lesson a million times, which I don’t, but if it was exactly the same exercises every day. day, it would be wonderful because the people are different. So
Chris Hudson: 5:11
a lot of people jump into, I try to run a workshop and they could be within your team or outside in terms of getting somebody in, but that’s sometimes done. And it’s almost at odds with the culture of the business. And people like from the moment and from the offer, just you can see them, the shoulders are tensing up and they’re just like not ready to participate. And they’ve just walked in and they’re holding the lunch or whatever it is. That kind of organised fun aspect is kind of hard to just switch on and go. So is there a way. which people should be, I guess, preparing the room or preparing people for this kind of work so that it’s a bit easier than that because not everyone wants to just jump in and do a dance, you know?
Broni Lisle: 5:48
Yeah, sometimes I’ll walk in and the manager or leader will tell me That their team doesn’t know what’s about to happen, and sometimes a little bit like, Oh, I don’t know if that was the right call to have me be a like, shock, surprise, you’re about to do improv comedy, like that, that is gonna strike a lot of fear in people’s hearts. But I also don’t know if telling them the day before is wise either. I don’t know the right answer to that, but I would say, in terms of preparing, the most I ask for is wear comfortable clothes, so that you don’t feel weird about crouching on the floor at some point. And then the other. I think I usually say anything under two hours is not helpful and two hours is barely enough as well. Because that first hour is really spent bringing everyone’s walls down and getting rid of those shoulders that you mentioned. Raising those shoulders up and getting them open to the work. And that just takes time because everyone is protective at first. When something new comes along and it’s uncomfortable, they’ll protect themselves. So you just need to make them feel like safe. in that space before they can play properly.
Chris Hudson: 6:53
I’ve seen it unfold obviously in the workshop myself and I feel like it starts in that way and everything’s a little bit cagey and then people get a bit used to it and the more you see your colleagues do basically the more you feel it’s okay to do something yourself. Yeah. Everyone’s still on that level but at the end the energy is like way up. It’s also a different feeling at the end obviously to the beginning because of that. That must be designed and deliberate right?
Broni Lisle: 7:17
Yeah very deliberate and also really rewarding like I There’s always at least one tall man who has his arms crossed and is almost not letting any of the words I say in. And I see that as, yeah, maybe it was, yeah, just going, okay, yeah, yeah, all right, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good in theory, but yeah, we’ll see what happens. And then, um, yeah, by the end that person’s laughing and having a good time. And that like, that feels good for me. I just feel like that’s another successful workshop, you know?
Chris Hudson: 7:53
Yeah. Yeah. I remember like my feeling. Doing it was that I didn’t want to be called out, but I felt I was called out at times because I was just going with a stream of consciousness and it was coming out and I ended up being quite rude to one of my colleagues. I thought, Oh shit, this isn’t good, but I guess that stuff happens. Part of the experience, right?
Broni Lisle: 8:10
It is part of the experience. And also sometimes I’m asked to do role playing, place role playing, and I tend to steer away from that because that brings with it a lot of personal stuff. It’s much harder to ask you to be impulsive in a work situation If you’re talking to a colleague in a pretend work environment, that’s hard for you to actually be impulsive and learn about how you communicate. So like I try to create stakes free scenarios where there is no status in the room. And so you can be impulsive and we can learn communication whilst talking about being fairies in the woods. And then you can learn communication through those make believe scenarios and see how you naturally show up in conversation.
Chris Hudson: 8:53
It’s kind of like a muscle. You’re just sort of trying to exercise it a little bit so that when you apply it to like a serious conversation, you’re able to do that too. Is that how it works?
Broni Lisle: 9:02
Yeah, because your authentic instincts still show up. Right. So If you’re a truck driver driving into state with a hitchhiker in an improv scene and you’re still, I’m asking you to respond to the last thing said and give an opinion and listen to each other, you’re still you, right? You’re still, all your internal mechanisms are still operating as they usually do. You just have this veil on of this truck driver character or whatever. So there’s still heaps to show you in terms of like shining a light on Your base level communication style and instincts and where you do and you do not listen and that sort of stuff. It’s much easier to absorb the feedback when you’re told that when you were playing that truck driver, did you realise you weren’t listening to the person who was saying X, Y, and Z? And it’s like, it doesn’t feel like a personal attack as much as it does if I was telling you to do a client and sales scenario and, Then I tell you off for your bad communication. That feels much more like I’ve attacked you at the thing that you’re supposed to be good at.
