Listen Up!
To build successful and productive relationships in the workplace, you need to be a good listener. This issue of TD at Work can help you learn to listen in a way that supports your colleagues and clients.
In “Listen Up!,” Michael Burns, Livia Armstrong, and Kat Koppett explain how improv skills rely on listening and explore how those skills can also apply in the workplace. See how listening like an improviser can make you more effective at your job.
This issue includes:
- tips for better listening
- case studies of successful and unsuccessful listening
- activities to practice listening skills
- a conscious listening primer
- an exercise in listening to rants.
-
![Michael Burns]()
Full ProfileMichael Burns is a partner at Koppett and the artistic director and founder of the Mopco Improv Theatre, Koppett’s sister company, a performing improv company and theatrical venue. As an executive coach and facilitator for Koppett, Michael has worked with clients such as GE Research, MVP Health, Ellis Hospital, the Workforce Development Institute, CapCom, SUNY, and more. Michael studied theater at SUNY Purchase, and then improv with David Shepherd in New York, where he directed for the American Modern Dance Theatre and the American Folk Theatre. He was a member of the Big Apple Experience, a short-lived but cleverly named improv troupe. He is the author of First You Sit on the Floor: A Guide to Developing a Youth Theatre Troupe.
-
![Livia Armstrong]()
Full ProfileLivia Armstrong is an improv program coordinator at the Mopco Improv Theatre and Koppett. She heads the youth program at the theater and performs as part of the mainstage company, The Mop & Bucket Co.
-
![Kat-Koppett]()
Full ProfileKat Koppett is the founder and president of Koppett, a consulting and training company specializing in the use of improvisation and storytelling to enhance workplace effectiveness. Kat has worked with organizations as diverse as Apple, Prezi, GE, Havas Health, the URJ, and the Clinton Global Initiative. Kat is the author of Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership, and Learning, considered a seminal work in the field of applied improvisation. Kat has taught and spoken at RPI’s Lally School of Business Stanford and UC Berkeley, as well as ATD, ISPI, the YPA, NASAGA, AIN, and many other organizations. She has given two TEDx talks on the use of improv to enhance nontheatrical performance. Kat is co-director of the Mopco Improv Theatre and the creator of the full-length musical improv format “spontaneous Broadway,” for which Theatreweek Magazine named her an Unsung Hero of the Year.
