Improvisers Train to "Trust their Gut". Here's Why Your Employees Should Too.
Columbus Comedy Festival
August, 2024
The goal of every improviser is to make their shows seem seamless. One necessary skill that improvisers must build and use to achieve relative seamlessness in a show, is the improv principle of "trust your gut". An improv show without this skill would simply not work. For example, improvisers don't always have time to ponder what their characters would say or how they would react. You can imagine long pensive pauses after every sentence in a 30 - 90 minute show would surely annoy your audience. Instead, improvisers must skip the pauses and follow their intuition when making decisions in a show.
The way we see it, trusting your gut has just as important of a role in the workplace as it does on the improv stage. Have you ever ignored your intuition at work only to find out that your gut was right all along? This phenomenon is no coincidence. It's your brain! In Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" he makes a strong science-backed argument for trusting your gut. Basically, in the blink of an eye, our conscious and subconscious brain process a ton of information. This processing often leads to an instinctual response, a.k.a a gut feeling. A large part of this process is subconscious so your conscious mind may have trouble explaining or initially understanding your own gut reaction. But that initial lack of understanding of your intuition is not grounds to ignore it. Thousands of years of evolution are behind our instincts. They. Are. Powerful. And often right.
Companies have much to gain in fostering a "trust your gut" environment. Employees are hired for their expertise but it’s easy to forget, or ignore, that intuition is part of that expertise. One's logic and intuition come from the same brain after all. The ability to follow up on one's gut instinct in the workplace can take courage and encouragement. Someone's intuition may contradict initial data, and short-term gains, or may even contradict a senior employee's vision. For obvious reasons, it can feel "safer" for employees to keep their instincts and questions to themselves. But when this culture festers it leads to lacking working environments and opens companies up to unnecessary risk.
So how does a company even begin to encourage this skill among their leaders and teams? This is where WitWorks comes in! "Trusting your gut" is just one of many skills in which we specialize. For clients looking to encourage individuals and teams to follow their intuition, we'll lead your teams through targeted improv games and exercises. Through our custom workshops, your employees will gain skills and perspectives that can help foster the "trust your gut" culture your company needs. Best of all, we bake the learning into fun. In our desk and note-free workshops, your teams will laugh their way to learning, and remember the experience fondly for years to come.
