RfG Applied to Change Management in Organizations

Daniel J. Wiener, PHD, RDT-BCT

May, 2026

 

Rehearsals for Growth was developed around 1985 as a psychotherapeutic approach; another RfG application was also implemented around the year 2000, that to organizational development. Specifically, both a RfG Team-Building and RfG Change Management workshop series were developed then, though numerous other people had begun to apply improv to Team-Building around that same time. This blog focuses on describing the RfG Approach to Change Management, based on the same principles and using many of the same enactments as RfG therapy.

Change is a core feature of this phenomenal world—when looking at work organizations and the lives of people working in them, we see the following sorts of change occurring there:

Parameters of Change in Work organizations:

Size

Location

Organizational structure

Mission/Purpose

Functionality

Economic Health

 

Necessarily, when organizations undergo changes in one or more of these parameters, its individual employees (and customers) are affected and must adapt or leave. The following list enumerates common ways that employees are challenged to adapt to organizational change:

Sources of Organizational Change affecting employees:

1. 1. Personnel—The organization may need more or fewer employees;

   2. Roles—Role or job requirements may change for its employees;

   3. Reward Structure—What is valued from the work contribution of an employee, or work’s compensations, notably salary and/or titles, may change;

   4. Organizational Structure—The work units may become re-organized (e.g., Departments/teams, hierarchical structure (who reports to whom);

   5. External Environment—The organization may close, open, expand, shrink facilities in other geographical locations than it operated previously.

RfG Change Management has its primary goal to assist employees to adapt better to externally-imposed changes originating from the organizations that employ them. Of course, Survival Mind thinking skills, such as planning and gathering relevant information, are functionally useful to deploy when faced with change. What is added to these are the increased mental/emotional flexibility afforded by Improv enactments that facilitate improved adaptation.

These Improv experiences serve to mobilize resilience and counter prior assumptions and habits, especially the dysfunctional habit of “overcontrol.”  Overcontrol is an exaggeration of the normal and useful desire to control outcomes by planning and effort. When, however, we fear change such that the need to remain in-control is experienced as essential to one’s identity or survival, irrespective of circumstances beyond our control, it becomes dysfunctional. If you are a homeowner understandably wishing to protect your property from flooding, it is rational to place sandbags along the house foundation. However, when there is a severe flood warning, overcontrol can impel you to “stay no matter what,” which might result in your needing to be rescued by helicopter from your roof.

Apart from countering overcontrol, improv can be used effectively to improve flexibility and resilience generally. From engaging in improv enactments we can learn to lessen the hold on us of beliefs such as, “life is fair” and, “you get what you deserve.” Here are some other Change Management objectives:

1. 1. Adapting to the unexpected/preparing to function without preparation
   2. Trusting Spontaneity
   3. Setting aside habitual functioning: Thinking “On Your Feet”
   4. Handling Failure with lessened fear

The overarching life-lesson promoted is: “Success in life is how well you handle your Problems.”

While enactments from the entire RfG canon (see The RfG Reference Guide for Online and In-Person Enactments) can be utilized in Change Management workshops, The following ones are specifically useful:

New Choice

At any point during a scene, the director calls out, “New Choice!” and the player who had the last speech turn changes the content of the last-mentioned object, location, offer, or other facet of the scene. The director may then either allow the scene to proceed or again call for a new choice.

Why this enactment is useful: Players become invested in their choices and also associate having already made a choice with tension-reduction (“whew, I solved that problem!”). “New Choice” requires us to set aside the prior solution to the problem and to take up the challenge again without complaint or judgment.

Role Reversal

Usage Notes: This game is a two-player scene distinguished by either the director or one of the on-stage players calling, “Switch!” at some point, once the scene’s characters and plot outline have become established. When “Switch!” is called, both players exchange roles, first by moving to take one another’s body positions, then continuing the scene as the other character. “Switch!” should not be called more than three times in a scene, or the rest of the scene becomes too choppy.

This device works best for experienced improvisers, as beginners get confused easily. Seeing this may be initially amusing to an audience, but if the scene’s story gets lost, the effect is merely chaotic.

Why this enactment is useful: This enactment trains players to be cognitively flexible by switching role identity on the spot—players have to shift perspective to playing the others’ role without preparation.

Forbidden Letter

The director first asks players to have a regular “unrestricted” conversation. After a minute’s pause, the rule is added that players now continue their conversation but cannot use words that contain a particular common letter (The Forbidden Letter). Do not use vowels for this rule; use a consonant; L, R, or M are good, then continue.

Predictably, players’ dialogue begins to slow down as they have to be more conscientious about the new rule. The particular goal here is to notice how much cognitive energy is taken up trying to abide by rules.

Why this enactment is useful: This exercise is useful for experiencing the ways we censor ourselves, specifically how Survival Mind permeates conduct after deploying the rule. It can be especially useful for rule-bound individuals to practice breaking rules that are inconsequential. Do players treat adherence to this rule as a game? Does it become a competition to see who will fail? Do they simply ignore the rules? How do players react when they ‘fail?’ Choices: (1) “No big deal!” (2) “I’ve failed and am experiencing Shame.” (3) “Look how bad I am!” (4) “This is a silly rule and I’m going to ignore it.” In the Post-Enactment Processing, players may be exposed to above-mentioned attitudes they hadn’t considered.

Just as RfG therapy draws on the distinction between Adventure and Survival Mind, RfG Change Management attends to how Survival Mind thinking often becomes an obstacle to adapting well to change.