Our Philosophy
At Riff, we apply the core practices of improvisation to strengthen teams, develop leaders, and foster innovation.
But our approach extends far beyond the theater. We leverage research from neuroscience, organizational development, and experiential learning to build environments where teams can connect, innovate, and grow.
How We Work
As Viola Spolin wrote in her seminal work, Improvisation for the Theatre:
“We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything.”
We agree. Actual knowledge transfer happens through application, not passive observation. We design every session with this belief in mind, utilizing Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model.
Kolb’s research dictates that to enact real behavioral change, adults must cycle through four distinct stages. At Riff, our facilitators guide your team through this cycle:
Concrete Experience: We kick off not with a lecture, but with an invitation — a live exercise or simulation that serves as the "spark."
Reflective Observation: We facilitate a debrief, moving from small groups to the full room, ensuring participants actively grapple with what just happened.
Abstract Conceptualization: We help teams synthesize their experience into a concrete rule, framework, or tool they can take with them.
Active Experimentation: We provide a safe space to immediately apply that new tool. We don't stop at theory; we ensure every leader leaves understanding exactly how to use this tomorrow.
Why Improv?
A few reasons.
The Neuroscience of Focus
1. The Neuroscience of Focus (Dr. Charles Limb)
In 2008, Dr. Charles Limb (Johns Hopkins) placed jazz musicians inside fMRI machines to observe their brains while improvising. He found that improvisation deactivates the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (the area linked to the "inner critic" and inhibition) and ramps up the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (linked to self-expression).
When we invite leaders to improvise, we aren't asking them to be silly. We are chemically quieting the part of the brain that causes hesitation, allowing for faster, more authentic responses, conversations, and decisions.
The Architecture of Innovation
2. The Architecture of Innovation (Timothy R. Clark)
We use improv to move teams beyond basic "politeness" and into high performance. Utilizing Timothy Clark’s framework, we accelerate teams through the four stages of psychological safety:
Inclusion Safety: I belong.
Learner Safety: I can ask questions.
Contributor Safety: I can do the work.
Challenger Safety: I can break the model to make it better.
Innovation is, by its nature, a challenge to the status quo. If your team has Inclusion Safety but lacks Challenger Safety, they will be nice to each other, but they will never innovate. Riff uses improv to bridge that gap.
Good, Clean Fun
3. Good, Clean Fun
This is not an acronym. This is not a scientific study. This is us, simply stating, that Riff workshops leverage elements of play, improvisation, laughter, and fun.
Our ability to foster environments of levity while spurring deep reflection is our unique differentiator. When leaders are laughing, they are listening; when they are playing, they are open to change.
Why Now?
We spend so much of our adult lives ‘knowing’. We progress through much of our careers by accumulating and acting on knowledge. AI access and tooling have only accelerated the pace at which we can accumulate information and act on it.
Then one day everything shifts.
Growth and progress stop becoming about ‘knowing more’.
To develop, leaders have to influence. Teams have come together. Companies have to innovate. To grow as an adult is to admit to a degree of ‘not-knowing’ — something that can make even the most accomplished leaders feel vulnerable.
Riff workshops give leaders, teams, and businesses the space to ‘not know’, together. That’s the key to growth and development. That’s what creates lasting change.