The Story Behind Business Improvisations
In 1999, Bob Kulhan was an improv instructor at Chicago’s famed Second City and an improv performer at the Annoyance Theatre, as well as in the Improv Olympic Resident Company – Baby Wants Candy! During that time, a Dean at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business put out a request to faculty for intensive one-week courses with strong academic and experiential learning components. Bob immediately saw this as an opportunity to collaborate with top professors in the fields of Behavioral Psychology, Social Psychology, Organizational Theory and Behavior Economics on a new approach to teaching managers, and “Business Improvisation” (the course) was born. The course was eventually renamed Managerial Improvisation, and since its inception, it has been among Duke University’s highest rated MBA electives.
Over the past 17 years, Business Improv have gone on to create corporate training programs and executive education programs for a growing list of top business schools in the US and abroad. In addition, we specialize in creating leadership development programs and customized experiential learning programs for corporations, including many Fortune 500 companies. Based in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, we work with organizations nationwide and worldwide.