An association that I belong to recently ran a course at the Improv Asylum on techniques that can help one to be a more effective listener. The course was comprised of about 14 other colleagues from this association with about 12 attendees who were male and three females including me.

The first exercise was a skill builder on listening. The exercise was that one person started by saying something and the next person would say the first word that popped into their head out loud with the outcome being that the game would end when someone was able to say the first word that was used to start off the game. The challenge that groups (ours included) typically ran into is that people were so focused on trying to remember what was the first word that was used was that the word that they uttered as first coming to mind did not associate with the word that was said prior and made it impossible to achieve the end result of getting back to someone saying the first word that was used at the beginning of the exercise.

The instructor walked us through how through active listening and remaining focused on what the person to our left was saying we would be able to eventually come to a place in the game where someone would reference the original work that was used to kick it off. It reminded me of how we tend to miss out on what is actually going on around us because we become over focused on executing on a particular task and how this can lead to a creative breakdown in our innovation practice. I was able to apply the tools we learned in this exercise later on that day in another game we were playing and won because I was able to apply the frameworks.