Chris Hudson: 9:59
So you’re almost creating a distance between the, the subject matter is the part that’s distanced and then it’s still worrying how you would do it. But obviously the scenario is somewhat fictitious and it’s a bit of fun and so you can practice in that and it’s almost a safe space. Is that?
Broni Lisle: 10:12
Exactly. And then I sort of ask you to do the mental work of how what I just said applies to you and your work. I’m not walking into every business. Like, I know how that industry works, and that would be insane. I walk in telling you that I’m An expert in communication and improvisation, and that’s it. So I’ll tell you what I see and then you can apply it to your work.
Chris Hudson: 10:33
Can you tell us a bit and give us an insight into how improv artists work together, and maybe using your show or something else as an example, but it’s thinking about how you basically riff off each other and how that ends up being most of the techniques that you’ve learned and you’ve been able to apply and you enjoyed. Doing so that people can hear that a little bit
Broni Lisle: 10:51
at its best if a show has gone perfectly well Then the main things that occurred were we trusted each other and that trust goes many ways It’s like I trusted myself. I trusted you I trusted that you were trusting yourself And I trusted that you were trusting me And I trust that you trust that I trust you. Trust is the number one thing. Because also you’re in the greatest enemy of improv is the inner critic. So similar to an ideation room or a brainstorming session, the biggest enemy there is the inner critic. It’s like you just prejudging your own thoughts. Inner critic is the loudest voice in the room. It always lies to you, and you always believe it. That’s the devil. It keeps you safe on the street. There’s nothing wrong with having it in a critic. The ego is not a dirty word. It keeps you safe. But in a room where you’re supposed to collaborate, it’s not helpful. So that’s the first thing. Trust has occurred. Me and my best mate, who I’ve done a show with for ten years, the thing that we say to each other before the show starts is, our intro music will be playing, and I’ll say, I’m gonna earn your trust and the audience’s trust, and then I’m gonna mess with both of you. Because once we have that trust there, then we can get playful with the things that we know. And the way that we establish things that we know is, as you mentioned at the top, we get a suggestion of a word. And then that word will evoke, could evoke an emotion, it could evoke a location, it could evoke character, like, physicality. If the word was sponge, I might be, like, feeling like, Absorb everyone’s problems. So I’m a little bit of a meek character. I might do this, you know, or a sponge might make me just think I’m in a kitchen. So I might just walk into a kitchen, start washing a plate, and that’s all I’ll do. I’ll just do one thing. And then we call that bringing a brick. And then my scene partner will step in and probably. open the fridge, and that’s their brick. Then the most important thing is check in with each other, so make eye contact before you speak, check in with how each other feel, and then it’s have an opinion. I might say, long day, and that’s the very first line of a 50 minute show, and long day is my second brick, and together we They’ll respond to long day, and we just go like that for 50 minutes. And this is why I come back to it every week, and I haven’t gotten tired of it because it ends in places you never would expect. It’s generally pretty grounded in reality, so it will feel like a play. The characters are pretty flawed and weird, but rarely do our shows lack logic. Sometimes it does flashbacks and you see a character filled out through history, or you see a character in a linear world. story or you see two characters who never leave that room for 50 minutes and we have a deep conversation in that room. If the show always landed where I thought it was going to land, I would have quit first year because my thought patterns are always going to be very similar, but my thought patterns plus your thought patterns are always going to mix differently, and so you and together are an infinite resource, whereas I personally would be a finite resource in terms of things that inspire me.
Chris Hudson: 13:48
I think from that, there’s a lot you can apply from business into a business context because it isn’t usually just you and you’re usually with other people and your possibilities are therefore much more endless than they would be if it was just you running the whole show, right? So it’s, there’s a contingency, there’s a dependency on other people. You need to be able to get the best out of people and I think, do you think some of these techniques would help with that?
Broni Lisle: 14:10
Oh yeah. I think one of the biggest ones is that improvisers don’t have time to hypothesise the future of an idea. So if you brought me an idea or a brick or whatever, I don’t have time to consider whether or not that’s viable for the rest of the show. I just have to trust that it is and know that the process will land us somewhere interesting. And I think something that happens in businesses a lot of the time is whoever’s leading the ideation or whatever it is, they have the hypothetical future mind on. They’ll hear an idea and they’ll instantly assess the future of it and then they’ll deny that one instead of going like well let’s just yes and that one for a second and I’ll bring a brick to that and let’s and let’s build the little wall and then go then we can judge it and go like oh actually no rather than having that instant thought. of judgment. I think that’s probably the biggest area where improv serves in terms of having a team be greater than the sum of their parts, because I don’t know where I first heard this, but I often say, and I’m definitely paraphrasing someone in my past, the improviser remembers the past, honours the present, and cares not for the future, because the future is a hypothesis.
