A lot of enquiries start the same way. "We're looking for something interactive." Usually it means a room full of people has recently sat through something that wasn't, and the instinct behind it is sound. But the phrase covers four different requests, and each of them needs a different session.
The way to sort them out is to ask what would be different on Monday if this worked. The answer tells you which of the four you are, and it tells me what to build.
"We've had a year of slides"
The first meaning is the simplest. The team has been trained at, repeatedly, and the buyer wants them on their feet for once. Anything with a chair and a projector is off the list.
Every session I run is like this. There are no slides at any point, and there is nothing to prepare or read beforehand. The framing at the start takes ten minutes, then people are standing up and using each other's names, and they stay up. If that is the whole requirement, the two-hour Taster covers it. It is the first of the sessions and the cheapest way to find out whether this is for you.
"We want them to talk to each other"
The second is about people who share a building and not much else. Different teams on different floors, colleagues who have exchanged emails for a year and never met. The buyer wants the session to mix them up. Team cohesion, including with colleagues people don't normally work with, is on the outcomes list, so this is a request I can take.
It takes longer than two hours, though, because people need time to get past the first awkwardness before anything useful happens between them. A full day with mixed groups does it. To be honest, so would a good away day. If the only thing you want changed on Monday is that people know each other, a day out might be the better buy, and I will tell you that on the call. The rate card promises that I'll name the session to book even when it's the cheaper one, and sometimes the cheaper one is somebody else's.
“If the only thing you want changed on Monday is that people know each other, a day out might be the better buy, and I will tell you that on the call.”
"We want them to behave differently in meetings"
The third is the one I'm built for. The same two people do the talking. Ideas get shut down before they are finished. The handover keeps going wrong. The buyer has noticed a pattern and wants it broken.
This is training, and training needs practice and repetition. One session starts it and gives the team a vocabulary. The habit forms over the Programme, four sessions across a quarter, because there is a Monday between each session for people to try it in a real meeting and come back. Session one is the Taster. After that comes presence, then scenarios taken from your own work, then a closing session with a performance element. The structure stays the same throughout and the framing is your team's.
If a quarter is more than you want to commit to, the Half Day adds one scenario built from your own situation during the pre-call, which puts the pattern in the room with the people who do it.
"We want our managers to handle things"
The fourth is about a particular group of people and a particular kind of conversation. Managers who know what they should say to someone on their team and have not yet said it. This is not a team session at all. It is the Management Lab, capped at sixteen, and it works by rehearsing the conversation rather than explaining it.
Managers play a scenario built from what you tell me on the pre-call. I stop it at the point it goes wrong and they run it again. Then they swap roles, so each of them hears what their own line sounds like from the other chair. Nobody plays themselves and no real names are used.
If it is none of these
Sometimes "something interactive" means "a good afternoon out", and there is nothing wrong with wanting one. It is just not what I sell. An activity day is built to give you a good afternoon. These sessions are built to change how the team works together afterwards. Both are reasonable things to spend money on, and only one of them is mine. If the honest answer to the Monday question is "nothing, and we'd be happy with that", book an activity day and enjoy it. The Central Belt page sets out the difference, and it is better read before the call than after the session.
If you can answer the question, you know which of the four you are, and the rate card will tell you what it costs without anyone needing to get back to you. If you can't answer it yet, that is what the pre-call is for. It takes fifteen minutes and it is where the session gets built. You tell me what is going wrong in how the team works together and what you want to be different afterwards, and the quote comes back in writing within one working day.
Applied Improv Scotland
Communication training for teams across the Central Belt. Sessions from £400, refunded in full if they don't land.
See the sessionsMore from Insights.
Team building or training: how to tell which one you're buying
Both are worth the money. They do different jobs, and the enquiry form rarely says which one you mean.
What to expect from a two-hour improv workshop for work
The Taster, walked through in the order it runs, so you know what your team is going into before you book it.
Get a price and a date.
Tell me the group size and roughly when. You'll have a written quote back within one working day, and the fee is refunded in full if the session doesn't land.
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