In Pink’s book, he discusses the art of improv. This brought to mind an episode of The Office I was watching the other day, and since this class loves The Office, I thought it would be fitting to analyze.
While Michael uses guns in each of his performances, he does engage in a limited amount of improv since each use of guns is slightly different. In terms of sales, however, Michael is not playing off of the people he is interacting with and not being very spontaneous. He also is not making his partner look good by pulling out a gun and doing something completely unrelated to the scene that is transpiring. By having the rigid structure of pulling out guns every time, Michael has limited himself. Instead of reacting to the other people, he automatically goes to guns. As a salesperson, the ability to think on one’s feet is a key skill, adaping to what the customer throws at you, and incorporating spontaneity into a sales conversation where appropriate. I’d like to think that the reason for Michael taking the improv class was to improve his selling skills for Dunder Mifflin, but I do not think Michael is using Pink’s principle of improv effectively.
testacr22 
Ethan David 
Trinity Blank
This is a great analysis and truly funny scene of The Office. You can really see how Michael limits himself, as you said, by not playing off of other peoples preestablished scenes. At the end it is shown that no one likes Michael. His ignorance to others ideas causes Michael self destruction.
Great clip to demonstrate improv. Though Michael clearly does not perform improv as would be expected or as Pink describes in his book, this clip does well at showing how failing to use those techniques brings the scenes to a dead end and does not help the scene/conversation continue. Great post!
Ha, this is an awesome way to apply the stuff we’ve been talking about in class. I think I’ll see lots of movies and shows differently now, after seeing them through the lens of sales. And I do agree with you – Michael isn’t using improv very effectively, but it still is entertaining!
Michael has shown to be an excellent salesman time and time again. He may not be the best in improv class, but he is able to change and adapt in an environment that he has forced himself become more comfortable in.