Chris Hudson: 15:16
And that judgment comes in so much, right? I feel like everything is assessed as being complete wall, but it’s like to brick a lot of the time people bring in the bricks, but they don’t bring in the finished building, right?
Broni Lisle: 15:26
That’s it. Yeah. If you judge someone’s brick, like it was a building, they go like, Oh wait, no, no, no. I was just bringing a brick. Brick. You made it sound like I brought you a shitty house, but I just brought you a brick. A funny thing happens with some improvisers I work with. Once we go to write something down, like we want to work on a script together or something, and then I’m always in improv mode. So I’m always in like, what about this? What about this? What about this? I’ll say, what about this? It’s like, it’s a little brick. And then they’ll be like, what about this? Oh, that’s a weird house. You know what I mean? And I’m like, no, no, like I’m wanting you to yes and that. And let’s find out. I’m not, don’t judge me for my tiny house.
Chris Hudson: 16:04
I think back to school, right? This is bringing up some memories. If I was going into my art teacher and I’d prepared a set of very finely finely drawn or painted bricks and they were looked at as being a finished piece but in fact they were just bricks then I was probably expecting that there’d be some evolution from that and maybe some feedback that would help me get to beautiful Gaudi building instead of it just being brick but I feel like a lot of people have been in that situation where they’ve been pretty much stung badly from rejection in the past for something that they’ve thrown in there and it’s just gone terribly so how do we get over that?
Broni Lisle: 16:42
You having that past and having that experience means that you then, as someone who is collaborating, being the best you can do is not pass that feeling on to others. And I find that we all, as I said, we all have that inner critic. And I think even like a scrunched face, if I go like, what about this? And you go, Hmm. That face will make my inner critic walk all straight in the door and go like, you know, I knew it. That was a stupid idea. Why’d you bring it up? It’s no one’s fault. They were just thinking about it. I would say even if you can turn your consideration face into like a hell yeah face, like I, you know, eyebrows up. I’m excited to think about this. I’ve got to practice that one too, so. When it looks like the thinking about your idea is a bit, Concern that makes you go like, Oh God, what a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have brought this in. But if it’s like a, Whoa, cool. I’m keen to think about that. Then it’s like, Oh, cool. Okay. I’ll
Chris Hudson: 17:33
come to this person all the time. So body language, right? So how presenting in terms of when we’re receiving information, how are we showing up?
Broni Lisle: 17:41
Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah.
Chris Hudson: 17:42
You mentioned the arms crossed at the start, but presumably you’re looking for those cues. You’re doing improv and looking at how people are responding to you in the workshops as well.
Broni Lisle: 17:50
Oh definitely. When I’m running a workshop for sure I’m scanning that the whole time. Pretty simple high school level education techniques that still do serve you in that scenario where your arms are crossed. I might just casually reference you in the next exercise. Straight away I’ll just be like, how’s that Chris? And you’ll be like, oh shit, I am seen. And then eventually the arms will come down. But yeah, both in the improv and in teaching improv, it’s constantly assessing who’s on board, who’s not on board. And how do I help them get on board and help them see the light?
Chris Hudson: 18:25
So it’s kind of like a support team. I mean, I know you’re kind of cajoling them into action, but you’re trying to support them in some sort of way. Oh, 100%. Like, you want them to shine, ideally, because that brings more of them to the conversation, to the ideation, the things that you’re doing, right?
Broni Lisle: 18:39
Yeah, even, I mean, the most resistant person, I don’t blame them. It’s a terrifying and vulnerable art form. I’m asking you to go up unfiltered and say something off the top of your head. Especially amongst your work colleagues, and some people it’s like, it’ll be like, oh we’ve hired five new people, we’d like to get them bonded to the group. It’s like, what a terrifying way to meet your colleagues. And so I totally get it. And I say this to people who I’ve been teaching for years. They’ve been doing improv for a couple of years, and I still think it’s incredible that you, 90 percent of people would never do what you’re doing. They wouldn’t step up in front of everyone and speak their truth off the cuff. So it’s vulnerable. And I totally get that. My whole thing is that inner critic thing. So the guy with their arms crossed, you being resistant at the start of that session. I don’t ever read that as a personal judgment or a Anything like that. It’s, it’s usually you and your inner critic and fear and all that. Yeah, I absolutely care for you through that process because it’s, I don’t know why I would do anything else other than that.
