With the Canadian Museum of History, there was excitement right from the first call all the way through the workshop delivery 🙂

Why they came to us

The Canadian Museum of History aims to enhance our knowledge, understanding and appreciation of events, experiences, people and objects that reflect and have shaped Canada’s history and identity. Their vision: Dare to inspire tomorrow’s history.

They know that part of what brings the museum to life are the hosts – the wonderful staff who interact with visitors and help create a solid museum experience. 

As a result, the Canadian Museum of History wanted to provide its bilingual hosts with quality professional development and fun team building.

What we did

The main goal was to elevate visitor services with a next-level approach.

So we developed a curriculum for a 2-hour workshop to build up the following skills:

1. Advance conversations
2. Increase curiosity and awareness
3. Work with unexpected situations
4. Collaborate towards a common goal

The result

This team was really engaged with all of the exercises! Debriefs yielded some of the following reflections by participants: 

• Improv allows us to practice these skills without the pressures of the job
• Exercises that pivoted between English and French highlighted the need for clarity in communication and acceptance of not always owning the narrative 
• One improv exercise practiced being able to listen and focus when other things are going on around us
• Facial expressions communicate a lot – it’s important to look for those nonverbal cues
• Improv really helps with banter back and forth between individuals
• Storytelling brings objects to life and makes them active in history

From a team-building perspective, participants said they enjoyed learning about their colleagues through the storytelling exercises and discovering just how creative everyone on their team truly is.

But most importantly, they were so glad to have a chance to connect with the rest of the team as they don’t always have that chance working on the floor.

Takeaways

Like a number of our workshops, this one was bilingual and most participants had no previous improv experience. 

My takeaways are the following:

• Both English and French flowed seamlessly throughout this workshop with conversations naturally occurring in both languages. This, plus some silent exercises allowed us to reflect on communication from more than one perspective.
• Asking the participants their thoughts on improv before starting the workshop is always very illuminating. Some people have pleasant thoughts and some associate improv with stress and anxiety. This is ok! We always create as safe and empowered space as possible for our participants. This workshop was no exception. In the end, one participant shared their reflection saying “Improv isn’t stressful after all.” Here here!

Want to elevate your team’s professional development?

We’d love to bring your team a next-level approach too. Reach out to us now and learn more about how an applied workshop can elevate your team.

Best in comedy,

Krystal Merrells

Corporate Team Lead at the Improv Embassy