A group of MBA students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management tossed aside their briefcases and book bags this month to flex their creative muscles, doing everything from playing an imaginary game of soccer to inventing office conflicts. The second-year MBA students were participating in a leadership class called “Improvisational Leadership: In the Moment Leadership Skills,” according to a release from the Sloan School. The acting class is the latest step by a leading business school to integrate creative arts and drama into the business school curriculum. It’s a trend that has been brewing for several years at a small but growing number of business schools, as I wrote about in an article a few years back.
Most of the business schools I focused on in that story offered acting classes, but the Sloan School (Sloan Full-Time MBA Profile) appears to be one of the first business schools to bring improvisational acting into the classroom. Daena Giardella, a professional actress, director and leadership coach, teaches the class and guides the students through experiential exercises, interactive improvisations and real-life simulations. The financial crisis and shaky economy has heightened the need for this type of training, which brings lessons from psychology and theater to business education, said Giardella, in the release. Students are asked to examine their habits and default responses and come up with new ways to approach the situation, without a script in hand, she said.
“We need these skills so we can adapt to new circumstances to come up with new fixes,” Giardella said. “If there has ever been a time when there is a need for great spontaneous communicators who can be in the moment, embrace change, and make things happen, it’s now.”
Read the full article: MIT Brings Improv to the MBA Classroom