Someone is explaining a risk in a project meeting. Before they finish, three people are already preparing a solution. The conversation moves quickly—but the original concern is never fully understood.
Listening can look efficient while missing the point
In complex work, we often listen with a task already running in the background: defend the plan, find the flaw, formulate the answer, decide whether we agree. This is understandable. Time is short and people are expected to contribute.
The problem is that the response may be relevant to the words but disconnected from the offer underneath them. A question might really be a warning. A technical objection might contain a customer concern. A quiet hesitation might be the only signal that a team is about to make an expensive assumption.
Deep listening is not passive agreement. It is the discipline of receiving enough information before deciding what to do with it.
The quality of a response is limited by the quality of what was received.
What improvisers practise
An improviser cannot plan the scene alone. The next useful move depends on what another person has just offered: a relationship, an emotion, a location, a change of status or one small detail. Ignoring that offer makes the scene feel like two separate plans happening at once.
This creates an immediate feedback loop. If I was not listening, the shared reality becomes harder to build. If I receive the offer and respond to it, both people have more material to work with.
Applied improvisation brings that feedback loop into a learning setting. The exercise is simple enough that participants can notice where their attention goes, then try again with a different intention.
Three shifts for workplace conversations
The practice becomes useful at work when it changes visible behaviour. Three shifts are particularly powerful:
- From preparing to noticing: delay composing your answer long enough to hear the complete offer.
- From interpreting to checking: separate what was said from the story you immediately created about it.
- From responding broadly to responding specifically: show what you heard by connecting your response to a concrete detail.
Where this matters most
Deep listening is valuable in any conversation, but it becomes critical at the boundaries between functions. Business and technology teams may use the same words with different assumptions. A vendor may report progress while signalling a dependency. A leader may ask for openness while unintentionally rewarding certainty.
In these moments, listening is not a soft addition to the work. It is part of how teams detect risk, coordinate action and maintain trust.
Max Grillo is an applied improvisation facilitator. He manages and hosts Rice Cookie Improv, is co-founder of Monday Flow Improv and is a member of the Applied Improvisation Network. He combines workshop practice with more than 25 years of experience in technology and transformation.
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