Chris Hudson: 19:39
It’s definitely a feeling when you’re running these projects in companies and organisations that they’re going to be people on your side. So you’re going to have your allies. They’re going to be people that are going to be detracting in some sort of way. because they’re standing up for what they believe in obviously and they’ve got knowledge in a particular area or whatever it is you’re trying to make it your mission sometimes to win those people over and when you do it’s then okay everyone’s on board and then and then you go like the whole team is just swimming the right way and and full speed ahead so that can be incredibly satisfying but i think it’s the challenge and probably the feeling of confrontation up front where you and that other person or you’re just not seeing eye to eye on the same thing but are there techniques that can be used you think for bringing that agenda to one place and it almost appearing then to be a shared agenda in some way.
Broni Lisle: 20:23
Kindness.
Chris Hudson: 20:24
So you don’t match their face and kind of arms crossed and no, yeah. Sort of standoff.
Broni Lisle: 20:33
No, I try not to. And certainly sometimes I’ve had situations where you definitely feel that very human instinct rise in you where it’s like, this is oppositional right now. And like I could combat that. I do consider myself a candid person. I might address, Hey Chris, it’s clear you’re not on board. That’s fine. I’ve still got your back. And so when, whenever you’re ready to get involved, I’m happy to have you. I think it just usually is a fear thing. Like it’s a protective thing. The person who is holding strong to their beliefs or whatever the thing that they don’t actually need. whatever I’m trying to help them see or whatever. That’s all just fear and learning is uncomfortable and the older we get, the more that we don’t want to be in uncomfortable learning environments. And so I think matching that opposer with kindness and care will make them kind of go like, Oh, I’m the one who’s being an idiot here. You know what I mean? Like I’m letting myself down, letting the team down, like look at all the fun that’s apparently happening. This guy didn’t even give me shit back. Because I could give you shit, right? That would just make you more stubborn, probably. So I’m just going to be as kind as possible and show you over and over that I get why you’re doing what you’re doing. I think we put all these perceived stakes on our work life, and I just don’t think anything’s that serious. I mean, unless you’re, you know, saving lives. I just think a lot of the stakes at work are perceived and made up. And so like, when I’m in that space and I’m trying to teach you to be playful and impulsive and trust each other, I think I would be hypocritical if I was getting defensive about my own work and anything like that. So I’m usually just like, laissez faire. If you’re not on board, that’s fine. Have some water if you need. Take a seat. And then you’ll watch all this fun happen. And I don’t even have to tell you that, but you’ll see all the fun happen and you might end up getting involved. And as I said, that’s been really rare. I reckon maybe one guy. In the past is absolutely not on board.
Chris Hudson: 22:23
Well, that’s good. That’s reassuring. The world of work can be an intense place. And I think it does take itself quite seriously. I had a boss when I first started out, always talked about something went wrong, didn’t matter too much because nobody’s going to die in a ditch. He used to say, it is taken seriously because you’re in there in a paid position, your expectations around you. You’ve got goals and targets and all these things that people have obviously Let it really get to them. Some people have unfortunately taken their own lives. Other things have happened because mental health has suffered as a result. So anything sort of springing to mind is that can keep your own mind sane in that stress and high pressured environment.
Broni Lisle: 22:59
Look out for each other. I think if your team, the people you work with, if there’s a strong values around collaboration and valuing each other. I think we should be leaving work happy, and coming to work happy, and then like, absolutely the things that happen at work matter, and the targets, and the finances, and all those things, they absolutely matter. As your old boss said, you know, no one’s dying in a ditch because of a thing that happens at work. From the smallest moments to the biggest moments, if there’s a fostering of thank you for participating and a feeling of like, I’m hearing you, I’m listening to you. When you speak, my eyes are wide. I’m excited to talk to you. You stopped me in a hallway. I’m not going to be like, Oh, got to get back to my, what, what, what do you want? There’s none of that. There should always be time for each other. Like what’s the rush. You can lead by just being a little calmer. Like if you’re a calm presence. Around the cacophony and chaos that goes a long
Chris Hudson: 23:55
way. How do you, are you naturally calm? And do you got strategies for that? Have you got a whole routine that you do to kind of keep your, your energy kind of low and chill, how do you, how do you do it?
