How to supercharge office communication through improvisation
We all have good ideas at work, for improving both business performance and general happiness.
Communicating these to other people around the water cooler helps pass the day, but it is a different matter to formally deliver good suggestions, especially in online meetings. This requires careful preparation as well as expert delivery, and many people are apprehensive of coming up against the dreaded words: “yes, but…”.
Of course, sensible business concerns always need to be addressed, but sometimes you get the feeling that certain members of staff can turn never-ending objections into an art form, with a subtext of personal humiliation. This is perfectly illustrated in satirical television programmes such as The Office, The Thick of It and W1A.
Fortunately, help is at hand from an unlikely source, in the person of comedian Neil Mullarkey. He successfully transforms the creative and collaborative capabilities of teams and leaders with his unique improvisation and communications expertise. Before you scroll away, he does not try to turn sensible people into comedians.
Rather, he uses skills developed in onstage improvised comedy to give people simple but robust techniques for how to first get their message across and then develop ideas, all in a positive environment.
He has the perfect resumé for a successful comedy career. At University, in between a degree in Economics and Social Sciences, he was President of the Cambridge Footlights. Their alumni include members of Beyond the Fringe, Monty Python, and The Goodies as well as famous actors such as Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, and Sasha Baron Cohen.
When performing with the Cambridge Footlights in London he met a young Canadian who had volunteered to paint scenery and sell tickets. This was Mike Myers, who later found fame in Wayne’s World and as groovy Brit Austin Powers.
They formed a sketch comedy duo, Mullarkey and Myers, then co-founded the Comedy Store Players drawing on Mike’s experience in improvisational comedy at Second City Canada. This was not a show cased on carefully prepared one-liners, as delivered by comedians such as Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr, and Jerry Seinfeld.
Mike Myers and Neil Mullarkey on Primrose Hill
This is comedy generated entirely from audience suggestions such as a social situation, an interesting location, and a movie style. The comedy magic is in seeing the unexpected and hilarious interactions between very funny people.
By 1999 Neil wanted to test his theory that the expert skills of improv theatre could add significant value to the process of internal communications and idea generation.
At the most basic level, the improv mindset is turning a negative “Yes but…” into a much more positive “Yes, and…”, so the creative process can continue with profit and pleasure as the result.
In improvisational comedy, someone might say “I’m from Jupiter!” You cannot respond with, “yes, but I think you’re actually from London”. That would stop the conversation instantly. A better response might be: “Yes, and I’m from Mars. Can you please give me some space?”.
Neil Mullarkey has over a quarter of a century’s experience helping a wide range of corporate customers in both professional services and government. For example, all law firms have highly developed analytical and communication skills in mastering complex business situations and then giving expert guidance to their clients, communicating in meticulous detail.
But professional law is an essential exercise in advanced deal-making, both in understanding their clients as well as their adversaries especially when involved in litigation. The key to success in deal-making is good listening and then forming a positive consensus, something you see minute by minute in an improvisational comedy show.
I last saw Neil Mullarkey live in January of this year. It was a bitter-sweet moment, as he announced he was leaving The Comedy Store Players after a record 40 years (they are in the Guinness World Records) to concentrate on his corporate work. As well as regular comedy enthusiasts, the audience was full of his corporate clients, some visibly emotional about the positive difference he had made to their working lives.
Neil Mullarkey’s final show with the Comedy Store Players, January 2026
But as one door shuts, another opens, and Neil is launching a new event in London CROWDSAUCE – An interactive audience improv show symbolically on April Fool’s Day.
I will be there to witness Neil Mullarkey’s next steps into the spotlight, which I suspect will have a strong element of making people both more effective and happier at work.
Maybe all those negative people at work will soon be replaced by even cleverer Artificial Intelligence (AI) robots expertly designed to stifle innovation, citing ‘Health and Safety’ and other bureaucratic nonsense.
Here is my Call to Action for AI developers: to generate a software system which can automatically counter those arguments and thus causing those unhelpful machines to fatally overload and shut down. The organisations fostering this negativity can then quietly go bankrupt. They will not be mourned.
I look forward to discussing your other entrepreneurial ideas at Neil Mullarkey’s next show.
Neil Mullarkey: https://neilmullarkey.com
In the Moment – Build your confidence, communication, and creativity at work
by Neil Mullarkey was shortlisted for Business Book of the Year in 2024
About the Author
Mike Southon
Mike Southon is Chief Editor of Startup Mafia, busy tuning Estonians into Unicorns and helping promote them worldwide.
More details and his other articles can be found here: https://startupmafia.eu/author/mikesouth
