#022 Applied Improv for Better Leadership, Connection, & Communication with Belina Raffy

Making Business Art

Keeping up with the accelerating pace of change and complexity in our world can feel daunting. Fortunately, there are people like global improv consultant and comedy teacher, Belina Raffy, who can show us how to re-energize how we relate with our teams and bring more joy, creativity, and connection to our organizations. Belina makes the case that practicing improv is the gym to strengthen our ability to deal with complexity.

In this conversation Belina and I discuss the benefits we can derive from practicing applied improv at work and other areas of our lives, improv’s triangle model, the distinction between serious and solemn, how to let go of being constrictive and embrace being more expansive, genuine vs. toxic positivity, teaching activists stand up comedy to help them reach and connect with audiences, and the genius of her friend Tolu and how he devised a program to train CEOs through his office cleaning service.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Belina Raffy is a global improv consultant, climate comedy teacher, and giggler, helping people and organisations to bring more love, expansiveness, and ability to engage with complex systems into our responses to climate and social issues. She has worked with many organisations including the science accelerator lab Frontier Development Lab (a collaborative partner with the European Space Agency and NASA), giz (a German sustainable development organisation), and the Inga Foundation (which applies a scientifically proven, organic agroforestry system that helps farmers thrive).

Belina has been designing and facilitating different forms of improv workshops for people working in sustainability since 2008 to help build collaboration, engagement, and our ability to engage with complex issues. She was on the board of the Applied Improvisation Network for six years, co-chaired many of their international conferences, and initiated a collaboration between the Applied Improvisation Network and the Red Cross Climate Centre. Belina wrote a book, ‘Using Improv to Save the World (and me)’ about her experience of letting go of having a home and travelling to 11 countries around the world to facilitate applied improvisation workshops. And since 2015, Belina has been delivering one of her favourite brainchildren - ’Sustainable Stand Up’ - a course which teaches people working on climate and social issues how to use a loving form of humour to think more expansively about the issues they care about, and to communicate them in a more engaging way. In June 2023, Belina became a facilitator of the powerful peer-coaching tool the Flow Game, so she could help people gain clarity about their work and lives in a deeper way. Belina is based in Berlin, Germany and giggles a lot because she loves what she does.

ABOUT MAKING BUSINESS ART

Making Business Art is a podcast for curious people where we explore how to make our work more meaningful and enchanting for ourselves and the people we serve. We draw lessons and inspiration from entrepreneurs, designers, scientists, creative leaders and artists about creating remarkable experiences that light up our customers and our teams.

This podcast is the creation of and hosted by me, Ezequiel Williams. I am an entrepreneur, innovation strategist, facilitator, and business designer. I help leaders and teams see their challenges differently and find ways to deliver value that are more desirable and satisfying for the people they serve. I am very curious and love to learn about how things work, what makes people tick, and how to create more joy in the world.

Instagram: @MakingBusinessArt