Broni Lisle: 24:06
At work I’m calm, I’m privileged, my work is playful, so. And when I worked in IT at high school, I was pretty calm. Yeah, I wouldn’t say I’m a naturally calm person. I definitely am not. I get very stressed at home and things like that. I get stressed about my ambitions and goals that I want to achieve and time running out and all the life things and getting older, feeling like I’m past my prime. Things I wanted to have achieved by 40. I’m out of time. All that stuff. I get stressed about that stuff. I say that things at work are perceived, but that’s all perceived as well, like that’s all made up stuff. I have a couple of different, as you said at the top, I wear a couple of different hats, but there’s a, I guess my most team based work at the moment is I manage the theatre that I work at, The Improv Conspiracy, part time. I also run Growth Factory on my own, but at The Improv Conspiracy, you know, like we just had this festival, that’s very high stress, it’s busy, but you don’t need to be freaking out. Yeah, no one’s dying in a ditch is a great saying, it’s going to be okay. Let’s have a sit and a talk and a laugh, even if the world’s burning around us. It’s all just perceived burning. It doesn’t matter. Someone hasn’t shown up to Unlock the buildings. Like, okay, no worries. What’s the worst can happen. The worst thing for us is 50 people need their tickets refunded. It’s like, okay, you know? Yeah. Okay. So you’re playing for that. There’s probably people will listen to this guy. I’m like, yeah, but it’s different when I’m managing a portfolio of millions of dollars and I’m like, yeah, probably it is, but I don’t know, you can just. Chill out and get a coffee.
Chris Hudson: 25:36
Is it about our relationship with ambition sometimes? I think that that sort of goes hand in hand sometimes with the roles that people are in. But obviously you’re saying it’s perceived, but it’s also set and it feels like a fixed thing that got expectations for yourself. You know, your boss has got expectations for you. And some of that construct feels like it can weigh, weigh on us a little bit. So it might not be as easy to say like, okay, that doesn’t matter today because every day has to be a day contributing to that big goal in some way. Got to be on, on, on that understanding is relaxing a little bit now. And I think, you know, with neurodivergence and mental health, you know, some of these discussions that are more prevalent in the workplace. Now it just feels like they don’t always have to be on and it’s show time for eight hours solid, and then do the same the next day, the next day. And you’ve done a productive week when you’ve worked six or seven days of it. Yeah. It just feels like it’s an expectation, but I don’t know, maybe that’s changing. What’s your feeling?
Broni Lisle: 26:27
Well, yeah. When you. Say all that, I think about when I’m working at home on my own, I do get caught in like, I might fill my to do list too big on a given day. I’ll wake up and I’ll be really ambitious at 9am, I’ll be like, by 4 I’ll have all this done. That time is flying by and I’ve done two things on that to do list. I’m The most easily distractible person. I think that’s why improv is so good for me. Because go ask me to be present. Yes, please. Anything that keeps me focused on one thing at a time. That’d be lovely. I think when I’ve been able to be chill, it’s because there’s someone else in the room that’s grounding me. Wonderful example of this maybe. First I’ll finish the first thought. So I have this full to do list. My partner will have to remind me, Why don’t you go shoot the basketball a couple of times? Oh yeah, people take breaks at work. It’s allowed to like calm down and that’s like great leadership from her. Imagine that was my boss walking in and being like, Take a second. And it’s like, oh, thank you so much, because someone else’s voice has been like, it’s okay, because I think we get on our own hamster wheel and we’re like, I’m building up all these stakes in my own head. And a good leader might be able to go like, hey, half that stuff can wait. And it’s like, oh, thank you so much. That makes me feel so good. And now I can feel proud about the two things I’ve done instead of annoyed about the eight things I haven’t done. But I remember when I worked in IT, this is going back probably, I got to work one day, my boss was walking in the other direction. At that job, like, we would get thousands of emails a day, and everyone’s request was the most important request. The French teacher who has something that they need for Wednesday, it’s Monday today, but their thing on Wednesday is, needs to be dealt with now, and absolutely no awareness of it being a large organism of lots of needs. So like, you’re pulled in a million directions, so every day you’re getting to work, and you know that like, it’s just gonna be like, you start, The day of the day will end and you’ll have just been running around the school the whole time So I get to work and my boss is like walking in the opposite direction to the office And i’m just like where are you going? He goes i’ve decided it’s burger day and I was like, what does that mean? And he’s like i’m going down to make some burgers in the food tech rooms And he’s like do you want to come and I was like, yes And then, we spent the whole morning making burgers for the whole IT team. We’re like in the corner of a classroom. There’s a classroom ha there’s a class happening. We’re in the corner making our own burgers. For, we made like 30 burgers or something for IT and beyond. I don’t know, I just showed up for work for that guy ever since that. He just threw away a morning to make us all burgers and he was fine with me just coming with him and just foregoing work for the morning. It was considered work that we were making burgers for everyone and I was just like oh that’s, I’m working harder tomorrow because he did that. I just felt like that was great leadership in terms of like lowering the stakes of the everyday grind and just being like Let’s take a moment, have some burgers. Let’s make some fresh burgers. How fun will that be? It wasn’t this idea of planned fun. It wasn’t May 30th, everyone put in your calendars. We’re going to have a burger day and it’s mandatory and make sure you come with your favourite apron. And it wasn’t this like highly structured HR initiative. It was just a spur of the moment, spontaneity, random thing. And I was just like, Oh, random. Random delights could see you, you’d enjoy that.
