Enhancing team creativity with playful improvisation theater: a controlled intervention field study

This study investigates the impact of an intervention of playful improvisational theater on organizational creativity. Teams from 9 participating organizations (N = 93) completed pre- and posttest measures of adult playfulness, workplace playfulness, individual creativity, group creativity, and psychological safety. Group creativity was assessed with the newly developed test Distributed Creativity in Organizational Groups. The intervention group (n = 50) participated in improvisation training, whereas the control group (n = 43) did not. After the intervention, the intervention group reported higher scores of workplace playfulness, individual creativity and group creativity compared to the control group. Individual creativity was positively correlated with adult playfulness. No differences were found for psychological safety. The findings suggest that organizational playfulness can be increased with brief interventions and that play is a promising enhancer of organizational creativity.