How improv could improve your communication skills

Neil Mullarkey has been performing with The Comedy Store Players in central London every week for four decades. He specialises in improvisational comedy, an unscripted form of performance where the audience often provides ideas for inspiration.

When he’s not treading the boards, he’s often found in a more corporate setting. He runs sessions designed to help teams bond and get creative, as well as working with senior leaders one-on-one to help them sharpen their communication skills.

Mullarkey was a member of the Cambridge Footlights at university, before becoming a regular on London’s comedy scene in the 1980s. He worked closely with people such as Nick Hancock and Mike Myers, who would go on to star in the Austin Powers films (gaining Mullarkey a cameo role in an infamous scene with a Swedish sex-aid device).

So how does improvisational comedy help you get ahead in business? Mullarkey believes the two disciplines are more closely related than you might think.

“Improv comedy is about listening and working with uncertainty and difference, and it’s also about collaborating,” says Mullarkey, “so there’s huge parallels with business.”

One simple exercise involves teams splitting into small groups and then taking it in turns to say one word, to build a story. Of course, this can go in extraordinary, unpredictable directions. As an individual taking part, you have to develop the confidence to react in the moment and find meaning in the chaos.

Mullarkey also works with senior individuals to help them enhance their presentation skills, so they have “executive presence”. “They might be up for promotion and they want to come across as more ‘partnerial’ – and yes that’s an adjective!” says Mullarkey.

He also helps leaders “to create rapport, to roll with the punches, to be seen as an ambassador”. An issue for many leaders is that as soon as they have to do public speaking, they become stiff, unnatural and robotic. They become stressed and want to fall back on a script.

“I encourage them to be conversational. Basically, I say, ‘tell some stories’, so it's not scripted. A story creates an image in people's minds. You can tell the story because it happened to you, so you’re not having to get every word right – and you can speak with some level of empathy.”

Introducing video recording to this equation will lead many to become “a rabbit in the headlights”, says Mullarkey, but it’s important to nail this aspect in an age of LinkedIn and Instagram.

Mullarkey also shares a trick to help people “sound like they know what they are talking about”. It’s all about slowing down. Mullarkey helps his clients to get rid of what he calls “disfluencies”. These are the “ums” and “ahs” we all drop into our speech without realising it, especially when we are nervous. But this makes the audience think we are not confident and are untrustworthy, he warns.

“After 25-plus years of training presentation skills, I say to people, when you think an ‘um’ is coming, don't say it. An ‘um’ is really something you can control. If you go slower you can see it, feel it coming over the horizon.”

So, what do you do once you’ve sensed it coming?

“Just breathe because you’ve wasted breath with that syllable. Take your time. Take a breath every three to seven words. Pause. Breathe through your nose. And smile.”

Mullarkey’s other big tip is to set aside time for rehearsing what you are going to say at company events or conferences.

He advises doing some practical things such as checking out in advance the venue, the stage and even what kind of drink you will have to hand. The most important thing, however, is to practice what they are going to say.

“I have seen the chief executive of a big management consultancy who hadn't rehearsed, [give an] almost like back-of-a-fag-packet speech. It would create [the impression among the audience] that ‘they didn't bother thinking how they'd speak even for five minutes to 600 people. Why should we care?’

“But if you hone your presentation skills so that you can have a real impact on audiences, this doesn’t just boost your external profile, it’s good for your standing within your own business too. It's amazing to me how few people put thought and energy into their presentations to their stakeholders, to their teams,” says Mullarkey. “Yet if they do it well, that really buys a lot of employee engagement.”