Broni Lisle: 29:32
So it’s not the randomness of the email complaints I’m sure would be like stimulus for your, you probably did a show on this like years back as well, but all of the things that those people were writing about in the French department and so on, but it’s probably an avenue for just something else, right? I think that sort of circuit breaker, pardon Dan Andrews coining, but I think you can kind of, you can introduce that sometimes as a way of just sort of. Breaking away from the format, the meeting, the day to day, the grind. It needs that, but it needs someone to suggest it in a way that’s kind of approachable. Seemed like fun. Not a bad idea. I mean, it could have been a terrible idea that he suggested. I don’t know if he’d have gone along with it, but Berg. Yeah, that’s true.
Broni Lisle: 30:11
Yeah, that’s true. But I mean, yeah, it was, yeah, I don’t know. He was gonna do it anyway. I don’t know. It was something, something special about that day. I have workshops where I’m teaching and there’s like three people in the room who usually, like the sales team or something who can’t. But you’re away from their phone and they’re still taking calls and whatever during the workshop. And I don’t do anything about it. It’s not my business to tell them that they shouldn’t be doing that. But I just get sad for them. That you think that this can’t wait is a shame. Imagine you could just be present in this workshop and enjoy yourself for three hours.
Chris Hudson: 30:44
It’s getting down to duties now. I mean, people feel like it couldn’t wait. They wouldn’t get the opportunity. I mean, sales is a lot of stake obviously as well. So every phone call.
Broni Lisle: 30:54
And it’s certainly not on them to make that call. I don’t think usually their boss is in the room and I wonder what a don’t stress might do if their boss is like, Oh, don’t worry about that.
Chris Hudson: 31:02
Yeah. It’s an interesting one. I mean, I think there’s a lot of that. And obviously distraction feels like it can be used. For great effect. I mean, the, the burger example, but it was obviously they derail a lot of things too. So, you know, it’s how and when to use it. And do you feel that it takes any kind of intuition or any level of skill to know what feels right as a distraction, what would be wrong as a distraction in the example you gave with the phone?
Broni Lisle: 31:24
I definitely think it’s intuitive if there is a culture of trust and care, and I can actually feel that you are looking out for my wellbeing and my joy at work and earnestly pursuing a. When times are serious, I’m gonna dig in. I think we all know when those times are, when it’s like, Oh, this, like, something’s happening, we need to sort this out. People, I think, would be much more willing to flick that switch and work harder than ever if it felt like when things aren’t. super high stress, that’s real as well. If their leadership is genuinely there to lead them and be there to lift them up and make them feel good. And the times where I’ve been my hardest working is, has rarely been for myself. I’m so willing to give myself the day off. You know, if I’m just beholden to me, I’ll stop suggest anything. I’ll be like, yeah, sure. Anything. I’ll procrastinate as long as you want, but if, if someone who care about, because I trust that they care about me, needs something in a workplace, I’m gonna get it done, and I’ll get it done really fast, or really well, or whatever. And I think that just takes good communication, and good connection, and empathy, and I know that my boss gives a shit about me, in a real sense, not like, bought me a ping pong table so that I can Like, if they actually give a shit about me, or show an interest in me, or make me feel good for bringing ideas to the table, or whatever it is, if that all feels authentic and genuine then yeah. When times are serious and the stakes are high, perceived or not, then like, I’ll dig in for that person.
Chris Hudson: 32:54
Do you think there’s a time frame, like, through which you need to experience that sort of tipping of on and off and playful and just get it done? Is there a kind of magic sort of working relationship time frame that you think exists?
