The Empathy Edge

Kathy Klotz-Guest - Trust, Improv, & Humor for a More Innovative Culture

Episode Notes

In this episode, Maria and Kathy discuss:

• Creating an environment of trust in the workplace and why it matters. 
• How to use improv techniques to enhance innovation and creativity.
• Using comedy and improv to create a safe space.

Key Takeaways:

• When trust goes up, humor goes up, and when humor goes up, trust goes up. It’s a virtuous cycle! 
• If we are not hitting that minimum viable culture of safety, you will never get to the good stuff - ever. 
• Trust is both a short-form improv game and a long-form improv game - you're playing for both.
• You've got to build the muscles of empathy first, and then humor becomes safer and easier and less scary for people to express. If you have a humor problem, you don't have a humor problem, you have a trust problem and an empathy problem. 

"The thing that is so important to remember is that when teams ‘Yes, and’ each other, they're going to, over time, come up with far better ideas and more ideas. It's a force multiplier." —  Kathy Klotz-Guest

About Kathy Klotz-Guest: A former Silicon Valley marketing executive and a trained improviser for over 20 years, Kathy Klotz-Guest, MA, MBA combines her business team management and comedy backgrounds to help people, teams, and brands be more human, super creative, and joyful every day. Trained at ComedySportz and at LA’s Second City, she has been featured in Forbes and The Huffington Post. Inc.com named her book, “Stop Boring Me!” a CMO must-read. Her company - Keeping it Human, Inc - provides speaking, consulting, and play-based experiential workshops to ignite collaborative creativity and storytelling results by helping teams work better together. She still performs and teaches improv and comedy.

Connect with Kathy Klotz-Guest:  

Website: KeepingItHuman.com

Book: Stop Boring Me! - amazon.com/Stop-Boring-Me-Kick-Ass-Marketing/dp/1684191092/

YouTube: youtube.com/user/kathyklotzguest

Twitter: twitter.com/kathyklotzguest

Facebook: facebook.com/KeepingItHuman

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kathyklotzguest/

Instagram: instagram.com/klotzguest/

SlideShare: slideshare.net/klotzguest

Connect with Maria: 

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria’s brand strategy work and books: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Twitter: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice