Published on NPR.com on December 5, 2012
By Julia Flucht
Some top-tier business schools are offering more than just finance and marketing these days: Duke, UCLA, MIT and Stanford are all teaching improv. Professors say these techniques help students increase collaboration, creativity and risk taking.
In an improvisational leadership class at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, instructor Daena Giardella coaches a scene where a hospital administrator is firing surgeons after a horribly botched operation.
Giardella, who does professional improv, boils it down to a rule known as “yes, and.”
“Yes, and” means that any idea offered must be accepted.