Broni Lisle: 33:07
Time frame? I don’t know. I think it’s a daily Exercise. Every single day, you should make me feel like I exist to you. I use this example all the time because I think it’s pretty universal, but we all know the feeling of sitting at a cafe and our friend is talking to us and they mention their dad and our brains go, Oh, I got a story about my dad. And then we wait and then they finish their story. And then you tell your story and you barely listened to their story. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you’re trying to work out the one that you’re going to tell. Exactly, yeah, because your fear, like that’s not rudeness, that’s a fear of there being a silence after they’ve spoken. Sometimes I’ve been with friends and we’re like heading towards a dinner and they’ll be like, what are we going to talk about at dinner? I’m like, I don’t know, who cares? Things will happen. If you listen, things will happen. Yeah, if you’re a leader who genuinely is there with me and you are willing for things to go quiet, because I can tell when you’re listening to respond or when you’re listening to connect. I’m listening to connect is like. Genuinely using the things that I’m saying and responding to them and tiny things like that. I mean, that’s not tiny That’s actually big but that’s why it’s every day It’s like a daily exercise to go like I’m going to actually connect with the people I work with and talk to them genuinely and listen to them and And if I can trust that you actually listen to me and that the words that I say actually like land in you, I’m going to draw my sword for you when I need to.
Chris Hudson: 34:26
Yeah. Yeah. And if it does start with listening, I mean, that connection doesn’t feel like you even have to prepare that much. You just show up and your eyes are open. You’re kind of waiting, waiting to receive information, right? You don’t, you don’t have to go in. So I’m connecting with you now, Broni, because I’m going to tell you these three things about my dad.
Broni Lisle: 34:42
There’s a common thread with people who learn improv as an art form, not at work. Okay. Where, when we begin, like, and this was my experience, in the early years, I feel more comfortable when I’m initiating a scene because that’s me, I can prepare something or I can make sure my idea’s out there. But when you actually become really evolved in the art form, the most comfortable space is responding. Cause then I can genuinely get up on stage and just be, I’m just there. And when you can learn to trust that, like I don’t need anything. I just don’t, I just need someone across from me and my awareness and attention. And that’s literally all I need. I don’t need to have had an interesting day. I don’t need to think of funny words and nothing. The same is true of me. of good communication. I don’t need to go to dinner and think of three topics I could bring up tonight. I just need to go, I’m excited to be with the people I’ve chosen to be with this evening.
Chris Hudson: 35:33
That’s it. I mean, I do wonder though, the improv theatre is kind of one, you know, one example, obviously, but if you’re just in a chat with somebody in the works, in the work situation, like what you say back to them, in response to the information that they’ve given you can be really important, right? So if it’s a really serious chat, you respond in the wrong way, then that can go really badly. So is that the time to bring out the funny side and make a joke of it? Or do you think that there’s a, you know, do you think, I mean, there are obviously different ways to respond, but responding sensitively, I mean, brings out inner critic and some of the barriers get up a bit more, and then you want to make sure that it’s right. You’re handling things delicately. Is there a easy way around some of that? There’s
Broni Lisle: 36:11
obviously degrees to what you’re, But I think authenticity will set you free. I don’t think people are mad at you not having the answer. And I think we get into trouble. Just said yourself, something serious has come up and I want to be sensitive. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. And then so maybe if you don’t know the answer or you don’t know the correct response, then that’s your response. That’s just my truth. You’ve brought me a heavy topic. I’m not equipped for it right now, but I care about it. I want to support you. Let’s talk about it now or Like, let me go away and talk, and think about it, and I’ll come back to you in an hour, or whatever it is. Cause again, and this is what I do in workshops all the time, I’ll draw it to my experience, you can draw it to yours. In an improv scene, so often, I’ll have a student who gets stuck, they’re doing a great scene and then they get stuck, and I might say like, Chris, what was going on in that scene? And you would say, oh, I just felt like she stopped trusting me, or something. And I’ll be like, that’s a way better line of dialogue than anything you could have come up with. I feel like you’ve stopped trusting me. It’s like a real thing. And also, your audience sees it. And same is true when you’re talking to a friend. They see you. They, or a colleague, they absolutely see right through you. We know your audience is so much smarter than you because you’re the one thinking on the spot. You’re the one in process and they’re just watching. And so like your audience can see. Every little, tiny mechanism in you that is operating. So like, to deny the truth of whatever your internal monologue was is to deny them of you. I don’t know if that answers your question, but I feel like sometimes being truthful will. You don’t have to have all the answers. Also, I learnt this in, when I was learning education. Teenagers will hate you if you pretend to know the answer to something. But they’ll love you if you’re like, I don’t know, actually. That’s a great question. Let’s all Google it. They’ll be way more on board with you than if you try to pretend forever that you’re above them or that you have all the answers. And I think that remains true all the time. You might be a pro at your job, but you’re not the pro at. Every little detail of the human experience. So like, if someone does bring you something that you’ve never experienced before, you don’t have to apply your expertise from your job status into that moment right there. You get to just be real with them. And, and again, I think that’s going to go a lot further than pretending.
