MF ImprovImprov Blog
Nobody's Getting Your Idea? That's Not Their Problem.
By Jared Todd Littlejohn · Team Building · 4 min read
Stephen Donovan and I have been training teams at Suffolk University for two years now, and every single time, we learn something new.
This round: improv training for incoming entrepreneurship students. We were scheduled against a class on AI at the same time — and still drew 14 students who came to test their fears and step out of their comfort zone to learn Team Building through Improvisation.
Score 1 for the humans. I still love you, Claude.
One hour, so I asked Stephen if we could run a new game: Clay Circle.
The Game: Clay Circle
Think: group charades.
Everyone stands in a circle. (Solo works too.) Player 1 gets a piece of clay and starts creating an object — a chair, an umbrella, a steering wheel. Your job: shape that clay so your team gets your idea as fast as possible. When they guess it, collapse the clay and pass it to the next teammate. Bonus points for respecting the size of the clay you receive.
Takeaways:
Get out of your head. Practice iteration. Practice idea generation. Communication.
Jared's Tip
The moment you receive the clay, start moving your hands. If you're still, you're thinking too long. And the goal is communication — use universal gestures. Most humans know what holding a phone to their ear looks like. Want someone to check their phone? Make that shape. They'll get it.
Once you know the rules, break them. Enjoy your own variation.
Here's What Happened
I usually run Clay Circle to work on over-communicating — and this session handed me a bonus lesson.
Two students struggled to land their ideas. One was building a lighthouse. Kevin was doing something genuinely artsy... and nobody was getting it. I told him: "If we don't get your idea, it's time to iterate." He kept going the same way. We kept not getting it. He gave up, told us, and passed the clay.
Then it happened again — but this time, with one nudge, the student paused, shifted, and broke the idea into parts.
First part: light. A lampshade. A lightbulb. Things we could latch onto instantly. Once we had "light," they built a home — we got that too. Seconds later, the whole room landed on lighthouse.
The Lesson for Your Team
If you keep doing the same thing over and over and people aren't getting it, it's not that they aren't getting it — it's that you aren't doing the best job of communicating your idea.
That's how teams burn time, money, and resources on a single problem: the same pitch, the same deck, the same approach, repeated louder, hoping this time it lands.
The Best Part
It's always fun when someone lands an idea fast — that's what we work toward. But the truly best part was watching the iteration. A room full of people adapting on the fly, in real time, when something isn't working. Because the game, at the end of the day, is move forward. Even if you pause, the music will resume at some point, and you have to play through it.
Every game, that's the goal: learn how to breathe, iterate, and move forward.
Want to play?
If You Ever Want to Learn Improv, Let Us Know.
We absolutely love teaching how to navigate panic and miscommunication in real time. Bring Clay Circle — and dozens of games like it — to your team.
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