Expert Resources
Second City Communications
As the corporate services division of The Second City—the world’s most famous improvisational theater company known for launching the careers of such stars as Alan Arkin, John Belushi, Tina Fey, Steve Carrell and a host of others—Second City Communications has over 15 years experience in working with over 400 Fortune 1000 companies. SCC uses humor to bring truth and perspective to business, and improvisation to improve communication, collaboration, and innovation. By applying time-tested methods, SCC helps clients create engaged and adaptive teams, who can compete more effectively in today’s business climate. SCC offers a range of customized corporate services, from learning and development courses to event support and entertainment. More information can be found at www.secondcitycommunications.com.
Rob Kapilow
Where do great ideas come from? For 15 years, Rob Kapilow—nationally famous composer, conductor, NPR and television commentator, and creator of the “What Makes It Great” brand—has brought exhilarating and interactive learning programs to corporations across the country, using the listening principles behind great music to foster innovation and creativity, while transforming concepts of leadership and team dynamics in business. Rob’s programs are individually-tailored, activity-based workshops on themes and topics such as “listening for possibility,” “accessing the wisdom of crowds,” and “creating high performance leaderless teams.” To learn why Rob has been invited to help organizations ranging from Hallmark Greeting Cards and Southern California Edison, to the Stanford Medical Center and Silicon Valley start-ups like Epiphany Inc. to surface and recognize great ideas, please visit www.RobKapilow.com.
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
For 30 years Liz Lerman Dance Exchange has taken art into law schools, science labs, battleships, and boardrooms, helping teams learn to think and act creatively. Along the way, MacArthur Fellow Liz Lerman and a diverse ensemble of artists have won critical raves for their theatrical work and testimonials of transformation from institutions and individuals alike. Now, Dance Exchange has distilled its insights and techniques into workshops that train managers to use quick and effective tools to surface creativity, choreograph effective collaborations, and improve communications. For more information, please visit www.DanceExchange.org
Royal National Theatre
For more than a decade, business leaders in the United Kingdom have benefited from some of the world’s finest executive coaching and communications training, provided by Theatreworks, the management development program of the distinguished Royal National Theater of Great Britain. Theatreworks uses world-renowned British theatrical techniques to help managers learn to stretch their voices, bodies, and imaginations to foster confident, creative, and collaborative crosscultural business performance. Now, for the first time, these unique experiential workshops, training courses, and personal coaching sessions—led by the skilled performers and educators of the Royal National Theatre—are available to executives in the United States. For more information, please visit the Theatreworks website.
Todd Siler
Internationally-renowned artist and educator Todd Siler’s Think Like a Genius® workshops help people discover and apply their creative genius to achieve their goals and realize their potential. Todd has worked with dozens of Fortune 500 corporations such as IBM, Procter & Gamble, Chevron, and JP Morgan Chase on practical ways of fostering creativity and innovation in new product development and strategic planning. The first (and only) visual artist to receive a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Interdisciplinary Studies in psychology and art, Todd is an International Advisory board member for the World Knowledge Forum and a forum fellow of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Commenting on Todd’s book Think Like A Genius, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote: “Siler’s simple approach to individual ‘genius’ is the key to every great success story.” More information can be found at http://www.thinklikeagenius.com/.
Michael Gold — Jazz Impact
As improvisers, jazz musicians are experts at collaboratively inventing, interpreting, and integrating change. Jazz Impact helps executives learn to develop the same expertise by applying the improvisational behaviors of jazz to the development of new ideas, products, and processes. Michael Gold, Ph.D., brings three decades of experience as an educator, jazz musician, and financial services executive to his unique jazz-based "New Idea Process" demonstrations, which help managers to discover, interpret, and integrate in rapidly changing environments. More information can be found at www.jazz-impact.com.
Teamwork Cinema!
Drawing upon an extensive background in international business, as well as his own experiences as a producer/director, Joel Leskowitz transforms the filmmaking experience into a unique teambuilding adventure. Collaborating with a team of highly professional film industry veterans, Leskowitz's hands-on experiential workshops develop group dynamics and open new pathways of communication by challenging business teams to create short films from scratch—from script to shoot. Participants learn to communicate abstract ideas, lead teams through uncharted territory, maintain creativity under pressure, and effectively apply visual presentation skills. More information can be found at www.teamworkcinema.com.
Maxwell Anderson
During his 25 year career, Max Anderson has served as a curator and director at major art museums in Atlanta, Toronto, and, most recently, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Mr. Anderson lectures internationally on "The Quality Instinct," helping executives learn how to use the visual and emotional experience of visual art to enhance organizational big-picture thinking and reverse engineering of the customer experience. He regularly brings the arts to large audiences through his television appearances and radio broadcasts, including NBC's The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, NPR's All Things Considered, and A&E's Breakfast with the Arts.
David Whyte
The author of five renowned poetry books and the best-selling The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, Mr. Whyte now takes his unique perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development. Blending poetry and commentary, his workshops help corporations around the world to enhance creativity and adaptability in their workplaces by fostering qualities of “courage and encouragement.”
Harvey Seifter
Not only is Harvey Seifter—director of Creativity Connection—one of the world’s leading authorities in the field of arts-based organizational learning, he is also president of Seifter Associates, a consulting firm that develops creativity solutions for global corporations like IBM, Siemens, Honeywell, and AstraZeneca. As executive director of Orpheus, he introduced the orchestra’s conductorless process as a business model to dozens of corporations, including Morgan Stanley, Daimler Chrysler, Novartis, Kraft Foods, Nippon Steel, and JP Morgan. Mr. Seifter is a member of the senior executive faculty of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and the author of Leadership Ensemble: Lessons in Collaborative Management.