Chris Hudson: 38:26
Taking a sort of massive step out from this deep chat that we just had. If there were things that could be solved about the world of work and how people would behave within it at a really high level and you could wave a magic wand, you know, what, what sort of stuff would you be doing do you think?
Broni Lisle: 38:41
I would make everyone really good at hell yes and. Yeah okay it’s not just yes and but it’s hell yes.
Broni Lisle: 38:49
No it’s hell yes and, uh, yes and it’s become a bit of a meme. It has yeah. Yeah, and it’s become a little bit arbitrary because I think I wrote a blog about this a little while ago, but I was in a KAOSPILOT workshop. I was in a little team and I wasn’t leading this little section, but one of them asked if we could do a yes hand exercise and we all agreed. And the exercise was, I’m going to a picnic and I’m going to bring whatever. And then you’re going to say yes. And then I’ll bring blah, blah, blah. It was sort of like, I’m going to bring. some drinks. Yes, and I’ll bring cookies. Yes, and I’ll bring donuts. Yes, and I’ll bring cheese. Yes, and I’ll bring, and it’s like, you’re not actually, and I had to stop it because I’m like, we’re not actually like, we’re not actually listening to each other. We’re just waiting for our turn and just, we’re yes, we’re actually, yeah, we’re yes, ending the picnic. We’re not yes, ending the thing that you just said. It’s very easy to yes, end the past. I need to yes, end the. And so I was like, what can we adjust it so that I’m going to bring some drinks? Yes. And I like Fanta. That’s a, that’s actually waiting for you to speak and then responding to what you said. So that’s where I think yes. And has been a little bit de powered if that’s a word, because it’s, it gets used incorrectly and it’s such a profound idea. It’s. been oversimplified and poorly used and poorly applied in so many places that I think it’s lost its juice. And, and I think that yes can have many qualities. Yeah, sure. And we’ll also do this. That doesn’t feel good, but I think hell yeah. Hell yeah. And should we take the staff out for a fun evening? Hell yeah. And here’s my favourite bar. Whatever it is, I think Hell Yeah makes you, makes everyone go like, Ooh, cool. Okay. Ah, thank you for, ah, you liked that? Okay. I like getting a Hell Yeah from you. I’ll, I’ll work for a Hell Yeah all the time. So I think if I wanted to solve the world, I’d give him, I’d give everyone Hell Yeah energy.
Chris Hudson: 40:48
Hell yeah, so yes is gone and hell yeah is in. It elevated the word and the status of positive affirmation to it, so hell yeah, I love it, I love it. Also, well yeah, I think we might, we might stop there and uh, yeah, tell us a bit about the things you’re doing now, like where people can find you if they want to ask a question or anything like that. But yeah, it’d be cool just to leave a contact if you, if you’re happy to.
Broni Lisle: 41:07
Yeah, please. Um, I’m on LinkedIn. Obviously, Broni Lyle is my name. Also, I run Growth Factory. That’s where I do all my corporate applied improv workshop stuff. So that’s Growth Factory, also on LinkedIn, or growth factory. com. au. I also, if you want to just see me do some improv, I make a cartoon called Spontoon. Which is on YouTube Spontoon TV. You can hear exactly what I’m espousing. You can hear it in process. And I also run the Improv Conspiracy podcast as well. So if you wanted to learn more about improv, we do deep dives on the artistic side of improv on that podcast. So yeah, I’m all over the place.
Chris Hudson: 41:46
Hell yeah. All right. I reckon that everyone should do that. Everyone should check it out. Everyone needs to do improv because it sounds like it wouldn’t be relevant to work, but it definitely is. So, um, yeah, really appreciate your time today, Bernie. Thanks so much. You too, Chris.
Broni Lisle: 41:59
Thanks for having me.
Chris Hudson: 42:00
Alright. Thank you. Legend.
Okay, so that’s it for this episode. If you’re hearing this message, you’ve listened all the way to the end. So thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed the show. We’d love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and share this episode with your friends, team members, leaders if you think it’ll make a difference.
After all, we’re trying to help you, the intrapreneurs kick more goals within your organisations. If you have any questions about the things we covered in the show, please email me directly at chris@companyroad.co. I answer all messages so please don’t hesitate to reach out and to hear about the latest episodes and updates.
Please head to companyroad.co to subscribe. Tune in next Wednesday for another new episode.
0 Comments