Five business (and life) lessons learned from improv

Alli McKee is a start-up founder and CEO.  She’s also a student of improv.
Over the course of our conversation last week on Sales Pipeline Radio it became clear that these are both parallel interests/pursuits as well as tightly related to each other.
When I asked Alli if her improv classes had improved her approach to business, her answer was a life lesson for all of us.  These lessons apply to sales, negotiations, partnerships, friendships and life in general.
1. Learn how to listen
If you’re following a script, you simply remember your own lines and wait until everybody else is done with theirs to speak again. In a scripted conversation, you can literally give a command performance and have no idea what others have said.
But with improv, playing off of what others have just said is everything.  In business, sales and life, learning how to listen – actively listen – is key to